OCTOBER 27, 2017
New Businesses Coming Soon to Oklahoma City
Over the next few months, Oklahoma City will see a flurry of new businesses opening in the urban core, most especially breweries and brewpubs. We’ll also see fast, casual Korean food come to Midtown, and a host of options—including vegan—in the Paseo Arts District.
Elk Valley Brewing Company has a planned opening in the late winter or early spring of 2018 in the former Uptown Theater in Midtown. The brewery will be the anchor tenant in a development that will include six as yet unannounced “micro restaurants.” The Elk Valley Brewery will also include a taproom for patrons to sample and purchase beer, both for on-site consumption and to take home.
As the west side of downtown undergoes street car construction, development continues to pour into Film Row and along Reno Ave. Angry Scotsman Brewery is building a brewing facility, tap room and beer garden just south of Film Row. Owner Ross Harper is a Scotland native who relocated to Oklahoma twice, and his 5,000-square-foot facility will include what looks to be the city’s largest beer garden.
Finally, on the beer front, Prairie Artisan Ales will be opening their brewpub and taproom just off Automobile Alley this fall. The space does not yet have a restaurant tenant, but patrons will be allowed to bring food in to the taproom. The converted warehouse space will also provide room for local art.
Chef Kevin Lee will bring his fast, casual Korean concept Gogi Go to Midtown sometime this winter. The counter-service restaurant will feature rice bowls with Korean barbecue. While Korean food has been trending around the metro, this will be Lee’s attempt to shift from a traditional, sit-down style to a more efficient, approachable Korean restaurant.
One of the fastest developing areas in Oklahoma City is also one of its oldest official districts. The Paseo Arts District saw its first new construction in fifty years with the Pueblo development. Two restaurant concepts will be going into Pueblo: Buttermilk, a breakfast and lunch slider concept, and Scratch, a second location for the Norman restaurant that, as the name implies, makes nearly everything in house from scratch.
Just down the street from Pueblo, Holey Rollers will open their first “brick and mortar” location in the historic Paseo Plunge building. The food truck concept has been around for a couple years, serving vegan donuts and coffee. The new space will allow the expansion of offerings, to include fried donuts and pastries, as well as grab-n-go breakfast items, but the core products will remain vegan.
The space surrounding Tower Theater will reach maximum capacity with the opening of Hunny Bunny Biscuit Company, likely in December. The breakfast and lunch biscuit concept is the brainchild of Packard’s New American Kitchen’s executive chef Chris McKenna. The menu will include chicken biscuits, traditional breakfast biscuit sandwiches, rotating features, and dessert biscuits.