Whiskey Cake even hosted its own farmers markets, inviting local producers and vendors to peddle their goods on a recent Sunday afternoon. used in the kitchen are available for purchase at a mini general store near the entrance. The dishes aren’t ambitious, but that fits the laid-back, detail-focused feel of a restaurant that serves food and drink on and in vessels sourced from the local secondhand stores and antique malls. The menu is an homage to comfort foods from around the world, interpreted through a local lens. Whiskey Cake is as franchise-friendly as a concept of its ilk can be, but it’s missing any clear concessions you might expect from an out-of-state restaurant group. “We’re a farm-to-fork, garden-to-glass restaurant, but that’s not where supporting local stops,” Fleming said. Chang’s, which led him to work around the country. Fleming took a brief break from the restaurant business to try out tech jobs before going back to work for P.F. The local flavor starts with general manager Tanner Fleming, who was born and raised in Oklahoma City, earning his restaurant stripes at the Chili’s on South Meridian during his formative years. Just as Huey Lewis once assured us it was hip to square, Whiskey Cake appears intent on making it abundantly clear that it’s cool to embrace sustainable practices. Cardboard boxes bearing kitchen products aren’t recycled by the city of Oklahoma City they are clipped into squares for use as coasters. Egg cartons aren’t tossed out they’re saved to serve as sound buffer for the echo-friendly ceiling. Exposed brick, yellow-filament Thomas Edison bulbs and ever-present stacks of firewood imbue a warehouse-meets-barnhouse sensibility. Whiskey Cake is home away from home - or at least the home you dream of if you still like to page through a Restoration Hardware catalog. That said, it’s clear by the look of it that this concept was built to be a franchise - if not the most unique franchise of its kind. The original location in Plano and the one occupying the space where the Elephant Bar once lived are the only two of their kind. This farm-to-fork concept from the Lone Star State could teach a good portion of Oklahoma’s restaurants about good stewardship of local foods and products.Ĭalling Whiskey Cake a chain is like calling a pair of bricks on the side of the house the path to the Emerald City. The proof is in Whiskey Cake, 1845 Northwest Expressway, which arrived in Oklahoma City from Plano, Texas, from the Fork It Over restaurant group. They've stopped naming every local farm they work with on the menu - and that's a restaurant trend that was going out of style, anyhow - but Sharrer says their relationships with farmers is "definitely in our DNA here.Locavores, corporate America has heard your cry: Local is good. There's even local honey, candles and olive oil for sale out front. They're into recycling, down to the boxes they receive, which are cut up into coasters and branded with a Whiskey Cake logo. (Pro tip: Ask for the whiskey list and turn to the back, Grandpa's Stash, for the hard-to-get spirits and beers.) They make their own juices. Bartenders infuse their own whiskeys and also sell 450 brands, as seen on library-like shelves behind the curved bar. Inside, there's a hydroponic garden near the kitchen, where they grow garnishes like sweet pea sprouts. Out front, the staff is growing dill, oregano, serrano peppers and the like in raised-bed gardens. The food is "traditional Americana, ratcheted up," Sharrer says. (Louis DeLuca / Staff Photographer)įlourishes, both inside and outside the newest Whiskey Cake, offer a glimpse into a restaurant that knows what it wants to be. Whiskey Cake doesn't have bar napkins they use recycled boxes as coasters.
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