OKC Underground Podcast: Chris McKenna

OKC Underground Podcast: Chris McKenna

Behind every great meal is a beard that created the recipes. This beard has created some of the best meals in OKC for a long time and now he's launching something new.

OKC Underground Podcast: Courtney Mankin

Courtney Mankin is president of and partner in The Social Order Dining Collective [https://www.thesocialorder.com/], the company that includes The Jones Assembly [https://www.thejonesassembly.com/] and Spark [https://www.eatatspark.com/], as well as franchise locations of Fuzzy's [https://www.fuzzystacoshop.com/], and Dave's Hot Chicken [https://daveshotchicken.com/]. For the past two years, she's participated in a Leadership OKC [https://www.lokc.org/] hospitality panel at Jones, and in both cases, I've been uber impressed by her grasp of the issues and her ability to articulate complex ideas clearly. I asked her to come on the episode to talk about the numbers that matter in restaurants, which we get to in the second half, but her story is interesting enough that we barely got to the ostensible main point, which is completely my fault, and honestly, completely fine given the conversation.

OKC Underground Podcast: Cody Wilson

Cody Wilson [https://www.instagram.com/back_to_back_dumps/] is the former owner of George's Liquor and current co-owner of Modern Liquor, but for this episode, he's the guy who is the new brand ambassador for Prairie With Love, the line of Delta 9 beverages from Prairie Artisan Ales [https://prairieales.com/].

OKC Underground Podcast: Denzel Akuffo

We talk with Denzel Akuffo, the creator of Supper Club OKC.

OKC Underground Podcast: Ross Crain and The Crain

Ross Crain is a Binger, Oklahoma native -- yes, the hometown of Johnny Bench, and Bench has been a guest in Crain's eponymous restaurant on OKC's northwest side. The Crain [https://thecrain.com/] opened in late 2024, and was instantly popular, driven by Ross Crain's 30-plus years of hospitality experience, including 21 years at the helm of Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill [https://tobykeithsbar.com/locations/bricktown/] in Bricktown, and the talents of Chef Garrett Myers, a Yukon kid who made good via the National Restaurant Association's [https://restaurant.org/] and Oklahoma Restaurant Association's [https://www.okrestaurants.com/] ProStart Program [https://chooserestaurants.org/programs/prostart/]. Crain tried college, but was drawn more strongly to the hospitality world, joining Hal Smith before the formation of Hal Smith Restaurant Group, back when Smith had the Oklahoma Outback Steakhouses. Crain never looked back.