Sam's Southern Eatery and Fighting Back One Business At A Time

Sheila and I had lunch yesterday at Sam's Southern Eatery on 11th street near Harvard.  The building is an old, large KFC that has gone through several owners since KFC abandoned the neighborhood. The building is in remarkably good shape thanks to the solid original design and a major renovation done by the last owners, Wilson's Barbecue.  Sam's is a Shreveport based chain that specializes in New Orleans style food like oyster poor boys, fried shrimp, etc.  The menu choices are an extremely welcome addition to our neighborhood.  New Orleans style food at a reasonable price has been missing for a long, long time. (Link to the menu HERE.)

Sheila had the catfish po boy and I had a Philly chicken sandwich.  Both sandwiches were huge and came
with a generous portion of fries.  Next time, we will probably just share one entree since the servings were so generous. My Philly chicken was amazing. Absolutely fresh ingredients prepared perfectly.  It was a sinful, gooey, thoroughly enjoyable indulgence.  And, I am slightly ashamed of this, but, I couldn't stop eating the lightly seasoned fried. The serving was huge and I knew that I shouldn't eat over half but they were just so good for some reason.  Sheila had tried to order the oyster po boy but they had already sold out of oysters at noon!

Most of the diners were folks like ourselves, neighborhood locals who were coming in to support the new business.  One couple went so far as to tell the manager how much they appreciated the investment in our neighborhood.  They voiced what we all felt and that requires some explanation.

For decades, the Turner Park and White City (named for the old White City Dairy, nothing racial other than using the now forbidden pejorative "white" in the name) were among the last few affordable and respectable "heritage" neighborhoods in Tulsa.  The homes were older but occupant owned and well kept.  Many of the residents were, like my wife, employees of the University of Tulsa.  20 years ago when we invested in the neighborhood, my neighbor across the street was the art director for a major Tulsa corporation, my next door neighbor was the aunt of a nationally known politician and the owner across the back fence was a chemistry professor at TU. The neighborhood was solid, safe and respectable.  That was before TU decided to get into the rental housing business and turned all of the beautiful green space on the formerly spacious old campus into cheap looking student housing and then built an iron fence around the whole mess. So much for TU being the anchor of the neighborhood as it had been in the past.

But then, the city itself literally turned on the neighborhood.  The beginning of the end came when someone got upset about the appearance of some businesses along Admiral Boulevard after somebody decided to route a motorcade of FEMALE GOLFERS down Admiral from the airport to the old Tulsa Country Club for some now long forgotten female golf tournament.  At that time, Admiral Boulevard was the front line of defense against the urban decay and violence of North Tulsa.  In its zeal to impress these visiting lady golfers, the city fathers turned the zoning and compliance Gestapo loose on the small businesses along Admiral. Many had been in business for decades and some were minority owned.  A lot of them simply closed up or moved. Without their presence to support them, even the unquestionably "conforming" businesses began closing. Soon we  lost our very good neighborhood diner and even the not so good but very convenient little neighborhood grocery.

The final blow came when, led by the Kaiser family of the BOK, downtown developers decided to force the homeless out of downtown and away from their sparkling new "iconic" (duct tape roll on its side) performance venue and the former skid row but now newly gentrified entertainment district that their family members and friends had invested heavily in.  Transient housing once handled by the YMCA downtown was transplanted into a facility crammed down the the throats of our modest but formerly stable neighborhood.

Almost immediately, other "homeless" facilities were planned nearby and soon Admiral boulevard became a ghost town.  Our neighborhood began seeing homeless on our residential streets, some even camping out in backyards and unwatched private storage buildings.  A few blocks south, a homeowner shot a transient who walked in through his open backdoor and was preparing himself a sandwich in his kitchen.  The transient was so stoned that he took a .45 slug in the gut and still tried to attack the homeowner.  Bled all over his house and still didn't go down.  He had to be subdued by police after a standoff.  Right now, the neighborhood is being stalked by a serial rapist who is most likely one of these transients.  He has claimed seven victims in the past few weeks.

The front line in the battle against urban decay and violence was once Admiral Boulevard.  It's now Eleventh Street. The long time residents of the neighborhood are furious at both the city and the downtown developers for trying to ruin what was once a fine, stable, affordable neighborhood and making our lives much more difficult in the process.  And so, when someone decides to invest with us, we support them.  I make it a point to support the businesses that invest our neighborhood and would like to encourage the my neighbors to do the same. Thank you for investing with us Sam's Eatery.