The New Year is a great time to contemplate new beginnings. There are always new things going on in Downtown Tulsa one of which is a test kitchen We sat with Rob Stuart and Kimberly Honey
Kirsten Dominguez 0:00
I just find that sometimes it's a lot easier to go back in time and like re listen to what was said. Oh, absolutely. It's how's your day going? Not too bad. You pretty good. So are you from Casa Chimera. So what we're,
Rob Stuart 0:14
we're so I own and operate chimera, we're about to have our 10th year anniversary. January 14. Cool. It'd be 10 years that we've been down here and Tulsa Arts District.
Kirsten Dominguez 0:27
Okay, where did Comerica
Rob Stuart 0:30
so it was just kind of a brainchild to create, you know, a nice community space based on the traditional like, European cafe to where, you know, there's coffee food for bar as well. So we were open, you know, very early to very late most days. Yeah.
Kirsten Dominguez 0:46
So then the summer kitchen, yeah. How did you meet whoever leads this?
Rob Stuart 0:58
So the group that is developing and sharp development, they put a team together that was just like, reshapes the local community. And we ended up just hitting it off, they've been like, sharps in my landlord on and off for 20 years. So sure. David Sharpe, yeah. So he's the one responsible for a lot of the downtown property development, and, you know, his groups putting together the hotel, and I got a chance to meet with them. And it just seemed like a great idea for me to kind of come in and use my skill set to help them you know, develop fun, you know, new menu for Tulsa. So,
Kirsten Dominguez 1:34
okay, so then when you
Rob Stuart 1:36
say them, that's the chef. Yeah, so Well, that's the that's the group. So somos just kind of a, you know, a dream that they had to do like a rooftop concept. And I got the privilege to help them draw constructing a menu for them. So.
Kirsten Dominguez 1:53
Okay, so that's another question that I had, I was wondering if was so so am I going to be like a permanent part of Kibera, or it's intending to be
Rob Stuart 2:01
completely so Soma is actually built. So 18th and boulders, the brick hotel, and I don't know, four or five weeks ago, we took Soma was somos actually built on the ground, and then lifted up and placed on top of it. That is so cool. Yeah. So if you drive down Boulder, now that I've said it, you'll have the dream keepers Park on your left, and that hotel will be on your right, and you'll see the glass, half of its glass and then half of its going to be like open canopy just so you can go and have a cocktail and sunset.
What kind of cuisine is it?
So we're calling it tropical Americana, which is kind of a catch all for, you know, a very, what I want to be like a fresh, seasonal as much as we can be in Oklahoma, but a lot of you know, I see fish and vegetables and just light fare and then also just some, you know, nice, what I consider just like comfort food, you know, central plains comfort food that, you know, it's kind of mixed into a modern, you know, rooftop restaurant, I don't know, it's gonna be kind of crazy. Yeah, that's why it's really cool that we get this opportunity to kind of use the next few months to kind of work through it in real time. And that's that's kind of hints like what this is so so my test kitchen is what we're going to be doing every Wednesday night, we're going to just work through different dishes, most of them probably won't survive the test. But yeah, the the attendance to kind of work through so when we do when we're able to like get our start doing this at the facility. You know, we've worked through kind of all the kinks as far as menu development and everything and we can just hit the ground running and kind of get our get our operations together because you know, it's a it's a rooftop it's a hotel restaurant, or it's a restaurant top of a hotel and obviously we want people traveling through and enjoying it, but we also want it to be at Tulsa destination to where if you have a lunch you want to go to or want to go have a cocktail at the end of the evening. It's more than worth your while to you know, take a nine floor elevator Yeah, you know and get up there.
Kirsten Dominguez 4:21
Is there going to be like a cocktail or wine menu. Beautiful.
Rob Stuart 4:27
Well, those are kind of keep it the tropical vibe a little bit. Try to use as much like fresh food and you know, we'll have fresh squeezed juices and we'll just infuse those so do mocktails and cocktails and you know make it fun for anyone whether or not they're having a drink or a drink.
Kirsten Dominguez 4:48
When you say seasonal how seasonal Do you meet like, do you I remember I lived in New York City and there's a restaurant called the Grange would have like a different menu every every day Girl season. Yeah, credible.
Rob Stuart 5:02
So I see it is, like I said, I mean, I've attempted to do the same thing here Chimera as much as possible. But, you know, Oklahoma's not real nice for, you know, having a large variety of vegetables seasonally. We do have premium, you know, traditional proteins, meats. Yeah. Easy. Yeah. So that's going to be great working with the local farmers and producers on that side of things. But seasonal is just you know, it's kind of just matching like, what? What you can we're gonna set you back there with Brian's group. Monica, this is Kim Kim Monica. So Kim is actually a head of marketing for the group and it probably be pretty awesome. If you want to talk.
Kirsten Dominguez 5:49
I would love to I was actually curious if you guys had a marketing person and who that would be Yeah.
Rob Stuart 5:55
Yeah. You're gonna sit I'm gonna sit you with Brian and all his
Kirsten Dominguez 6:13
show so then, as far as seasonal goes, Tulsans can look forward to like a changing menu.
Rob Stuart 6:27
Absolutely. Yes. And I I'm gonna focus the, the entree menu around kind of like an elemental idea as well. You know, and just kind of incorporate some fun ideas. Just, you know, hopefully keep it as fresh and again, a destination. You know, hi. Yeah, hi, I'm Kimberly. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Yeah,
Kirsten Dominguez 6:47
you are doing marketing for Chimera or sama or
Unknown Speaker 6:52
I am with sharp development and we're the ones opening brew Hotel. Okay, so my restaurant is the restaurant kitchen and bar that's on the rooftop. Hotel.
Kirsten Dominguez 7:00
It's Brut. br UT. Okay. When is that going to be open?
Unknown Speaker 7:06
But we are such an open now for April next year.
Rob Stuart 7:11
Of course, it will give you a tour though, right?
Unknown Speaker 7:13
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, we're Hardhead. But no, Rob has been the mastermind behind Soma. We just have a great relationship chimera, and we love the vibe. We think they just fit perfectly with the hotel. So we had approached him and the restaurant. I don't know how much this was to be saved
Rob Stuart 7:32
here. So yeah, we're just so yeah, I
Kirsten Dominguez 7:33
really I really like the I really like as far as downtown. Or like, with townhouse partnership, like, we found that that was downtown Tulsa doesn't have like a personality. So like, I really valued sharing, like the backstory of like, where did this come from? Whose idea was it and getting people familiar with, like, the faces behind the businesses and stuff. So that's what I want to do. Yeah. So this is really great. So then, so Mike came out of that out of like wanting a rooftop for group Hotel.
Unknown Speaker 8:06
Yeah. You know, our owner founder, David, he purchased the building decide to make it a hotel. And Rob is one of our tenant, his tenants. And so he just, you know, wanted to make sure that his tenants were taken care of as well. So that's how it all kind of came to fruition. Soma means Greek. It's great for body. Hotels, focus is wellness focus, very earthy tones, natural terms very, very heavy, heavy, heavy focus on local community. We went to be you know, a neighborhood Hotel and Restaurant support a look more or less or local restaurant tears. All about the same main reviving at foster district.
Unknown Speaker 8:50
Just kind of an up and coming area, so. And your neighbor was Mike Kim again, Kimberly Honi, H O,
Kirsten Dominguez 8:59
H O N E A. And so summer will be open with
Unknown Speaker 9:12
a soft opening and all that fun stuff. But this one these Wednesday night. test kitchens are just kind of an introduction. And this is super unique marketing to let people come in and test it. Yeah, work at our
Kirsten Dominguez 9:24
walls. See what we can do better for me, but most things might fail.
Unknown Speaker 9:29
Like, some things might fail. And that's that's the beauty of it, like let's fail and some better than others. So it's really it's fun. It's it who came
Kirsten Dominguez 9:35
up with the idea for it to be like he said it was like topical Americana.
Unknown Speaker 9:39
I believe it was raw. I mean, he's again, he's such a very creative individual. So he you know, the vibe of the hotel is tropical brutalism, which is a tropical brutalism is kind of the aesthetics of the hotel. So I think we took the Americana side of it for the trunk. I started to kind of just start running with it
Kirsten Dominguez 10:10
for Tulsans, who don't come to Downtown Tulsa at all, what would you what would be like the thing that you'd be like come to our hotel under a restaurant experience it like what? How in your words like how would you want to like invite people to come and experience?
Unknown Speaker 10:27
You know, I think I'm gonna Jinx America some of my parents have been our way so I think like a staycation may stay the night try the food you know, rent some bikes and ride riverside walk the trails hit Mercury lounge are one of the 1000s of venues we have. You could spend an entire weekend here and be from Jane Serena Chow or wherever and have never ran out of things to do. No, go down hit a museum row or catch a ball game at drillers. This is the time to do I want to do and I live in Midtown, so I can walk here. So it's just a lot to do.
Kirsten Dominguez 11:04
Well, I heard that there's gonna be live music tonight. Is that something that will also be on somebody's kitchen
Unknown Speaker 11:08
like, oh, yeah, totally. We're gonna focus on you know, that rooftop is just super, super unique to Tulsa. So we want to incorporate live music, yoga, meditation, art, our crawls wherever we can on that south side of the rooftop route. It is open air it's covered with open air. Another crazy unique aspect of the hotel. So yeah, live music is our is our jam.
Kirsten Dominguez 11:36
That's really exciting. And so the test kitchen is it like open to the public.
Unknown Speaker 11:41
It will be the first we've had three now this is the first one I've been able to get to but I'm gonna start doing them every Wednesday and invite more and more get kind of get the feeling of how many repeating and how many we can accommodate here. But yeah, moving forward every Wednesday to the public.
Kirsten Dominguez 11:55
And then do you I think I met the chef earlier. Is that Is he like the chef? That's going to
Unknown Speaker 12:00
be yes, yeah, he is our Director of Food and Beverage, our executive chef at Soma and our cafe. So him and Rob are working hand in hand to just make this totally unique experience for Tulsa. It's not just about the food it's about the experience with this you won't find it anywhere anything like it in the state honestly
Kirsten Dominguez 12:32
so then in the blog posts on social media would you want me to say like hey, if you're like Do you have anything to do on a Wednesday night cup or do you prefer that you guys
Unknown Speaker 12:43
invite people um, you can we do take reservations because we do have a limit to the cap but I think that yeah, I don't think that at all.
Kirsten Dominguez 12:55
Rate what else? Do you know what like the hours will be for the for the restaurant when it opens
Unknown Speaker 13:04
right now the goal was breakfast, breakfast lunch, dinner with a heavy heavy focus on our brunch on the weekends.
Kirsten Dominguez 13:12
Trying to like foresee any questions that I'll like come up. When I'm ready to I'm
Unknown Speaker 13:16
trying to think we have a 40 person, private dining area. And Selma Tolson needs we need more place than their private dining room. So that will be by reservation or buying my reservation with a fee. But it is super stunning. windows all around the windows Uniontown. It's pretty cool.
Kirsten Dominguez 13:38
So it's gonna be really exciting. Yeah, um, rate? Let me see. Do you I know you're the person who marketing so do you have like, for when I write it when I do the whole thing? Do you have pictures of like,
Unknown Speaker 13:53
I've done stuff? Yeah, yeah. Since Facebook and Instagram, or Facebook and Instagram. People have been phenomenal job where we can get but it's hard to do photography when something's under construction. They've done a great job. So even just Facebook and Instagram, but I haven't because
Kirsten Dominguez 14:08
do you guys also have a photographer coming to like take pictures? Or would you rather not do that? Because it might not be for you that
Unknown Speaker 14:15
we do. We're just kind of playing it by ear, what's gonna work? It's kind of a work in progress.
Kirsten Dominguez 14:21
But also it would I think it'd be really great to get some eye catching pictures of like photos or like and also the like construction of it. Like when he said I'd love to come. Yeah, to wear a hard hat and like, take some video of that to like build anticipation because there's like, I think that like wholesale just doesn't know what's happening in downtime. And I like we want to get the story out that like building things. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 14:44
I know. We're not in that video. But I think we're kind of unofficially naming that area, the gateway to downtown. where you're coming from the south. It's the Roger didn't take in. Yeah, we've unofficially named the gateway to downtown. So yeah, it is downtown.
Kirsten Dominguez 15:09
Well, I have his email. I'm sure that I'd be able to email you from there. But business protection for business
Transcribed by https://otter.ai