Tulsa: February 2008 Archives

... since you last visited Indie Tulsa? Well, friend, that's too long.

Emily the Red Fork Hippie Chick has posted two new reviews: Evelyn's Restaurant and True to You Bra Salon.

Evelyn's is a southern soul food restaurant on 74th East Avenue south of the Port Road. More specifically, it's a little ways south of the Tulsa Air and Space Museum, in the midst of the Sparks Aviation complex. I ate there following Mike Huckabee's appearance in Tulsa. The food is terrific -- I had the chicken fried steak -- and the service is friendly and attentive.

If you fondly remember Wanda J.'s restaurant, you'll find the same kind of food at Evelyn's. You'll find Wanda J. at Evelyn's, too, behind the cash register.

The only downside, as Emily noted, is that the hours are strictly breakfast and lunch on weekdays.

AT&T has announced a deal that with Starbucks that will, among other things, give AT&T broadband subscribers access to free Wi-Fi at the coffee chain's 7,000 company-owned US locations. That's in addition to AT&T basic Wi-Fi access already available at McDonald's and Barnes and Noble Bookstores. The switch-over from Starbucks' current provider will take the remainder of 2008. Having to pay for Wi-Fi is one of the reasons I avoid Starbucks in favor of locally-owned coffee houses. (Better coffee, later hours, a more interesting clientele, and not doing evil things like threatening a local coffee company over use of a generic term like Double Shot are other reasons I like local better.)

In order for an AT&T DSL subscriber to qualify for free basic AT&T Wi-Fi, you have to subscribe to at least the Express level of service (1.5 Mbps download). Check your bill: I started back when unlimited access to AT&T Wi-Fi (then called FreedomLink) was an extra $1.99 a month. They're still charging me for it, but they shouldn't, since I qualify for free access.

It'll be nice to have more Wi-Fi connections available in a pinch, but I expect I'll still make places like Coffee House on Cherry Street, Shades of Brown, Double Shot, and Cafe de El Salvador my caffeinated, wireless homes away from home.

The Tulsa World is reporting that the Sixty-Sixers, Tulsa's entry in the NBA Development League, may play next season at the new SpiritBank Events Center in Bixby. The SpiritBank center will seat 4,000 to 4,500 for basketball, not much smaller than the Expo Square Pavilion and plenty big for a team that draws about 2,000 fans a game. (See Dwayne Davis's cover story in the current issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly.)

I'm not surprised, and I wouldn't be surprised if either the Oilers or the Talons followed suit. Why not locate closer to families with children and more disposable income? Why not create a sense of excitement by playing in an arena you can come close to filling on a regular basis?

Tim Remy, the developer of the SpiritBank Events Center and Regal Plaza, the adjacent upscale shopping center, is showing that the private sector can build facilities for minor league sports and small conventions without a major public subsidy. True, the City of Bixby will give Remy a rebate of one cent of the sales taxes generated by the development over ten years, capped at $5.5 million. But the risk is all Remy's. He only gets the rebate if the development succeeds in generating new sales tax dollars.