Red Dirt Emporium opens in Bricktown

October 4, 2007

OKLAHOMA CITY – An Oklahoma-themed gift shop opened in Oklahoma City’s Bricktown, but don’t come looking for kitschy souvenirs like rubber tomahawks or gaudy Oklahoma key rings.

What visitors to the store will find are food products made in Oklahoma, native pottery, Route 66 items and one corner of the store devoted to Oklahoma City-based rock band the Flaming Lips.

In late August Chad Huntington opened Oklahoma’s Red Dirt Emporium at 115 E. California Ave., in about 1,200 square feet in the Miller Jackson Building, on the canal level in Bricktown.

Huntington is also general manager of Water Taxi LLC, which operates water taxi rides along the Bricktown Canal. He said he saw the store as a way to complement the water taxi business and offer a specific Oklahoma-themed retail option in Bricktown.“

I knew that it would take a pretty good time commitment and it would be a major undertaking to do the store,” he said. “But I also saw how it might integrate with Water Taxi and the two could benefit one another.”

Water Taxi employees staff the store and sell tickets for taxi rides at the counter.

The store is open seven days per week from 9 a.m. until 10 p.m. As the winter months approach and the taxi business slows, Huntington said the hours will probably change. The store had a soft opening, but now Huntington is hoping to get the word out and define the store as more than a souvenir shop.“

We’re very much Oklahoma-specific with this store,” he said. “We try to have a real varied, eclectic mix of products that appeal not just to visitors but to locals and really tell Oklahoma’s story.”

Oklahoma brands such as Prairie Gypsy’s food items and Frankoma pottery are available in addition to Route 66 merchandise, T-shirts and coffee mugs specific to Oklahoma.

One area unique to the store is the corner devoted to the Flaming Lips.

Huntington keeps a loop of Flaming Lips videos playing in the store, and said the band, in many ways, was the motivation to open the store.

After backers for a project to get an alley in Bricktown named for the band jumped through several hoops, the City Council approved the measure in December.

As a member of the Bricktown Association board of directors, Huntington was called upon to make a case to the association and to the city that the alley should be renamed. When the measure was approved, Huntington said he considered opening up an exclusive Flaming Lips store. After discussions with the band’s management, the idea shifted to an Oklahoma music store, and finally to the idea of the gift shop with a focus on local items and music. Huntington said he hopes to eventually stock the catalogs of significant Oklahoma recording artists. The store offers a replica of the Flaming Lips Alley sign for $25. The sign was produced by the band’s label, Warner Bros., and is available exclusively at his store and at the band’s Web site.

Another motivation to offer gift items was the lack of shopping options in Bricktown. Huntington said the water taxi staff sees people from out of state, and from other countries, on a daily basis who want to take home a memento from their trip.“The number one complaint people have with Bricktown is ‘where’s the retail?’” he said. “People are down here ready to buy things and they specifically are interested in buying something that represents their trip to Oklahoma.”


The Journal Record

does it have a .com?

Sounds nice. I'm having trouble placing the Miller-Jackson building though... which one is that?

^^ Hooters.

The biggest one on the canal. AKA JDM Place. It's the one with Hooters as okclee mentioned, it also has SkyyBar.

See my earlier post which contains several pics ... http://www.okctalk.com/okc-metro-are...-emporium.html

__________________
Doug
http://www.dougloudenback.com/downtownOKC.htm
http://www.dougloudenback.com/oklahomacity.htm
http://dougdawg.blogspot.com/

No, it's not JDM place, it's the one with the sort of indoor mall and Hooters is the main tenant.

Just look for Hooters.

jbrown, you may be right, I always thought the JDM Place was still apart of Miller Jackson since they are connected. I guess they could be two totally separately owned buildings. I always just thought the JDM Place was what they called the new addition part of the Miller Jackson building.

I went to the Red Dirt Emporium on Saturday and bought two photos of Downtown OKC from the 30s and 40s to frame and put in my office. I spent quite a while looking through their selection.

How are the prices CCOKC? Are they reasonable?

I was there looking around last week and like how the place is focusing on Oklahoma City's history as much as the usual Native American/Cowboy stuff you see at other places. They didn't have rose rocks, but I'm sure they'll come later. You know how original that would be I spoke with the clerk for a while and recommended they add a local artists section for music lovers.

Metro, they had some large photos for around $200 and a bunch of 8 x 12's for $25, which is a little steep if you ask me. I would think $10-15 is a reasonable price range for small mass produced photos like those. One photo is of Bricktown back when downtown was an oil field. You can literally see oil rigs dotting the landscape. It was really a cool site to see Bricktown then.

The boat drivers were the ones manning the desk, which is a good thing because they seem to know quite a bit about OKC and can answer most questions out-of-towners may ask. There's still a lot of work to be done, but it's retail and I can't complain with that.

__________________
...this shortest straw has been pulled for you

I'm sure that the pics are on consignment from First Rate Company in south Okc somewhere ... I forget the man's name who owns it. He always has a large display at the Fair in what used to be called the Made in Oklahoma Building, which is where I first saw his stuff. He literally has thousands of images, not only of Okc.

Anyway, HE's the guy that largely sets the price. While I agree that the price should / could be lowered, every now and then I run across one that I just can't pass up, such as the 50 foot high Marilyn Monroe in front of the Criterion, mentioned in my earlier thread.

__________________
Doug
http://www.dougloudenback.com/downtownOKC.htm
http://www.dougloudenback.com/oklahomacity.htm
http://dougdawg.blogspot.com/

AFCMNot sure if you caught it or not in the original article above, but they are planning on adding a local artists music section to the store.