Quote Originally Posted by KilgoreTrout View Post
They posted last night that Pie Junkie (HOME - piejunkie) is moving into the Plaza District. Seems like a good addition in isolation, but the Plaza could really use another full bar...

If there is anything that OKC lacks to be considered a major city it is a mass of bars in a walkable local area. I've always felt that Saints, a couple bars, a live music place, and then some complimentary restaurant then bars (e.g., the Mule, new pizza place) could creat a nice mass, but it's looking more like they'll just have one bar, which is disappointing. The fact that Tulsa's bar dense, walkable scene (e.g., Blue Dome, Cherry Street, Brookside, Brady District) is dramatically better than OKC's should be a cause for concern as recent college grads see it as a quality of life issue. Bricktown is a good, walkable area, but it's also more geared towards clubs or chain locations. OKC has the market covered on dense local food areas (Midown, 23rd Street, Automobile Alley...), but a similar local bar scene remains spread out and weak.
I agree. It's difficult to bar hop in OKC because everything is so spread out. OKC needs another dense, concentrated entertainment district in addition to Bricktown. A lot of younger people I know talk about Tulsa as being superior to OKC and this is probably one of the reasons.

Edit: OKC is seeing significant young professional inmigration right now because of the economy. Young professional hotspots like Seattle, Portland, SF, etc all have very high unemployment and much stiffer job competition than OKC. That said, OKC can't count on that always being the case. Unless the alarmists are right, eventually the rest of the nation will recover and I wonder if new grads will still choose OKC when they have offers in other cities as well.