Tulsa's First Food Hall Preparing For Grand Opening

The final touches are being made on Tulsa’s first food hall before it opens to the public next week.

Mother Road Market is on Route 66 at 11th and Lewis.  The space is approximately 27,000 square feet, with more than 20 different restaurants and shops.

Sami Cooper and her husband, Brian, had a big idea, but not the biggest space to make it work.

“We started the idea in my kitchen with an old Cuisinart ice cream maker and decided we want to open an ice cream shop,” Cooper said.  “How are we going to do that?”

It turned out that Tulsa had just the opportunity for them through the Lobeck Taylor Family Foundation and next week Mother Road Market will finally open.  Sami and Brian say they couldn’t be more excited.

“As soon as they announced it, we said, ‘we want to do that,’ and we want to have our own artisan ice cream and make our ice cream from scratch,” said Cooper.

A few years ago, Elizabeth Frame Ellison, the CEO of the Lobeck Taylor Family Foundation, started doing some research into the food hall trend.

“I think as the big box stores started to decline, people started to recognize there was a need for these community spaces that gave a lot of different offerings,” she said.

And the Mother Road Market won’t disappoint.

There is a full bar, a demonstration kitchen, some familiar names, and some newer concepts.

There’s also an outdoor space for live performances and a one-of-a-kind mini golf course, where you can putt your way down Route 66.

“Of course, we are on the wonderful Route 66 and Oklahoma has the longest stretch of Route 66 in the United Stated,” said Ellison.  “I think it is such an underutilized resource.”

Cooper says, “There is a pioneering spirit that comes along with this whole food hall thing that is happening and, to me as an entrepreneur, that is what we live for.”

Mother Road Market opens November 2nd.  Its hours of operation will be 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Friday and Saturday.