Tulsa's ' Restaurant Row'

Mexican food, hamburgers and pizza. Restaurant row in south Tulsa has all those choices for hungry mouths, but a few years ago, there weren't that many restaurants open for business on 71st Street,

Tuesday, November 22nd 2005, 9:54 am

By: News On 6

Mexican food, hamburgers and pizza. Restaurant row in south Tulsa has all those choices for hungry mouths, but a few years ago, there weren't that many restaurants open for business on 71st Street, between Memorial and Garnett.

6 in the Morning reporter Omar Villafranca explains what started this growth spurt and how competitive it really is.

Only 3 years ago, there weren't as many places to eat along 71st Street, but now 71st is a hot spot to open a restaurant. What's hard is keeping the place open. Dozens of restaurant signs stick out on 71st Street between Memorial and Garnett.

With a busy mall nearby and restaurants on every corner, the traffic is notoriously bad. Bruce Johnson with Incredible Pizza: â€œthere are a couple of intersections, a couple of the medians that with the turns and stuff, particularly during Christmas Season with the mall and with how busy that gets, yeah, it can be an issue."

People still fight through the traffic to come and eat at the dozens on Restaurant row. In an area near Woodland Hills Mall, between Memorial and Garnett on 71st Street, there more than 60 restaurants open for business. More than 125 if you count the food court in the mall and gas stations that serve food.

For the past three years, that number has been steady. So has the stream of customers coming to eat. Kevin Corey with Mimi's Cafe:" We get people from Tulsa and all the surrounding areas. A lot more from outlying areas on the weekends and a lot of people coming in from out of town to visit family, and they want to bring them here to show them their new favorite restaurant."

Mimi's used to be a Black Eyed Pea, but with so many choices, restaurants constantly shut down. When one restaurant closes, another one opens up. Real estate is at such a premium on 71st Street, which restaurants are willing to take a chance on any building that opens up.

Incredible Pizza used to be a Super Kmart. Now, they're using all the space inside. Bruce Johnson: "we've got go carts, we've got a 10-lane bowling alley, we've got mini-golf and on top of all of that, we've got a great, fantastic buffet, huge salad bar, lots of reasons to come on in."

And as long as this street stays busy, restaurants will try to come up with a winning recipe to stay open on 71st Street. 71st Street will soon be packed with shoppers for the holiday season.

An area near Promenade Mall on 41st Street is also pretty busy. There are more than 100 restaurants between Memorial and Yale.

Officials with the Tulsa City-County Health Department say that area has grown more over the past year than the stretch of road on 71st Street.