Lunch Crowd Breathes Life Into Downtown Tulsa Businesses

As workers return to downtown, the lunch crowd is a much-needed boost for Tulsa restaurants.

Wednesday, June 23rd 2021, 6:18 pm

By: Amy Avery


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Many Tulsa restaurants struggled to keep their doors open over the past year during the pandemic. Part of the problem is many people worked from home and didn't eat downtown for lunch.

"Since, especially Williams, has brought back all their employees, the parking lots are full and our business has been phenomenal,” said Georgia Tsilekas.

Tsilekas' father opened the Coney Islander downtown in 1926, and said this past year was one of the most difficult years in their 95-year history.

She and her 86-year-old husband are back behind the counter because they had to keep the doors open.

"Just as everybody else, we were just hanging on,” said Tsilekas.

Georgia said now that companies in downtown are bringing employees back to work, the restaurant is back to selling hundreds of hot dogs each day.

Other nearby restaurants like Lone Wolf said they're happy to see people back in the booths.

"It makes the restaurant feel alive again, like just having big groups of people coming in and seeing people meeting each other,” said GM of Lone Wolf, Caty Coffee.

Not only are there more customers, but employee morale is also on the rise.

"We were able to provide more jobs, more roles and more hours for people so it's been nothing but great," said Coffee.

"It's really great to see people walking around and getting back to normal life,” said Matt Salvino.

Salvino and a few of his co-workers came downtown for lunch to enjoy the nice weather, and all the options available on Food Truck Wednesday.

"It's good for our group because we can all come down here and get something different," said Salvino. 

Having more customers visiting downtown restaurants means a better chance of rebounding from a difficult year, especially for family-owned businesses like Coney Islander.

"You get to know all the customers and their stories, kind of like family,” said Tsilekas. “I'm glad to see them all back.”


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