Archer Market

[TheTed]

This was posted a year ago:

October 19, 2012
Want to apply to Archer Market? We are accepting applications! Fill out the application below and deliver it to Boomtown Tees, 114 South Elgin Ave!

[saintnicster]

http://www.tulsaworld.com/blogs/scene/restaurants/table-talk-folks-urban-market-and-pantry-to-open-in/article_5f789774-68ce-11e3-a817-001a4bcf6878.html

The long-awaited opening of Archer Market, a downtown grocery and deli, is only a couple of weeks away, except the name and operating partner will be different than originally planned.

The store will be called Folks Urban Market and Pantry. It will be operated by Shawn Zenthoefer, who said she plans to have it open by the Brady Arts District First Friday Arts Walk on Jan. 3.

The store, located at 307 E. Archer St., had been a project of Blake Ewing, the Tulsa City Councilor who owns several restaurants and clubs in the downtown area.

“Blake wanted to focus on his restaurants and other businesses,” Zenthoefer said. “I had been a silent partner, and now I’m the active partner.

“The store will have local eggs, local meats and breads, all from good sources. We want to keep it as local as we can.”

Store manager is Scott Smith.

“The concept is to have about 30 percent conventional grocery and 70 percent natural foods,” he said. “We also will have a great deli and lots of grab-and-go breakfast and lunch items.”

John Gibbens will be kitchen manager.

Smith said Folks Urban Market is scheduled to be open 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. weekdays. Weekend hours have not been set.

[jacobi]

The library is leasing the former Homeland until the remodel of the central library is complete.

That building along with a majority of the land/buildings in that corner of downtown are owned by either Twenty First Properties or Embark Corporation.  The two entities are both led by Paul Wilson and have ties to the Schusterman family.

They own the block from 11th to 12th and Denver to Elwood (Homeland), a little more than 2/3 of the block bounded by 11th to 12th and Cheyenne to Denver and about the same amount of the oddly shaped land between 9th to 11th (there is no 10th street there) and Denver to Cheyenne.  All of this is publicly available via the Tulsa County Assessor's website if you'd like to see the exact parcels.

They've held most of this real estate for over twenty years.  In the 90's they wanted to build a "gateway" into downtown but that didn't happen.  More recently they were pushing for the ballpark to be placed in that corner of downtown as a southern anchor to accompany the BOK Center.  One of the issues they face is the block of PSO substation from Cheyenne to Boulder and they don't own all the Denver frontage.  The land could make for a fantastic retail, office and housing development.  It is close to existing residential, a teaching hospital, large hotel and easy access to Riverside.

When I opine to myself that I wish I had the money to invest in downtown development,  this a corner that comes to mind.  This corner has an amazing history and I would love to see it really thrive again.  Here is a fantastic read on it: http://tulsatvmemories.com/11denver.html Read it all. It broke my heart.  I would love to see the Bowen lounge reemerge as the same space for the lounge but with 5-10 floors of living on top of it.  This is such a gem of a location.  I really hope I see someone move on it in the next ten years.


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[AquaMan]

Sadly, I remember little of all those cool businesses except The Cog. We would escape from Cities Service Oil at lunch and go over to get Bloody Mary's where we would often run into other employees. Even by then most of the corner was gone. I remember the Bowen lounge name but never visited.

[TheArtist]

At least 3 or 4 little Art Deco buildings were once there that are totally gone now.  The more I learn about all the Art Deco we once had the more I could see how we could have really been one of the Art Deco centers of the world.  Sadly no longer the case. Definitely would have given us a wonderfully unique identity if we had managed to even save half of what we lost and managed to work some of the facades into newer buildings.  It was once our "vernacular" style.  Now we are pretty much blah, average, same ol same ol.  I really enjoy cities that have nurtured a unique "sense of place" and special identity, often related to great time periods in their unique history.  Why its sad agin to be losing another link to our past by losing the Oil and Gas Journal Building.  

[BKDotCom]

Keep Tulsa Blah.

[RecycleMichael]

Sadly, I remember little of all those cool businesses except The Cog.

My dad took me to the Incognito Inn after I graduated college in 1980. I met the Police Chief, local judges and television personalities. It was some crowd.

[BKDotCom]

Tulsa World online says Blake Ewing will announce grocery store to be located in Detroit Lofts.

Now open / new name
https://www.facebook.com/folkstulsa

[Conan71]

Yay market!

Complete PR FAIL considering what a pivotal business this is for downtown.

[BKDotCom]

Made it 7 months

http://www.tulsaworld.com/scenehomepage1/table-talk-folks-urban-market-and-pantry-to-close-tuesday/article_397af833-cda9-514b-b710-a4b4e727c906.html

[Townsend]

Made it 7 months

I bet a Reasor's/Walmart/Sprouts/etc would do gangbusters as long as there's a parking lot.

[TheArtist]

Nice space and some good items, but did not have basic inexpensive options.

One time went to get some stuff for sandwiches to eat at the shop and save money from having to go out to eat every day.  Cost just as much as going out.  They had some quite nice readymade sandwiches which was what we ended up getting, but that wasn't the point, I can get several sandwich offerings closer by and for the same price or less. Just wanted some everyday wheat bread, some lunch meat and sliced cheese or P&J.  And was willing to pay a little more to be supportive and all, but they either didn't have the items or they only had way over priced items.

The second time I tried it was for a meeting, and I am sure there are lots of those downtown and it would have been nice to have a place to go get some items, and just wanted some quick easy finger food type snacks to set out (some fruit like grapes, cheese, crackers, nuts, some cookies or small sweets, etc.)  Meeting was for about 8-10 people and I was thinking I could get something for about 30 to say 40 dollars tops, spent $80 there just getting a lean smattering of some tidbits, not including drinks.  And I really really looked around trying to figure out how to be creative with what they had but the inexpensive basics weren't there. Wasn't going to try that again.  Only crackers they had were super expensive, there was space there next to the others where they could have some $3-$4 options but nope, only $5-$8 boxes of crackers.  

Several people I spoke to who went there tried to figure out just what "market segments" they were trying for but couldn't really figure it out.  

[davideinstein]

You need people living Downtown, then a grocery store.

[Conan71]

I never gave it a second thought since it opened.  Sounds under-promoted and wasn't stocked or priced with great appeal. 

[TheArtist]

You need people living Downtown, then a grocery store.

I would use a downtown grocery store a lot and don't live down here.  But even if I did live downtown I couldn't have used this store as a grocery store.