Good Bye downtown Coney Island

[Breadburner]

Looks like prime Tulsa Now happy hour location then.  Is Orpha's still dreamy?

It sure is...Lots of rules though....

[Ronnie Lowe]

You know Tulsa is a Capricorn and one of the sayings associated with Capricorn is "tear it down to build it up."  I've been meditating on this to try and come to terms with the fact that my beautiful old Tulsa has been largely torn down.  Back in 2000, my lover and I spent a weekend in Palm Springs with another gay couple at a wonderful old motel from the 60s that was a favorite haunt of the Rat Pack.  It had been faithfully restored to its Mid-Century Modern glory.  The place had a Tiki Hut club and a great big kidney shaped pool in the center.  The owners put a Los Angeles Times at your door every morning.  The trendy shelled out a stack of clams to stay there.  Then much later, I had a day dream of doing something similar with the hotel in question.  I was going to have to ask Coney Island to move out so that I could open a 60s Go Go Girl-kind of bar in its space.  You know, polka dots and strobe lights and Motown.  When I asked a local attorney about purchasing it he went on and on about asbestos and asbestos remediation.  Anyway, I love Tulsa for what she is, not what she isn't.  So we'll trade in Go Go Bars for the Texas Two Step and Hot Country Folks.  We're just a bunch of hillbillies and that's alright with me.  If I want sophistication I have a car and I can drive far from here.  And I won't be headed to Ft. Worth.

[we vs us]

Wow.

[swake]

You know Tulsa is a Capricorn and one of the sayings associated with Capricorn is "tear it down to build it up."  I've been meditating on this to try and come to terms with the fact that my beautiful old Tulsa has been largely torn down.  Back in 2000, my lover and I spent a weekend in Palm Springs with another gay couple at a wonderful old motel from the 60s that was a favorite haunt of the Rat Pack.  It had been faithfully restored to its Mid-Century Modern glory.  The place had a Tiki Hut club and a great big kidney shaped pool in the center.  The owners put a Los Angeles Times at your door every morning.  The trendy shelled out a stack of clams to stay there.  Then much later, I had a day dream of doing something similar with the hotel in question.  I was going to have to ask Coney Island to move out so that I could open a 60s Go Go Girl-kind of bar in its space.  You know, polka dots and strobe lights and Motown.  When I asked a local attorney about purchasing it he went on and on about asbestos and asbestos remediation.  Anyway, I love Tulsa for what she is, not what she isn't.  So we'll trade in Go Go Bars for the Texas Two Step and Hot Country Folks.  We're just a bunch of hillbillies and that's alright with me.  If I want sophistication I have a car and I can drive far from here.  And I won't be headed to Ft. Worth.

That's what happens when you have lunch with the Clown at his place....

[TheArtist]

....a wonderful old motel from the 60s that was a favorite haunt of the Rat Pack.  It had been faithfully restored to its Mid-Century Modern glory.  The place had a Tiki Hut club and a great big kidney shaped pool in the center.....  The trendy shelled out a stack of clams to stay there.

We donts needs no trendy folk of any sort nor any o their clams herebouts.  Trendy people and their money is strictly forbidden...
(due to our complacent contentment with mediocrity and lack of vision   ).

[patric]

You would have loved the Et Cetera House when it was downstairs in Utica Square.

[Townsend]

Coney Island moving back into old downtown space


The property is managed by American Parking.

"I guess they are just going to tear it down,"

http://www.tulsaworld.com/scene/article.aspx?subjectid=371&articleid=20120206_371_0_Maybey23805

Maybe you can go home again. The Coney Island Hot Weiner Shop is betting on it.

Owner Jim Economou said Monday the iconic eatery is moving to 108 W. Fourth St. in a narrow space where it operated from 1946 to 1995.

Economou said he will close the current location at 123 W. Fourth St. "whenever we run out of food on Wednesday."

The restaurant's lease expired last November, he said, and he was told he had to vacate the building by mid-February.

"I expect to be back in our old place at the latest March 1, maybe a week earlier if we get the OK from the health department," Economou said.

"The place is getting fixed up right now. They are putting in a new floor and painting. We will move all of the kitchen equipment there over the weekend."

Also going back to their old spots are the 32 school desk chairs, the all-wooden ones dating to the 1920s. The ones with the ceramic tops were acquired about 1940, Economou said.

"We will lose the 10 chairs we have at the window counter in this place, but the 32 are going back," Economou said. "We will lose the parking we have now, and that's a drawback."

The Coney Island also will lose the extra space that has allowed diners waiting in line to be inside. Expect the lunch line to wind out on the sidewalk, where customers can watch coneys cooking on the grill just inside the front window, just as they did for 49 years.

"It will be virtually the same as it was," Economou said. "The only difference is that instead of having all of our old pictures hanging on the wall, they will be flashed on a TV screen."

The restaurant was called Coney Island 5-Cent Weiners when Jim's father, Greek immigrant Christ Economou, opened it at 311 S. Boulder Ave. in 1926. It moved to 108 W. Fourth St. in 1946.

Due to lease issues at that location, Economou said, he acquired the motel at 123 W. Fourth St. in 1995 and put the Coney Island Hot Weiner Shop on the bottom floor. He sold the structure, now vacant, in 2006 to a California developer. The property is managed by American Parking.

"I guess they are just going to tear it down," Economou said. "The taxes on it were getting pretty high."

Economou took over the Coney Island when his father died in 1973. Today his sister, Georgia Tsilekas, her husband, Costa, and their son, John, handle the day-to-day operations. Caitlin Economou, Jim Economou's granddaughter, also works there.

The Coney Island Hot Weiner Shop is the second-oldest continuously operated restaurant in Tulsa, next to Ike's Chili, which opened in 1908.

Keep track of all of Tulsa's restaurant news on Scott Cherry's blog at tulsaworld.com/tabletalk and find his restaurant guide at tulsaworld.com/cherrypicks.


By SCOTT CHERRY World Scene Writer

Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/scene/article.aspx?subjectid=371&articleid=20120206_371_0_Maybey23805

[sgrizzle]

oh goody, right next to orpha's

[restored2x]

Have they re-opened?

[Conan71]

Well look who's back!

[restored2x]

Well look who's back!

Been busy. However, I have moved downtown. So instead of talking about downtown - I've been enjoying walking to Convention Center and BOK Center for concerts, etc. LOVE being downtown. Hope you've been doing OK!

[zstyles]

My office is next door, I was walking by and there was a lady on the phone yelling "we can't do anything until the gas is on...blah blah blah" I just kept walking..looks ALOT like the old RON's hamburgers...guess it will be a bit more of a take out place....

[jacobi]

The demo work is going on right now.  Go say goodbye, if you can.

[carltonplace]

The demo work is going on right now.  Go say goodbye, if you can.

Is the plan to turn this into a parking lot? As soon as we fill in one surface parking lot another takes its place.

[DolfanBob]

Been busy. However, I have moved downtown. So instead of talking about downtown - I've been enjoying walking to Convention Center and BOK Center for concerts, etc. LOVE being downtown. Hope you've been doing OK!

GOSH ! Lucky......Napoleon Dynamite voice.