Strange Donuts will be no stranger in Tulsa, Oklahoma next spring when it sets up shop at the north corner of East Archer Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
“We’re ready for the company to expand, and I’ve been looking at Tulsa for a long time,” said owner Jason Bockman. “It has ambitious, cool people that want their city to be great, and I am excited to be a part of it.”
Bockman contacted the George Kaiser Foundation (which is renovating the Tulsa’s Brady Arts District) and fell in love with its work, which includes collaboration with Teach for America and the Tulsa Artist Fellowship. Bockman secured a 1,200-square-foot space in a 1920s warehouse currently being renovated into apartments and studios for the Tulsa Artist Fellowship.
The Tulsa location is the fourth for Strange; they also have shops in Maplewood, Kirkwood and Columbia, Missouri. It will be twice the size of Strange Donuts’ flagship Maplewood space. “St. Louis is really accustomed to grabbing your doughnuts and going home. It’s not like that in a lot of places,” Bockman said. “Tulsa is a lively city where people want to go out and be out.”
An expanded beverage program and a far-out interior will also invite patrons to linger. Bockman plans to serve an expanded beverage menu including coffee options, and has enlisted local firm Lilly Architects to make the interior “look like you’re in space.”
The Tulsa location is slated to open in March 2017. In the meantime, Bockman and his Strange squad are hosting pop-ups “to say this is who we are and to meet new friends,” which they will continue until opening day.
“I’m genuinely interested in being part of a community, not just selling people stuff,” said Bockman.
This article appears in August 2016.