Two local restaurateurs are starting a movement to encourage eating and drinking local, rather than patronizing chains. Dave Osborn and Jason Pool, owners of Symmetry and Two Doors Down, are both longtime restaurant professionals who were proprietors at two of our best local prime steakhouses. We love supporting local here — it’s the reason we exist — and finding allies along the way is always encouraging, but before we get to Eat Local OKC, it’s important to acknowledge the pioneering work Bryce Bandy and Chris Branson did when they started Keep It Local OK in 2010. Shoppers and diners in OKC carried the Keep It Local card, and local businesses of nearly every sort around the city gave discounts and specials for members. It was an important and successful early attempt to highlight local businesses. That’s not a eulogy; they’re still in business at Keep It Local OK.

A new movement started by Osborn and Pool is more specifically directed at eating in local restaurants. The two business partners were having dinner at Chef Eric Smith’s The Crown, and the three were discussing Davy Sangouanesy’s post about his struggling restaurant Big Biang Theory in Film Row. Hit hard by September as all local businesses are – football, back-to-school, and the State Fair are a murderers’ row of challenges – Sangouanesy pled with local diners to give him a boost to get over the September hump. Given the lines over the past few days, the plea worked. 

“I had read the post that day, and it resonated with me,” Osborn said. Both he and Pool were Mahogany Prime Steakhouse proprietors before leaving Hal Smith Restaurants to open Symmetry. “I was moved by his direct appeal and honesty, and I asked the guys, ‘Why do people still eat at the chains?’” 

In a post highlighting Eat Local OKC, Osborn noted that 25-30 years ago it made sense to seek out chains, as local options were very limited. Many of the OGs didn’t survive into the new millennium, and certainly not through the ‘00s. With the surge in local options from 2007-2019, the necessity of seeking out chains no longer makes sense. 

“I just asked aloud what it would look like if we started a local movement,” Osborn said. “We have a tremendous talent pool in OKC, so why would people prefer chains? I just started calling restaurateurs to see if they were interested in a grassroots movement. The first two calls were to Hal Smith and Jeff Dixon, and both said yes, of course.” 

The logo, created by Osborn, has started popping up all over social media, eliciting responses of support and ‘I’m in!’ Given that promoting local restaurants has been my side gig for more than 20 years, I’m happy to say my business partner James Frazier and I are enthusiastically signing on, and he’ll add, “Drink local beer!” 

The longer term goal for Osborn and Pool is to create Eat Local OKC month. “I’m thinking we push for it informally in November this year,” Osborn said, “but long-term we think September would the perfect month to offset the annual obstacles. I just think restaurants struggle to survive a slow summer to get to OND (October, November, December). It’s the best time of year for restaurants, but some just can’t survive through September.”

Osborn noted that as he and Pool were planning on opening Symmetry a year ago, the same pattern of restaurant closures was happening around them. It’s an annual occurrence, and as we noted elsewhere on social media, it’s great to enjoy the fair, but eating local is cheaper and better than fair food. At this point, I always like to give credit to 84 Hospitality founder and CEO Rachel Cope who told me in 2018 that if we could convert ten percent of chain diners to eating local, we wouldn’t have to talk about closing restaurants anymore. It begins with converting friends and family to make local choices, but it’s also an awareness issue.

To facilitate better awareness, we are working on a handy guide like the Secular vs. Christian Band posters that adorned youth rooms in churches in the ‘90s and ‘00s. “If your child likes Metallica, have them listen to Stryper.” Only in this case, the better choice is actually on the right side of the pairing: If your stepdad likes Chili’s, introduce him to The Hamilton (bar menu especially), Hopscotch, Pub W and Republic Gastropub, or if your mom likes Marble Slab, take her to Boom Town Creamery. We’ll have a full chart of the country’s most popular full service and fast food chains with better local options soon, but for now, regular readers are well equipped to make suggestions, and the annual best of the OKC metro lists live on this site year round.