I've told this story before but it bares repeating now that its days are numbered.


About 3-4 years ago when I was still living in California, I stopped in Slaughter's as on previous trips I had already gained an affection for the place.

On that trip, I noticed a really great, friendly local vibe and it occurred to me that OKC now had several places where you could go and just hang out and meet people. On this particular night I struck up conversations with several different people and one out-of-town group invited me to their table.

I could see the community was hungry for this sort of gathering place and Slaughter's along with The Mule and Skinny Slims and a few others started me on the path to visualizing a move back.

As this night wore on, I was chatting with the woman behind the bar and noticed what appeared to be "405" tattooed on each bicep. I asked her, "Is that the area code?? Why?"

And this hipster woman who pretty much had the Millennial "I'm almost too cool to care about anything" attitude (although her service was fine) said: "Yeah. A bunch of us have them here in some form. We're all just really proud of Oklahoma City and what is happening here."


And that was it. Right then and there I decided to move back and about a year later I did just that.