Re: Midtown
Juice bar squeezing into smaller space at The Edge
By: Molly M. Fleming The Journal Record January 5, 2017
OKLAHOMA CITY – The Edge developer Gary Brooks is a big fan of Organic Squeeze.
He’s such a fan that he convinced owners and brothers Mike and Robert Rhodes to move into 7,600 square feet on the first floor of the apartment building at 1325 N. Walker Ave. two years ago.
“I ended up pushing a little more space on them than they needed,” Brooks said. “Ultimately, they came back and said, ‘We really don’t need this much space to do what we do.’”
Organic Squeeze opened its doors in spring 2015. Robert Rhodes said he and his brother shut down temporarily in fall 2016.
He said the Midtown restaurant was a learning experience for them as well. The store, which was Organic Squeeze’s second full location, offered a hot food bar with soups and even had some prepared foods. The restaurant equipment will be auctioned online Monday at pciauctions.com.
“The food aspect is just outside of what we do,” he said. “We thought we could make it work. We found out the hard way that we couldn’t.”
Rhodes said juice and smoothies sold well in Midtown, but the food and coffee were not as successful, which is why the brothers are regrouping the operation. The Midtown Organic Squeeze will reopen this spring, serving their juices and smoothies.
Brooks is redesigning the space, putting in a wall so he can get more tenants on The Edge’s first floor. Organic Squeeze will reopen there in a smaller spot. He’s working with retail expert Allison Bailey on curating tenants for the remaining spaces. Commonplace Books is taking most of other northern retail space.
This is Brooks’ first apartment building with first-floor retail. He said Midtown developers Chris Fleming and Mickey Clagg encouraged him to add the first-floor spaces so the activity on N. Walker Avenue could continue north.
“Early this summer, we’ll have some really fun, quality tenants that will add to the incredible walkability of Walker,” he said. “I’m very excited about the retail piece. Midtown (Renaissance Group) has done such a good job of being selective of the tenant profile on Walker. We want to add value to what they’ve done.”
Rhodes said if a third Organic Squeeze store is opened, the site and size will be carefully considered after the lesson at The Edge. He said it’s difficult to say no to an opportunity, so he and his brother worked really hard on the Midtown store.
“Not to say that Midtown isn’t the right location, we know it is,” he said. “We just got outside our focus of what we do.”
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Originally Posted by Pete
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