Sage Gourmet Cafe & Market
Upscale market, cafe planned for Deep Deuce
by Kelley Chambers
The Journal Record
December 29, 2008
OKLAHOMA CITY – Like many of her peers, Charifa Smith left Oklahoma after high school in 1993 with her sights on bigger cities.
After college in Georgia she moved to New York, got a good job, met her husband, Kevin Smith, and was carving out a good life in the Big Apple.
Charifa worked as an attorney and real estate developer but began to eye her hometown for an upscale market and cafe.
Fortunately, her native-New Yorker husband also saw potential in the revitalization going on in downtown Oklahoma City.
The couple were accustomed to neighborhood markets and cafes in New York City, but saw a dearth of that product in some of downtown Oklahoma City’s budding neighborhoods.
In 2006, they took the plunge and bought a building in the Deep Deuce area near downtown at 228 NE Second Street.
“We knew it was a great investment, and we knew the area was changing,” Kevin said.
The then-current tenants, an architecture firm and a design-build company, moved out of the building earlier this year. That is when the Smiths moved in with plans to set up the cafe and market on the first floor with living quarters on the second.
Unfortunately, tragedy struck when their daughter, Sage, died from heart complications only a few days after birth.
The Sage Gourmet Cafe & Market was named to memorialize baby Sage. The Smiths are renovating the space with hopes to open in a few months.
“The theme of Sage is, we’re bringing in some of old Oklahoma with a new, modern Oklahoma,” Charifa Smith said. “We want to promote a healthy atmosphere.”
The design will include some modern touches as well as a 14-foot back bar that the Smiths acquired. They were told the bar is from the 1930s and once was used in a downtown hotel. But beyond those clues, the story of the ornate wooden bar remains a mystery.
The design and feel of the space is being created by Oklahoma native Cherdena Daniel, who plans to relocate her design business from Los Angeles to the Sooner State. Also working with Daniel is New York designer Michael Sparks.
Plans call for a market, cafe and full bar that will specialize in organic and made-in-Oklahoma items. The menu will feature organic beef from Cattle Tracks in Fairview and a variety of Oklahoma free-range eggs and produce.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner will be served seven days a week, and the bar will be open late on weekends.
The Smiths said they hope to also appeal to those who need to stop by for a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, or a hot, takeout gourmet meal.
Kevin said their market business plan will be geared toward downtown residents to provide healthy and specialty options in an upscale setting without the feel of a chain grocery.
“We’re not trying to compete with large supermarkets,” he said.
Oklahoma City, the RENAISSANCE CITY!
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