All This Within a Mile?! - Walkable Eats and Drinks

We've now been without a car for four months, and good news; we're still alive! Today we're going to plug a few of our favorite local businesses, we'll list 3 restaurants and 3 bars. All of these are within 1 mile of where we live, giving us ample choices of how to spend our weekend evenings.

Restaurants:

1. Thai Kitchen - Corner of Hudson and Dean A. McGee - 0.2 miles from our home

This hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant is less than a quarter mile away from our building, and it is very popular during lunch hour for people who work in the downtown area. We go here for dinner almost every weekend because we love Thai food, and this is about as good as it gets. Serving sizes are generous, the owners are very courteous, and two people can eat for well under $30!

2. S&B's Burger Joint - 9th Street off Broadway - 0.6 miles from our home

There are a couple of these around town, but the location at 9th and Broadway is the one we visit. This place has a wild assortment of delicious burgers and fry combinations, a massive selection of beer, and always has 80s music videos playing on one of the TVs. This place will run a couple about $30. Try the King burger with bacon and peanut butter! It's messy, but delicious.

3. Joey's Pizzaria - Corner of Sheridan and Lee - 0.8 miles from our home

Located on the burgeoning Film Row, this place has the best deal in town. No joke. A double-slice of pizza and a pint of beer for $5 during Thunder games. You've got to try the Bianca Neve pizza, and wash it down with a delicious Coop Native Amber.

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Bars:

One of the more subtle benefits of being without a car and able to walk to bars is the fact that we never have to worry about making accomdations for driving after having a drink. This may not seem like a big deal, or may make us sound like raging alcoholics (we're not! Honest!), but we don't have to temper our social evenings around transportation, nor do we even have the opportunity to put other people's lives at risk by being irresponsible drivers. Here are three of our favorites!

1. James E. McNellie's Public House - 10th & Classen - 0.5 miles from our home

McNellie's is pretty much the bar we've been waiting for our whole adult lives. The space is large and always bustling but rarely stifling. The beer selection is enormous and the quality of the beer they serve is top-notch - no warm beer or "two-finger heads" poured here. Located in Midtown at the round-about, we've made friends, and run into friends several times at the bar. This is THE place within our walkable area to hang out if you're in your late 20s to early 40s. 

2. Skinny Slim's Public House - E. Main St. - 0.9 miles from our home

Great atmosphere, great beer selection. Sorta small, but that adds to the charm. This bar is nestled between Deep Deuce and Bricktown, avoiding the touristy crowd, and never having a cover charge. The bartenders make excellent recommendations, and always do their best to make their customers comfortable and happy. One of the bartenders accidentally told me a beer I was interested in (Hercules Double IPA.. yum) was $6.00 and when it came up on the tab, it turned out to be $10.00. She charged me the $6.00 because it was her mistake, not mine. Now that's service, and she of course made up that difference in the tip I left her!

3. The Skirvin Hotel bar - End of Park St. on Broadway - 0.6 miles from our home

Want to have a classier evening? Head over to the historic Skirvin hotel and order a cocktail from the bar. The beer selection isn't the greatest in town, but the mellow atmosphere and attentive service staff are great. You can sit at the bar or in more intimate surroundings with beautiful furniture, watch a Thunder game, or if you're lucky, get to hear live piano playing. This is a great place to take a date if you're looking to have a calmer drink.

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These are just a few of our favorites, but there are many more restaurants and a few more bars in walking distance. These types of locations are essential to a walkable community, and what's great is that none of them are corporate franchises; there are a lot of local businesses to spend your money on and keep it in the local economy. The "Keep it Local" card is accepted at many downtown, Midtown, Deep Deuce, and Bricktown locations -- a strong local economy makes for a strong city.

Midtown - Carless Rating #8

With all of the walkability ratings that we've done here at Carless In OKC, there's one glaring omission when you consider that we live downtown, and that's Midtown. 

Carless Rating: Midtown - 21/25

Midtown is our home base. It is one of the closest districts to our apartment building, with an array of restaurant options, most of which are super affordable. Our favorites (so far) are Irma's and Boulevard - we've got a thing for home cooking, being recent transplants from the South. Our closest TimeCar location is in Midtown, in in the parking lot of Brown's Bakery. We can have drink at our favorite bar, McNellie's, where the beer list never fails to astound us, and the atmosphere is bustling and cozy. There's not one but two bakeries in Midtown, Brown's (where I like to buy donuts), and the amazing Prairie Thunder Baking Company. At Prairie Thunder, one can eat a delicious breakfast or lunch (we've only eaten breakfast there so far, and it's SO tasty), pick out a delectable dessert pastry (the almond croissants always call my name), and then take home a loaf of their fresh-baked bread, which is delicious, rustic, and made without any preservatives. Yes please!

Prairie Thunder Baking Company

You've heard us harp repeatedly on the necessity of a downtown full-service grocery store, and if we had our choice, we'd put that store in Midtown. It's the perfect location, and there's already a good bit of development going on in the area, so it would be a very natural part of the growth and diversification that's happening there. 

We're still making the rounds in Midtown. I'm anxiously awaiting my first trip to Waffle Champion, and one of these days I'll finally have a bison burger from Kaiser's. Tell us about some of your favorite places in Midtown! We would love your suggestions. 

McNellie's Pub

And now for the walkability rating!

Midtown is located just about half a mile from our apartment (actually less, because we take a shortcut), which would get an A rating for distance.
 
The walk to and within Midtown gets a B rating for pedestrian infrastructure. We are able to take safe, well-maintained sidewalks all the way to Midtown. There are usually crosswalks and crossing signals when we need them, but the pedestrian infrastructure isn't always very ADA-accessible. 

 
Midtown has a good array of transportation options. There's obviously the road and car infrastructure, with the added bonus of the roundabout at Classen and 10th, which drivers seem to be figuring out a little more every day. Bus route 5 runs through the area, and Bus route 4 to a lesser extent. There are also sidewalks for pedestrians, but no bike lanes. The roads are also fairly narrow in the area, so it doesn't seem like the safest place to bike, although the roads leading into and out of Midtown are wider. I'll rate Midtown a B for transportation options. 
 
The land use in Midtown is good, and seems to be getting better. A lot of older buildings are being repurposed, and the density is fairly high in the residential areas. There are some areas that could be developed to make the land use even better; the area where the holiday pop-up shops were held would make a fantastic small park area (I'm having a total Leslie Knope moment here - there's a pit and everything). Land use in Midtown gets a B.
 
I love the atmosphere in Midtown! It feels like a special little community within the city, but I would, however, like to see Midtown start its own regular, monthly event like Automobile Alley's Shop Hop, Plaza District's Live on the Plaza, or Premiere on Film Row. Midtown's aesthetic also adds to the atmosphere with its classy vintage vibe. Midtown's atmosphere gets a B - that A is totally attainable in the future with a little more community involvement! The holiday pop-up shops were a great event and really demonstrated the potential of Midtown to host its own monthly shindig. (I just realized something: does H & 8th count as being in Midtown? To me, it's not the same. The Hudson & 8th St strip is its own little district as far as I'm concerned, and I'm ANXIOUSLY awaiting more development there. I'm talking about something in the area of the pop-up shops.)

More of this, please!

 Overall, Midtown gets a solid 21 out of 25! All the elements are there for Midtown to score even higher, so let's all support and encourage the district so that they'll know that we want more Midtown!