Oklahoma City’s lauded Bricktown district is home to many fine eateries that are sure to appease both locals and tourists, but if you had to ask which one I believe is the big dog daddy of them all, hands down I’m gonna go with Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill. How do you like me now?
Located at 310 Johnny Bench Drive, TK’s offers a wide variety of traditional all good in the trailerhood eats that have been refined and revitalized for not only fans of Keith’s music, but the redneck lifestyle in general, at least from a distance; if you’ve ever wanted to know how “the other half” eats but don’t want to set foot in a Moore mobile home kitchenette to masticate on it, then you’ll most definitely love this bar and grill as much as I have come to.
Walking into the restaurant, possibly after a long day of indoor fishing at the Bass Pro Shop, the only thing as big as that built-up hunger is the impossibly huge LeRoy Neiman-esque painting of Keith being unleashed in concert that greets all comers, letting them know that as soon as they enter those doors, they are in for the ultimate American ride, culinary-wise at least. Flatbed trucks take the place of benches, while every inch of wall space is decorated with everything from platinum records to classic neon signage straight out of Clancy’s Tavern.
With the feel of a classic small-town roadhouse (but totally amped-up for that big league city shock’n y’all), one would hope that a fight would break out any moment wherein I would accidentally break a chair on my dining companion’s back, only to shrug it off as not being “as good as I once was,” but it was a moderately calm Sunday evening at this particular outlet, the country music overhead was even mellower than usual. Maybe we were a little too late for the fireworks. The explosive food would have to do.