Inside Westbrook, Durant and the Mahogany Steakhouse story
Walk into Mahogany Prime Steakhouse in Downtown Oklahoma City and you can’t miss it.
The bar greets you slightly to your right. To the left of the bar in a booth area situated against a transparent glass wall of wine bottles, Kevin Durant sat with his agent and business partner Rich Kleiman, business manager Charlie Bell and a few other friends as the clock ticked past midnight and into early Sunday.
Look through the walls of wine and you’ll see the entrance to the Captain’s Room: That’s where Russell Westbrook sat, feet away from his former teammate hours after they clashed that Super Saturday in February.
The restaurant on the corner of Robinson Ave. and Sheridan Ave. has become a postgame staple for Thunder players such as Westbrook, Andre Roberson and former Thunder guard Victor Oladipo for its privacy, fine dining and easy accessibility from Chesapeake Energy Arena.
It’s also easy access for visiting players and media, who typically stay in hotels within a block of the Hal Smith-owned steakhouse. The Warriors normally stay at The Colcord directly across the street.
Last season, ESPN anchor Steve Levy was in Oklahoma City for the first time to do SportsCenter live from Durant’s first game back since the sharpshooter signed with Golden State in July 2016. Everyone Levy talked to recommended Mahogany, so he and coordinating producer Mike McQuade went the night before last season’s first Thunder Warriors game in OKC.
Levy and McQuade sat down at the bar and ended up talking to the manager, Dave Osborn, who told him about Durant’s special request. In his return to Oklahoma City, Durant wanted to rent out the restaurant. His group called weeks before in hopes of getting it accomplished, but it didn’t happen. “I thought about it but I said, no I can’t do that, because I have Thunder players that come in after games,” Osborn told ESPN on Feb. 11. “Thunder players come in, fans come in, so I just said, ‘I can’t do that to them. It wouldn’t be fair.’” Osborn declined to speak to The Oklahoman this week.
Levy thought the story was so interesting, he asked Osborn if he could post about it on Twitter. Levy tweeted: “Minding my own biz in OKC — I hear that Kevin Durant tried to rent out steakhouse 4 postgame 2morrow night to spend 40K. Denied. #homecooking.”
Of course the story exploded. Kleiman tweeted that Levy’s story was “false.”
“They were sort of defending home turf,” Levy said to The Oklahoman. “This is Russ’s place. It’s not Kevin’s anymore. I thought it was kind of cool. I love sticking up for the hometown guy, the hometown team. To me, it’s part of the whole homefield advantage.”
Yet, the next night, Kleiman, Bell, Durant and friends were polishing off a frenzied weekend with a shot of tequila. They didn’t get the entire restaurant like they wanted — Oladipo was in the back with a group, Westbrook and his group were in their usual spot, an intimate room in the front of the restaurant with a single roundtable, one flat screen TV and a chandelier adorned with miniature elephants and giraffes — but were able to dine.
Levy went back the next night and saw the former teammates.
“In essence, he was sort of sitting over his shoulder,” Levy said of Westbrook’s spot in the restaurant. “... but not together.”
Westbrook and Durant didn’t speak, but for a moment, the former teammates were feet apart. Will they dine in each other’s presence late Wednesday after the game?
Accommodations for the Warriors may have come easier at their hotel. On Tuesday night before Golden State’s arrival, the shades were drawn across the street at Flint, The Colcord’s first-floor restaurant. All of them.