Living Legend('s)
With Thanksgiving looming, Legend's elects to reopen
NORMAN — While t he country frets over whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump will win the election on Tuesday,
Joe and Rebecca Sparks will fret over social-distancing, reservations and lemon cake as they reopen Legend's Restaurant for the first time since March.
Since Legend's arrived on Lindsey Street in 1968, it's survived busts, storms and three years of street narrowing but has never before been closed for as long as the coronavirus has dictated. In the downtime,
the Sparks family has cleaned every hard surface in the restaurant and given every vertical surface a fresh coat of paint.
Now they' re ready to open three weeks before Thanksgiving, traditionally one of Legend's most important dates of the year.
“We plan to observe the 6-foot spacing,” Joe said of reopening the dining room on Tuesday. “It probably won't impact us greatly except on Thanksgiving.”
Thanksgiving dining gambit
The Sparkses plan to offer the same four seatings they always
do on Thanksgiving— 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. — and hope increased carryout feasts will offset the reduction in capacity needed for public health. Joe said the 1 p.m. seating is already sold out, but the restaurant normally wouldn't have any seats left by now.
“M o s t y e a r s w e ' r e sold out by the first of November,” he said.
If Legend's does sell out all four Thanksgiving seatings, the pandemic has raised the possibility of something else unprecedented.
“We're thinking about opening on Friday this year for four more seatings,” Rebecca said. “We're usually closed on Black Friday, but who knows if anyone is going to be out shopping on Black Friday this year?”
Before deciding, Legend's first must reopen after seven months on the sidelines — the closest Joe Sparks, 75, has ever come to opening from scratch.
Legend's and Joe Sparks
He came to Legend's after it had already been born in 1967 as a pizza and sandwich delivery mill for Norman's Naval Flight Training Center. By the time Sparks was on the scene in `68, the restaurant had just moved to 1313 W Lindsey Street as Lemuel B. Legend's Italian Manufactory.
“They were selling fancy Italian food on paper plates,” he said. “That didn't last very long.”
That Sparks came at all was a minor miracle. He had just completed two years commanding a U.S. Army missile unit in Germany.
To get there, he had to wait in the customs line in Salzburg, Austria. It was in that line, in `66, he met Wayne Copeland. Fast becoming friends, they were tight for the next two weeks. When they parted, Sparks marched off to a German wheat field with a bunch of guys for the next two years while Copeland finished graduate studies at the University of Oklahoma in a sea of co-eds.
“I didn't hear from Wayne for two years,” Sparks said. “Then he called me right before I was to leave for Pittsburgh to take a job with U.S. Steel.”
It wasn't long before Sparks dumped U.S. Steel to throw his lot in with about a dozen other investors at Legend's. For the next decade he, Copeland and Orin Bacharach operated the restaurant and evolved the menu away from Italian.
“We have a traditional menu, which is steaks, fish, and chops,” Joe said. “Seasonally, we do a menu that rotates. We get influences from a lot of places. After all these years, we've developed a sense of what's good for here in Norman.”
Arrival of Rebecca
What was good for Legend's was the day in 1979 when Rebecca Fasler showed up looking for a job.
“I told Joe `Legend's is the only place I want to work in Norman; I'll wait for your call,'” she recollected. “He didn't hire me on the spot, but called about a half hour later, and I've been here ever since.”
Rebecca, 61, worked her way into the kitchen and soon managed it. Same with the catering, the office and the dining room. Clearly, Rebecca Fasler was destined to become chef Rebecca Sparks. Now executive chef, she and Joe married in 1995.
By then, Bacharach had gone it alone with Orin's Fine Pizza, and Sparks had bought out Copeland.
The Sparks family, which includes daughter Eva, 22, has made Legend's an institution since the restaurant hosted its first Thanksgiving in 1982.
COVID-19 has put all businesses on notice, including the institutions. That's part of why Joe and Rebecca are a touch jittery about reopening. But mainly, they're ready to repay some gratitude and serve some turkey.
“The kindness has been amazing at times,” Joe said. “The letters we've received from people saying they got engaged here or had all their anniversaries here. People coming in and buying $500 gift cards; it's been overwhelming at times.”
For reservations and information about Thanksgiving dining at Legend's, call 329-8888.