Good Egg pushes dining forward while paying homage to the past

With its most ambitious concept to date, A Good Egg Dining Group has used a portion of Oklahoma City’s history to offer a great new place to eat and abet the ongoing makeover of downtown.

An opportunity presented by SandRidge Energy allowed an idea sown about two years ago — to re-imagine the city’s historic cafeteria culture — to see sunlight on the corner of Robinson Avenue and Dean A. McGee.

Kitchen 324 boasts American Rustic Cuisine, pumping out lunch, breakfast, breads and pastries seven days a week. To pull that off, corporate chef Robert Black’s staff operates the subterranean kitchen all but about two hours a day.

Turns out, A Good Egg President Keith Paul and his wife and business partner, Heather, have unlocked the code for paying homage to the past while giving the needle for local dining a violent shove forward.

Kitchen 324 became A Good Egg Dining’s crowning achievement with a simple formula: dream big, hire passionate people and cook from scratch.

FOOD DUDE

Adjusting the concept

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When cafeterias ruled Oklahoma City dining, the model was enormous. Boulevard Cafeteria, the last of the city’s classic cafeterias, still operates under the old modwhich included an enormous kitchen, huge dining room and comfort food made from scratch daily by a legion of cooks. The only kitchens like that anymore, outside of Boulevard Cafeteria, are typically commissary kitchens that supply multiple units.

Kitchen 324’s main kitchen is below ground, and it’s plenty large, but it’s certainly not the largest kitchen in the city.

Keith Paul said the team also felt it was important to offer the highquality service the group has a reputation for offering at places such as Red Primesteak, Cheever’s Cafe, Iron Starr Urban BBQ and Republic American Gastropub.

“And we didn’t want people walking around with trays either,” said Heather Paul.

The answer for the Pauls was a style of service unseen in this market. Kitchen 324 offers counter service and table service simultaneously. Whether you initially order from the main counter or the coffee counter, goods are delivered to your table, and additional ordering can be done from