It’s official, another restaurant at 219 East Dewey has bitten the dust.
Dick’s On 66 is the latest casualty of the location that has seen more than its share of restaurants come and go in the last several years.
Owners Tyler and Angie Goins originally wanted to utilize the space as a commercial kitchen to be a processing facility for medical marijuana. The city recommended denial of that application, despite the fact that the Goins had gotten all their certifications, and been paying rent since August of 2018 when the previous restaurant had closed. Other downtown business owners were vocal about their desire to have another restaurant or retail establishment in the space and not a business that was closed to the public. “We want a business in that space that wants to be seen,” said Sapulpa Planning Commissioner Hunter Edwards at the time.
Trying to make the best of a bad situation, the Goins decided to give the city what they were asking for and opened up Dick’s on 66 in early 2020. The restaurant initially focused on hot dogs and hamburgers but later refined their menu, dropping the dogs and adding items like their (fantastic) Philly cheesesteak sandwiches. They experimented with being open for breakfast but saw a better draw for the lunch and dinner crowd, where they remained for most of the last year.
In early June, their walk-in refrigerator went out and the expense was too big for the restaurant to bear. “It’s a lot of money to put into a building that we don’t own,” said Angie Goins. They made the tough decision to close after being open for about a year and a half. Goins said they considered moving the restaurant to a space on Mission Street, but that would’ve been just as cost-prohibitive, if not more so. “There were so many issues that would cost a lot of money to fix,” she said.
The location has consistently been a restaurant since 1927 and has gained a reputation over the last few years as being a great spot for a diner, but extremely expensive when compared to other retail spaces in the downtown area. The owner of Dick’s predecessor, Randall’s Diner, told Sapulpa Times that he was being charged such a high rent that when combined with utilities and paying staff, it was impossible to pay bills. “We literally did not have the capacity in our kitchen to put out enough food to pay our bills,” he said. Randall’s closed less than a year after having been open. The previous restaurant, called Victory’s Cafe, had also closed after less than a year.
