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Historic place

Dolores Restaurant

33 NE 23rd St, Oklahoma City, OK

Ralph and Amanda Stephens named this drive-in for their daughter in 1930. Duncan Hines recommended it in 1941, and it closed in 1974.

📅 1930–1974🏛️ RestaurantDemolished
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The story

Dolores Restaurant opened at 33 NE 23 on April 15, 1930, and took its name from Ralph and Amanda Stephens' daughter. Bob Ogle, Ralph's brother-in-law, managed it. The family had slept in the stand while building their first stand, Goody-Goody Barbeque, in Missouri. Amanda picked up a comeback sauce recipe in Quincy, Illinois.

Susi-Q potatoes were invented in 1938, and Duncan Hines recommended the restaurant in his 1941 book. Ogle perfected a root beer float called Ogle's Special. The Stephenses opened a Dolores Drive-In in Los Angeles in 1944 or 1945. A year after Ralph bought The Pub in 1968, he sold the Oklahoma City Dolores to a group of investors, who closed it for good in 1974. The Catering Co. later announced plans to reopen it after eight years of vacancy, but the source found no further record. The building was razed a few years afterward.

What's There Now

Nothing; the source says the site is just a memory.

Everything that was here

Did you know?

Susi-Q potatoes were invented here in 1938.
Duncan Hines recommended it in his 1941 book.
The Stephens family opened a Los Angeles Dolores in 1944 or 1945, and one Dolores survives on Santa Monica Blvd.

Nearby history

Blue Note Lounge

2408 N Robinson Ave · 444 m away
A Route 66 lounge whose neon sign went up in 1961 and which the state historical society calls one of the city's oldest

Chicken in the Rough (first restaurant)

2429 N Lincoln Blvd · 864 m away
The Osbornes opened a nine-stool drive-in on Route 66 in 1936. It grew to seat 1,100 before the state capitol complex to

Tower Theatre

425 NW 23rd St · 871 m away
A Streamline Moderne movie house with a pipe organ that went adult in 1989, closed in 2000, and came back as a music ven

Boulevard Cafeteria

525 NW 11th St · 1.8 km away
A cafeteria that opened in 1948 on Classen Drive and moved across the street in 1975. It closed in December 2015, ending

Oklahoma City University School of Law

800 N Harvey Ave · 2.0 km away
OCU bought the building in 2012, and its law school moved in beginning in 2015.

Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building

200 NW 5th St · 2.3 km away
A $14.5 million federal office block opened in 1977 and stood for 18 years, until a truck bomb ended it on April 19, 199

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Sourceshttps://www.retrometrookc.org/?p=5271