StarSpace46 Chat: Jonathon Stranger

It's no secret that, within the last decade, the food scene in Oklahoma City has come to rival the best in the world. From award-winning restaurants to world-renowned wine and spirits, locally-based chefs and entrepreneurs have put OKC dining on the map. It's not even a well-kept secret–we're famous for our fantastic food and drink.

 Chef and businessman Jonathon Stranger is among those taking our food scene to even greater heights. As a child, Jonathan spent weekends at his family's farm in Chandler, helping his grandma prepare farm-to-table dinners. This upbringing was long before we even used the phrase farm-to-table, and gave him a background in Oklahoma eats beyond compare.

 After journeying to New York City to work under some of the world's finest chefs, Jonathon returned to OKC. He centralized his cooking operations as chef-owner with the openings of En Croute and St. Mark's Chop Room, where he currently operates in a creative capacity for special events as he pursues additional entrepreneurial endeavors. He is also co-owner of Prairie Wolf Spirits, a distillery based in Guthrie, Oklahoma, and chef at his new concept Osteria, alongside business partner Fabio Viviani.

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 Jonathan recently sat down with StarSpace46 partner Jeff Yenzer to discuss the business of food and spirits. You'll find a video of their chat embedded below. However, due to technical issues with the recording, we decided to gather some highlights of their conversation for you here on the good old-fashioned blog.

 The restaurant industry has, of course, been deeply impacted by COVID-19 mandates and rapid changes in consumer habits this year. These challenges, however, were greeted with a sense of possibility by Jonathan and his team.

 "I'm not doing a project if it's not bringing something to where I live, which is, you know, Oklahoma City," Jonathan noted. "To help bring positive experiences to the people that live here. Regardless of what a spreadsheet says." He went on to explain how, for him, business is about more than predictive formulas. From his experience, forecasts are "at best an educated guess. We've been shown that you know how lack of control we all have in reality, recently, and so if it's not fun, if that's something that doesn't exist in some form, I'm just not going to do it."

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 For Jonathan, Osteria is a recent example of a restaurant concept that allows him to bring something to the community that wasn't there before. "Growing up with Italian grandparents, I always loved Italian food and … just really wanted to something really authentic," Jonathan shouted out to Jonathan Krell at Patrono and his business partner, Fabio, as two chefs that exemplify excellence in local Italian food. "We want to take what I've done in Oklahoma, which is working with local farms and focus on Italian cuisine, and least the philosophy behind it."

 That philosophy is building a menu focused on local ingredients. "That's what Italian food is, you know. You're not going to go to Italy and sit down in a restaurant, they're like, "Hey, we brought in this fresh mozzarella from miles away. They won't do it," he attested.

 Earlier this year, during one of the highest peaks (so far) of COVID-19 uncertainty, Jonathan put "foot to ass" and expanded cultivation in his garden. "The whole idea behind it was during World War II, the US had Victory Gardens," he elaborated. It was a therapeutic effort, as well, allowing him to "get off the roller coaster in my own mind."

 He recalled his mindset at the time: "Your businesses are shut down because of the pandemic and a virus we don't really know much about. It's like, 'Am I going to die and my business fail? What am I going to do?' So it was really nice to have a garden to go out to, and just kind of let all those thoughts spin out, and now that provides the majority of the produce for the restaurant."

 Aside from several beloved restaurant concepts, Jonathan is also part owner of Prairie Wolf Spirits, along with several friends and native Oklahomans. Their portfolio features Prairie Wolf Vodka, Loyal Gin, and Prairie Wolf DARK. In the early summer of 2018, the team launched their now award-winning Obahoshe Inland-Style Rum made with sorghum sourced from farms in Wewoka, OK.

 "We're all babies in Oklahoma in the distilling industry," Jonathan pointed out. But the Prairie Wolf Spirits team has big plans for the future. "We want to go to our Oklahoma roots, and use stuff from the farm, and build just badass spirit. It's going to take time, take years, but that's OK."

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Jonathan and Prairie Wolf are now expanding their facility in Guthrie, Oklahoma, with additions of a tasting room and a footprint increase of 2,900 square feet to about 16,000.

 He expressed a great deal of gratefulness and affection for the neighbors and civic leaders near their facility. "The town of Guthrie has been amazing through this whole thing."

 Not satisfied to let current events ruin all sense of community spirit, Jonathon and Prairie Wolf Spirits are supporting a COVID-friendly event coming up in October. "They always used to do Red Brick Nights in Guthrie. And now we're going to do a Red Brick Nights Cruise. Like an old school, cruise down Main Street, and then everybody's going to end up at the drive-in theater and have bands playing on top of the concession stand. That's going to be super cool."

 A spirit of tradition and community runs through all of the brands in Jonathon's circumference, and plans for Prairie Wolf Spirits are no different. "We are just going to do some cool stuff and hopefully make some badass spirits and get them out there," Jonathon reiterated. "Our goal is to focus on Oklahoma. It's not to grow to every state in the country. It's to go deep in Oklahoma and hopefully make people proud of what we're producing."