the MARTINI SHAKER

Let me tell you about Molly Murphy’s House of Fine Repute.

Molly Murphy’s was an Oklahoma institution from 1976-1996. We would go there when I was young as a special occasion restaurant. It was near Will Rogers International Airport in Oklahoma City on Meridian Avenue’s “Restaurant Row,” but my research is showing that there was also a Tulsa location.

It’s very hard to accurately describe what this restaurant was like without just calling it a large, darkly lit, maze-like Applebee’s where the wait staff dressed in costume¹, assumed those characters’ personas and did rude and outrageous things to you while they served you overpriced chicken and steak.

That was the appeal of the place. You went there so that costumed drama majors could treat you like shit. And you LOVED it.

I loved absolutely everything about this place. Without realizing at the time, I was completely drawn in by the eclectic architecture and experience design far beyond the mere enjoyment that it gave most people. Molly Murphy’s had an aesthetic that sticks with me in my work today. And, the menus were about as fantastic an example of late 70′s sign illustration as I can imagine.

However, with as much as I loved about the place, there was a dark and foreboding threat contained in that den of mahogany dining that ate at my soul every time we stepped through the front door.

As I mentioned, the waiters were very deliberate with their in-character rude/outrageous treatment of their customers. One of the big things about the Molly Murphy’s experience was the ridicule of customers trying to find the restroom. The restroom was very hard to find² and the staff made a point to parade you through the restaurant and publicly announce that you had to potty if you were foolish enough to ask someone. I’ve even found stories online that a few of the foolish were even paraded over to the Kettle next door so that even those diners would know that someone had to go tinkle.

I had seen this firsthand on the occasions that I had dined there, and this mortified me. My goal in life when I was at Molly Murphy’s was simple: I would make sure I was never the butt of potty ridicule.

Of course, the most reasonable tactic would have been to discreetly locate the restrooms on my own and remember where they were, but instead I decided my strategy would be to always hold it if I had to go and wait until we could hit the Texaco down the street. I think this is mostly because I was also scared that the waiters were waiting in the restroom for anyone who had to go and then would ridicule you there too. Or, maybe the waiters would be waiting outside the restroom and follow you back to your table while telling everyone how bad it smelled when you opened the door. It was too much stress for a neurotic elementary school kid like me.

I vividly recall one night in the late 70s, which would place me at about seven in this story. We were there for someone’s birthday. I don’t recall who³, but I do remember saying how old this person was and getting a quick, snappy, “no one cares” back from the waiter⁴ upon which he most likely thrust the birthday person’s hand into the cake. Again, that was just the sort of stuff you expected from a night at Molly Murphy’s.

We were seated at table 8. According to what I’ve seen online, this was called the Button Booth⁵.

Directly across from the Button Booth was the salad bar, which was built out of a 1963 red Jaguar XKE. We had placed our order⁶ and when it was time to get up for the salad bar, I felt the need to pee.

I REALLY needed to pee, and I didn’t know where the restroom was⁷. Of course, my parents told me to ask where the restroom was, but I knew better. I knew what happened to people who asked where the restroom is, and besides, I was fairly certain that everyone wanted me to ask because they knew my stance of restroom usage at Molly Murphy’s and they just wanted to witness the spectacle that would follow. That’s why I did the only sensible thing I could think of to do.

I pissed myself next to the salad car.

Actually, that’s not quite accurate. I pissed myself at the stairs that led up to the Button Booth. The trail of hot urine running down my leg followed me from the stairs over to the salad car. If my family wanted a restroom spectacle, they sure as shit got one.

I sure do miss Molly Murphy’s. I’m a bit fuzzy as to when we stopped going there, but it feels to me like it was somewhere around 1984-85⁸. So, you can imagine my surprise when I found that the restaurant had actually stayed open until 1996.

I was even more surprised to find that there is not one, but two books written about the fabled establishment. One written by the late owner’s wife and the other from the point of view of someone who worked there. If you’re looking for a Christmas gift for me, you could certainly do worse than to pick up either one of these books for me. I’d be absolutely fascinated with them.