Oklahoma’s State Park restaurants taking pride in local product sourcing

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) - As a new restaurant settles into Oklahoma’s State Parks, their owner said one of their main goals is providing products from right here in the Sooner State.

JP Wilson, owner of La Ratatouille, LLC and Oklahoma’s state park restaurant The Lookout Kitchen, said they feel it’s all about their products being Oklahoma made and going straight to the face of food for Oklahoma’s state parks.

"I think it's important to see the Oklahoma name and Oklahoma products across this menu at the parks,” Wilson said.

According to Wilson, most of their menu is filled with local products and ingredients.

One of those local providers can be found off Highway 74 right here in the metro. We’re talking about the Okola-homa Soda Co.

"It's bottled with our family recipes that took over 14 months in product development,” said company co-owner John Occhipinti.

The business all started with a wild idea at an Occhipinti family picnic. He said he has two sons who are big soda drinkers and they started joking about getting into that kind of business.

"Four years later, here we go with the first family owned, family managed producer of handcrafted soda in the state of Oklahoma,” Occhipinti said.

Now, his company sends the product statewide and beyond at a clip of roughly 800 to 900 cases per day.

“The visitors, the tourists and locals alike that visit Lookout Kitchen, they are getting that full-fledged made in Oklahoma experience,” Occhipinti said.

Another local contributor is tucked just southwest of downtown called The Clubhouse Market.

“We do mostly beef, pork, chicken,” said Debbie Wilson. General manager of the business.

The meat market has been around since the late 1940s. Wilson’s family has been running it since 2007.

They pump out anywhere between 4,500 to 7,500 pounds of meat per day depending on how busy they are.

With The Lookout Kitchen’s business, Wilson said it’s helped a lot.

"It kind of gave us the boost we needed to not only survive but try to thrive,” she said.

Oklahomans helping Oklahomans. The standard, even in business.

"Knowing that we can help other Oklahomans help their business thrive and that means the world to us,” Wilson said.