The Wild Story Behind Oklahoma’s Most Unforgettable Restaurant

If you grew up in Oklahoma in the 80s or 90s, there’s a decent chance you made the pilgrimage to Molly Murphy’s in Oklahoma City at least once.

If you did, you never forgot.

Molly Murphy’s wasn’t just a restaurant. It was practically an Oklahoma Gen-X rite of passage. People drove from every corner of the Sooner State to experience it.

The whole gimmick was the waitstaff. They weren’t rude in a mean, hurt-your-feelings kind of way like Dick's Last Resort. It was more sarcastic and playful, all in good fun. Like an old-fashioned roast, but everyone was the guest of honor. The zingers were sharp enough to make you laugh at yourself without actually wanting to throw hands.

The other gimmick was the staff themselves and the costumes they wore instead of uniforms. It was rad. Every server was something different. A doctor. A pirate. Even both kinds of bikers... Leather vest for one, skin-tight spandex for the other. It was like a permanent state of delicious Halloween.

I was pretty young when my family went. It was the early 90s, I couldn't have been more than 9 or 10 at the time. I don’t remember what I ate, but the other details were unforgettable.

Every drink came in a Molly Murphy’s mason jar that you could take home, or maybe we had to buy them. They're still in my mom's kitchen cabinets, and I've laid claim to them when she dies.

And the famous salad bar. They really chopped up a classic hot-rod red 1963 Jaguar and filled it with salad options and toppings. It was wild.

Hindsight, that was peak 90s.

At some point during the night, music would kick up, and the staff would just start dancing. Like a full-on performance, choreographed like they were contractually obligated by disco law.

You think birthday announcements at Texas Roadhouse get old? Imagine having a dance number built into your shift schedule.

And then there was the bathroom situation.

You did not want to ask where the restroom was, but most people had to. They knew what they were doing and took that opportunity to tell everyone else that you had to go.

Some servers would just loudly announce it to the entire restaurant. Other times they’d grab you by the wrist and parade you around the dining room asking strangers, “Do you know where the bathroom is? This guy has to tinkle!” Harmless and fun enough, but I'm sure someone ended up telling their bathroom story to their therapist one day.

Also, the bathroom tiles had naked ladies on them. At least that's how the men's room was. Nothing graphic, but enough to make a 9-year-old sink into a pit of awkwardness as his dad calmly repeats “Just look at the floor while you pee.”

And when you came back to your table, the staff would lead a round of applause for your, well, accomplishment. No detail of your dining experience was safe.

What happened to Molly Murphy's?

One of the local Oklahoma City news stations did some digging on what they felt were bad business practices. Apparently, there were Molly Murphy's coupons out in the wild, but the restaurant wouldn't honor them after you'd eaten your meal. The news reporter dragged a camera along for one of those classic 90s surprise "Gotcha" interviews with the owner, and it ended with police, handcuffs, assault charges, and lawsuits.

Molly Murphy’s didn’t survive the publicity and closed not long after. But it still lives on in our legendary stories.

To be fair, as far as I know, Waffle House is the only restaurant that can beat an assault charge. Heck, that's half the reason you go to Waffle House. It's literally the IHOP for people who can box.

The 90s really were a grand time to be alive.