It’s 6:30 p.m. on a Friday evening in March and The Tavern, 201 N. Main St., is full of diners eating bacon popcorn, angry mac and cheese, fish and chips, the signature burger or another one of the entrees on the upscale neighborhood pub menu.
A big bar lining the wall near the entrance is full of extended happy hour drinkers with some diners mixed in. Just past the bar is a small kitchen that on a busy Friday can prepare 400-500 dishes.
Executive chef Austin Plumlee, wearing a camo apron and a Phish ballcap, is in the middle of the action, prepping specialty dishes. An expeditor inches away from him passes off more appetizers and entrees to a group of servers soon headed back to the dining room with their hands full of dishes.
“It’s a big restaurant with a tiny kitchen,” Plumlee said.
Tucked in a kitchen nook is a wood prep table occupied by a birthday celebration for two enjoying the Chef’s Table experience. It’s unlike any other dining experience in Tulsa. This night’s guests describe it as a “mindblowing experience.” They’re only midway through dinner.
Every Friday and Saturday night, diners up to a party of six are served five courses — four savory and a dessert for $125 per person — that can be paired with glasses of wine for an additional $50 a diner. At the beginning of each course, Plumlee shares details and answers questions before leaving them to enjoy it while he preps the next dish.
The Chef’s Table menu used to change every week, but Plumlee learned if he kept it the same for a month, he could experiment until it’s perfected. His team has figured out how to make it a larger dish for the Tavern menu served 30 to 40 times a night.
“The first time you make a dish, it’s good, but then you’re going to make it again and again and you’re like, ‘Oh, what if we did this this way and that this way? It would be great if we added more acid into it, or smoke or char, or any of those things,’” Plumlee said. “What we’re doing now is finding dishes and slowly perfecting them before we kick them out of the menu and start another one.”
Plumlee’s pursuit of perfection drives him. He dreams of services where the kitchen is fully staffed, inventory is in place for hundreds of dishes prepared at the proper times and cooked to perfection. There are no returns or dish comps on the sales report at the end of the shift.
In baseball, a perfect game is when a pitcher doesn’t allow a hitter to reach base. There have been 27 in Major League Baseball history — out of more than 238,000 games. Perfection is rare.
How many perfect days has Plumlee had in his kitchen?
Zero.
“That’s just restaurants,” he said with a laugh.
But he returns day in and day out in pursuit of that elusive goal.
“This is my 20th year in restaurants,” Plumlee said. “I’ll be 35 this year. I started when I was 15. I’ve worked for just about everybody in town. I’ve been everywhere. All I really know is restaurants. Being back at Tavern as an executive chef the last four years, I’ve been able to find a stride.”
From Compadres to The Tavern and too much whiskey in between
Plumlee’s first restaurant job was as a busboy at Compadres Mexican Grill when it opened in Broken Arrow. He’d soon be promoted to “chip boy,” or the person who delivered chips and salsa to the table. Then he was a host and server and helped open new stores as the business expanded over the next five years.
During that time, he became a vegan when being a vegan meant it was hard to find good options in Tulsa. He started cooking his own meals and discovered a new passion. He’s no longer vegan, claiming he’s now the furthest thing from it.
He moved to Denver and spent a couple of years working in restaurants before returning to work in Tulsa kitchens at SMOKE and the now-closed Joe Momma’s and Tallgrass.
It was long hours in multiple kitchens every week — 65 to 75 hours in the heat and lots of pressure to make the pizza/steak/chicken perfect every time. He worked two to three jobs at a time. He did what a lot of people in the industry do and drank a lot of liquor. Whiskey was his drink of choice and his paychecks funded his addiction.
He has a lot of gratitude for the people who believed in him despite what held him back.
“There’s a lot of people who I didn’t really give them a choice sometimes with letting me go and stuff due to how I was, but there’s a lot of people that gave me a lot of chances and backed me up,” Plumlee recalled. “And I wouldn’t be here without people like that believing in me, even though I was a constant little s–t show.”
From ages 24 to 28 he drank a handle a day, starting with at least a pint’s worth before going to work.
“I almost had a stroke, and I had to be put in a drug-induced coma for a little over 24 hours,” Plumlee said. “I spent nine days in the hospital detoxing from alcohol. I had jaundice. My eyes were orange, and I had yellow skin. I’d become anemic. I had numerous doctors saying, ‘you’re in the last stages of liver failure before cirrhosis.’”
On the fifth day of detox, Plumlee wanted to rip out the IVs and go get a drink or 20. A doctor came into his room and told him he was lucky to be alive and that he’d be dead in a year max if he left that room that day.
“That was my light bulb moment, and I’ve never gone back. My life has done nothing but shoot upward since then,” Plumlee said. “Almost dying was the best thing that ever happened in my life.”
In recent years he’s lost his mother and father who battled addictions, his younger brother who abused alcohol and drugs. His older sister died from cirrhosis last April. Out of a family of seven, there remain three — his big brother, who Plumlee says has been able to manage his addiction “the right way,” and his younger sister, who he says “hasn’t really caught the bug.”
“Addiction runs rampant in my family, and every time I lose somebody related because of that, it just kind of sets me in the understanding of why I’ll never do it again, because I got so lucky,” Plumlee said. “I won’t ever go back because I already got one chance. I might not have a second chance. My little brother passed away at 21. He didn’t get that second chance.”
He went to work for McNellie’s Group as a line cook and was promoted to sous chef all while falling in love with his now wife Audrey, who soon became the executive chef. Their life together revolved around work and she had become his boss, so he moved on to Lowood. Plumlee had a scare when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down much of the world, including his employer.
Bringing joy to the kitchen
With no job and no concerts to attend — a longtime source of joy — Plumlee turned to collecting shoes to stave off his addictive needs and occupy his time. Knowing a working kitchen would keep him straight, he called his old Tallgrass colleague Johnna Hayes and asked if there was room for him in her Bird & Bottle kitchen. She told him he could work there ‘til he found a new place.
Less than two months later came a call from FarmBar chef Lisa Becklund.
“Lisa has a way with food and a way that she talks about food and looks at food that gave me a different perspective, a different love,” Plumlee said. “The way she grows food and then serves it night after night showed me a different way of falling in love with food. So I will always have her to thank for the way I approach my work now.”
Leaving her side was the toughest decision he’s made in his career, but he was ready to be an executive chef. His wife had changed roles within McNellie’s Group, which opened a door for his return four years ago.
It’s all paid off.
“Austin is just a great dude,” said Ben Alexander, head of culinary operations for McNellie’s Group. “He’s been dealt a hand that would crush a normal person, but he persevered and made a great name and following for himself. He makes great imaginative food that resonates with a lot of people.”
His role has changed. He doesn’t cook as much as he used to and way less than people assume. He’s busy figuring out costs and directing kitchen operations to ensure food meets high standards. He’s working on dishes for future menus. He’s making sure his staff is in a good place mentally and thriving in their jobs. Their happiness is important to him.
“You spend a lot of time with these people, more than you do sometimes with your own family. I see these people more than I see my sister or brother. I talk to these people every day,” Plumlee said. “If you treat everyone like they are family, you’re gonna have a lot happier kitchen … Nine times out of 10 if you treat people with the respect that you want instead of just demanding it, you’re going to get more out of them and they’re going to enjoy their job more.”
Occasionally he will escape the kitchen to travel to a Phish or Billy Strings concert, where he’ll get into the groove and suddenly dream up a new dish at a future Chef’s Table.
“I will be at a concert just being happy and dancing and something will pop in my head, and I’ll literally be like, ‘That sounds awesome!’ and put it in my phone, because I’m just happy and I’m enjoying it,” Plumlee said. “Having freedom to enjoy your life, to spend time outside of work, makes you love the creation of food and the inspiration of food for a lot more. That’s how I felt the past few years. I’m developing the best food I’ve ever made because I’m enjoying my life.”
Disclosure: Johnna Hayes is this reporter’s wife. She was not involved in the writing or reporting of this story.
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