Despite recent economic struggles, Oklahoma City is still a city on the move.
In an era of local development, OKC continues to experience new growth and renewed opportunities like never before. New districts are emerging, and old districts are thriving. National corporations and nationwide retailers are establishing new locations in the Sooner State. Restaurant concepts are thriving, and OKC is reaching new culinary heights.
One of OKC’s newest restaurant concept, Hopscotch, is set to continue this trend and bring a little extra fun to the metro. With their focus on burgers, grilled cheese and hops, Hopscotch is bringing something for both families and adults.
LINKED Magazine sat down with one of Hopscotch’s developers, Joe Jungmann, to get an inside look at how he got started in the business and what’s in store for the future of Hopscotch.
LINKED: How did you get started in the restaurant business?
Jungmann: When I was seventeen years old, I was a busboy at Chandler’s Landing Yacht Club in Rockwell, Texas. It gave me all facets of the restaurant side, all the way up from fine dining. We had a grill and a snack bar. We did catering at people’s houses. We went out on boats and catered on boats, and we had event rooms. I basically learned all of the facets of the restaurant world under one little roof.
When I went to school, I went to El Chico and learned the corporate side. When I finished an education degree at North Texas, I went back to waiting tables at another corporate restaurant - On the Border. With On the Border, I was an opening kitchen manager that opened seven locations. I then went on to open Red Rock Canyon, the first one on the lake.
From there, I started my own thing - starting with The Dugout and then Spinozi’s - then from Spinozi’s to Paseo Grill and Sauced on Paseo. We also had a restaurant called The Whole Enchilada Café.
From there, I did consulting work at Hefner Grill. I also set up KD’s restaurant, where I did everything from the construction side to designing the concept and then managing the concept. I did the same thing for the Wes Welker’s location. I had lots of help, so I worked with lots of people, but I headed up both of those.
LINKED: What made you want to start Hopscotch?
J: I got to travel the United States when I put together Kevin Durant’s restaurant. I would go out to different places, and I would find the hot spots, and through reading and looking at the next new hot concepts, burger concepts were something that I fell in love with. The other side of it was the grilled cheese aspect of saying, ‘everybody else does a burger. What can I do to make this pop?’
Grilled cheese fell along, because right now in Oklahoma, we’re getting all of these different cheeses in, which 10 years ago we couldn’t do. Across the country, a lot of the bigger cities have these cheeses. I was very impressed with it, so I got some great grilled cheese recipes that I wanted to share with the people here in Oklahoma.
LINKED: How would you describe your restaurant?
J: Fun. We’re also going to be a very cost-conscious place. We’re proud of Oklahoma and what we can do in Oklahoma. We want to work on the local side of things to keep our resources within Oklahoma. I want [our customers] to have a new type of fun experience where we can entertain the family and then, later on, entertain adults - in the evening where they have a place to go.
LINKED: Why Oklahoma City? Why do you think it makes for a good market to open restaurants in?
J: We’ve grown our roots here in Oklahoma, and we fell in love with Oklahoma City. By falling in love with it, we love the growth, we love to see what’s happening, and we love to see that we’re part of the growth of Oklahoma City. We decided to put our roots here.
LINKED: What’s next for Joe Jungmann?
J: I’ve got big plans to open Hopscotch. We are looking to duplicate this concept at least one, two, maybe three more times, and then within the next 10 years, my goal is to be a part of 10 to 15 restaurants, if not more. With the versatility of what we see, it opens up avenues. We could go all the way up to finer dining down to smaller dining. We’re looking at every side of the spectrum. At one point, we’re opening our hospitality concept, where we mentor people opening their own restaurant like what we did. I think after we’re done with the restaurant side of things; we’ll get into consulting.
Hopscotch is set to open in August 2016. Catch Part Two of Hopscotch’s story and details about its opening in the August 2016 issue of LINKED Magazine.