OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — Oklahoma City has signed off on permit plans for a Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen in the northwest part of the city, moving the Houston-based chain a step closer to opening its first restaurant anywhere in Oklahoma.
The approval came this week. Rezoning for the project cleared in 2024, and the restaurant company then needed fresh permits in 2025. No opening date or construction start has been announced.
The planned site sits along Lake Hefner Parkway in northwest Oklahoma City, an area that has filled in over the past decade with hotels, offices and shops. Pappas Restaurants, which runs Pappadeaux, bought land at 13600 Memorial Park Drive in 2014 for $2.09 million and got the zoning it needed that same year, yet nothing was ever built on the lot.
Back in 2014, the company sought approval for a 14,000-square-foot restaurant serving Louisiana-style seafood on roughly 3.1 acres near W. Memorial Road and Hefner Parkway. The chain later chased a site closer to downtown, by Interstate 235 around North Broadway Avenue and Northwest 16th Street. The Oklahoma City Planning Commission approved that plan 6-2 with one abstention, but it did not go forward.
Pappadeaux has 38 locations in eight states. The family behind it traces its restaurant roots to H.D. Pappas, who came to the United States from Greece in 1897. His sons later opened Pappas Refrigeration in 1945, and his grandsons opened the first family restaurant of the modern company in 1976.
For diners on the northwest side, this week’s approval is the strongest signal so far that a project first floated more than a decade ago may finally get built.
Section: More Oklahoma City OK business news
Filed under: Oklahoma City OK Business News
