The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

Location(s) Being Reviewed: 507 S Boston Ave
Date/Time of Visit: lunchtime 1/11/11
Quality of Food (1-5): 4
Menu/Food Options (1-5): 3
Quality of Service (1-5): 5
Atmosphere (1-5): 4
Overall Rating (1-5): 4
Price ($-$$$$$): $$$
What makes this restaurant unique: Crepes and Gelato

Tell us about your experience:
Before Mod's opened, I had never eaten crepes. In fact, you could say I "couldn't give a crepe" about them. I did go and try it because I know the owner, Rusty, and was confidant he wouldn't open the store unless it was going to be awesome.

The menu is primarily crepes filled with an assortment of meats, vegetables, fruits and cheeses. They also have coffee from Topeca, Italian sodas, and Gelato. While their price is not what I would consider my normal amount to spend on "a pancake and ice cream," you definitely get a premium product for the price. I highly recommend it to people who want something different, or want to find an alternative to fried food.

There is no alternative to fried food only other foods not as delicious.

However, the gelato is excellent.

I wonder if someone will open an Admin's Coffee & Crepes

Funny.  I wasn't thinking the exact same thing, but I was going to ask which Mod owned this Coffee & Crepes.

 ;D

Agree, I wouldn't say I would make a special trip to get these, but if I was downtown(which hopefully will be much more) I would pop over to have a coffee and Galato from here.

I'm the breakfast cook here in the chateau, responsible for pancakes, waffles, French toast, crepes, and various kinds of eggs, bacon, and sausage.  If crepes are made right, they contain a whopping dose of butter, so they're probably not the healthiest things.  Sure, you can make them with margarine, but why bother?  As an occasional treat, they're wonderful.

She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed makes them with a chicken and cheese filling, very rich, and very filling.  I like to go to the farmers market in season, and get fresh fruit to fill them.  Crepes filled with fresh peaches, cream cheese, and a bit of powdered sugar on top go very well with strong, black coffee.

Now I'm hungry.

Just for reference they have never served Topeca.  Downtown Topeca is at the Mayo, Hyatt, Joebot's, Dilly Delli, Brady Tavern, and Cafe320.  The Mayo has been serving Coffee and Crepes in downtown since  2007.

Hey John, I didn't know you were on here.

Excellent coffee.  Thanks for working so hard here in Tulsa.

Thanks!

I love the shop in the Mayo...I'm there every weekend.

I'm a big fan of both Topeca and Mod's.  They have been great additions to downtown.

Bumping old topic with news that Mod's is closing December 16th.

I'm relatively new to the downtown area, but I saw a few comments about food truck to restaurant issues. Did Mod's start out as a food truck? I k now they had one until recently, but that makes this news all the sadder if they started as a truck, found success enough to open a store, and for reasons unknown had to close them both.

Reddit is missinformed
Mod's was a a storefront before it got mobile.

Seven years is a pretty good run.  Do they still have the food truck and this was a planned phase out of the brick and mortar?

Yep better than most places.  Maybe someone will take it over and they can keep making crepes and serving gelato.  Business could be the same but maybe rent went up?  Seems like a good opportunity for Libby Billings.

They were trying to sell the food truck so this doesn't look like a keep the food truck drop the B&M thing.

She has her hands full...

I noticed that the majority of the shops in the Philcade are all gone now.
Did they get chased out? Rent raised?

The Tulsa Teachers Credit Union is taking over a large part of the street level of the Philcade.  It's disappointing to see the area go "anti-retail".  Our daytime numbers are up at DECOPOLIS but the evening numbers are possibly a little down. Over all our sales look like they will be 10% up for the year.  Hopefully something will go into the Mod's space that is interesting and unique with a food component that is open in the evenings. 

It is nice to see the buildings filling up with more office workers in the area, but really, even filling them all up with office and living is not enough for retail to thrive.  Retail works best when there is a "massing" of it in an area to make it a destination. I mean I can "survive" there, work hard and eek out a meager profit.  But that ain't gonna get me rocketing towards my bigger goals and dreams lol.  Will be interesting to see how things go this coming year.

Always love your insights William.

m

So does this mean the little pop up shop enclave has disappeared from the Philcade?

Made has a small Christmas shop, and there are a couple others but I doubt they'll be there for long. Now that Made is in the Archer Building I don't know if they'll have a presence after the new year.

That's too bad, it was a nice little retail enclave.  Our last shopping season in Tulsa was quite memorable with a stop in there, Decopolis, and the then new Boxyard last year.

Being in Cimarron, NM now we know many people from Philmont Scout Ranch and have had guests at our B & B on Philmont Staff Association business frequently.  Philbrook, Philtower, and Philcade all become a neat topic of conversation when it comes up that MC and I moved here from Tulsa.  The PSA is having their gathering in Tulsa this next year with several tours planned.  Kind of cool to get to still live with WP's legacy around us.  Just the idea that someone donated as much land as he did to the Boy Scouts and the legacy for the arts he left with Philbrook is pretty amazing.

He donated the Philtower to the Scouts too, to pay for the upkeep on Philmont. They talk about the donation of Philmont and The Philtower in the orientation for scouting groups when they get to Philmont, or least they used to do so.

If they are moving in there, what are they doing in that big 6 story building they build in South Tulsa?

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.0463446,-95.8656642,3a,39y,327.08h,98.84t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s3F96D9OeMufeOxz5eam8nQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en-US
 (https://www.google.com/maps/@36.0463446,-95.8656642,3a,39y,327.08h,98.84t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s3F96D9OeMufeOxz5eam8nQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en-US)

I know the new building on 81st is the new main office replacing the one on 31st, I guess the downtown stuff is just a new branch.

I was unaware of that until we moved here, it's very much in the lore of Philmont still.  That was the endowment to maintain Philmont, but Philtower sold some time back and I'm unsure about the ownership of Philcade.  They've got an amazing donor network for Philmont now and are spending a good deal on improvements.  The National BSA museum is moving to the grounds of Philmont and is currently under construction

Are they closing the 31st & New Haven location?

To be accurate, it isn't Tulsa Teachers Credit Union anymore, it is "TTCU Federal Credit Union."
https://www.ttcu.com/more/other/news/2017/07/14/new-name-same-ttcu



Talking about the big building on the south side of 31st, not the branch location on the NE corner...

I wondered that too, since its in my 'hood.  Property records indicate they own the building, as well as the surrounding parking lots  and the bit of green space to the SW - presumably so they could expand their HQ as may be necessary.  But NOOOOOoooo, they move out south.

I didn't see it listed on CBRE or Loopnet, nor did a Google Search turn anything up.  Their 2016 Annual Report talks about their new office, lists their new location, but doesn't mention anything about the old one.  I doubt they needed the 90k square feet of the new building, plus all the space in the old one?
https://www.ttcu.com/docs/default-source/forms/ttcu-annual-report-2016.pdf?sfvrsn=2

I'm guessing it's just held as an asset and rented out?



I did find this interesting article:
http://www.newground.com/case-study/ttcu-federal-credit-union

Nice!   I have been a member for a long time and I actually kinda like that new building.  Looking at it from the outside, though, I wonder if it will be big enough for a long time.  They are growing fast...  

We voted on that name change - it is a change from just a state credit union to Federal - now has FDIC type coverage as well as some other tax benefits they talked about and I promptly forgot- all seemingly positive, so don't need to keep all that clutter of all that detail in my head.

Now, if they would just get business accounts that worked more like a bank's... I would never have to step in a bank ever again!   Holy Grail of local financial interaction!   But there is the Shared Branch Co-Op system, which is better than any national bank approach!!