Interurban's Norman restaurant will serve its last meal on Sunday, August 30, after nearly 50 years of family dinners, celebrations, and University of Oklahoma game-day gatherings at its Ed Noble Parkway location. Parent company Urban Management Restaurants announced the closure after agreeing to sell the property that has housed the restaurant since 2009.
According to KOKH, Urban Management Restaurants said the sale of the property is what's driving the closure, and the company thanked its employees and generations of customers in its announcement. Norman Mayor Stephen Tyler Holman said Interurban became more than a restaurant during its decades in the community, telling the station that it is one of those places in Norman that helped define the city's identity. Holman added that some businesses become part of a community's identity and history, and Interurban was one of them.
A Trolley Depot Turned Dinner Table
Interurban's roots trace back to 1976, when Robert “Rosser” Ross and Rusty Loeffler opened the original restaurant inside Norman's historic inter-urban trolley station at 105 W. Main Street. The building had previously served as a depot for the Oklahoma Railway Company's electric streetcar line connecting Norman to Oklahoma City, a history the company highlighted in its closure announcement on Facebook. That downtown space was later occupied by Benvenuti's Ristorante, per Wanderlog, after Interurban relocated to its current Ed Noble Parkway address in 2009.
Ross and Loeffler's partnership began long before the restaurant did. The pair first met in second-grade Sunday school in Oklahoma City, went on to attend the University of Oklahoma together, and worked as waiters in Milwaukee in 1971 before returning home to launch Interurban five years later, according to a 2013 profile in 405 Magazine. Ross led the company for 45 years until his death on January 12, 2021, at age 72 following a battle with cancer, as reported in his obituary published by The Oklahoman.
A Neighbor Remembers Ross's Help
Word of the closure prompted an outpouring from nearby businesses, including Gaberino's Homestyle Italian Restaurant, which shared publicly that Ross personally helped the family secure its own Ed Noble Parkway location more than eight years ago by advocating to their banker and sharing utility data. The gesture reflects the kind of community ties that Holman referenced when describing Interurban's place in Norman.
Employees and customers made Interurban part of family dinners, celebrations, and Oklahoma game days over the decades, and Urban Management Restaurants has said the closure ends a significant chapter in its history but not the Interurban brand itself. The company said the brand will continue after the Norman location closes.
Where Interurban Still Operates
Once the Norman doors close, Interurban will continue running active locations in Edmond, Yukon, and Chickasha, along with Baxter's Interurban Grill in Tulsa, according to the brand's official site. Urban Management Restaurants also operates Honey Bunny Biscuit Co., a breakfast and lunch concept with locations in Edmond and along Oklahoma City's Uptown 23rd Street corridor.
This isn't the first time the company has converted a longtime Interurban site into something new. It closed another long-running location on Memorial Road in Oklahoma City in September 2020 after 12 years of operation, later rebranding that property into a Honey Bunny Biscuit Co. outlet, according to Steve's Food Blog.
Another Shift Along Ed Noble Parkway
The Norman closure adds to a run of commercial changes along Ed Noble Parkway, a corridor Hoodline has covered amid a wave of new dining arrivals. National chain Uncle Julio's announced plans in February to revive the long-vacant, 10,500-square-foot waterfront restaurant shell nearby, and P.F. Chang's opened a Norman location near the University of Oklahoma in April. As one of the strip's original tenants prepares to close, the corridor's restaurant lineup continues to turn over.
