A downtown Edmond breakfast counter that has fed regulars since 1951 is marking 75 years in business this week, and the people who show up nearly every day say it is the kind of place where nobody rushes you out the door. Around the Corner, tucked mid-block on Broadway, has become a fixture for locals who treat it less like a restaurant and more like a living room with better coffee.
Bob Weiss, a member of the family that has owned the diner since 2012, described it simply as a place unlike any other. “Around the Corner is a very unique place,” Weiss said, according to KFOR. Regulars like Charlie Snider, who visits every day for breakfast, and Kevin Ogle, who stops in weekly, back that up simply by never really leaving — the diner allows customers to sit for up to three hours just visiting with friends, per the same report.
A Name Born From a Move Down the Block
The restaurant did not start out as Around the Corner. It opened on September 1, 1951, as Corner Restaurant at 1st Street and Broadway before relocating mid-block to 11 S. Broadway in the mid-1970s — a move that inspired the new name, according to the restaurant's own history. That mid-block address is where it still operates today, anchoring a stretch of downtown that has seen only three owners across three-quarters of a century.
The current owners, the Weiss family, bought the diner from longtime owner Charlotte Worsham in 2012, becoming its third ownership group in 75 years. Worsham had battled cancer around the time of the sale and died sometime after handing the restaurant over, KFOR reports. The diner still keeps pictures and an obituary honoring her, and Weiss said he believes she would be proud of what the family has done with her restaurant.
Thousands of Chickens and a Companion Restaurant Down the Street
Around the Corner's décor is not subtle about its mascot. The diner is decorated with roughly 13,000 chicken figurines, a collection that has become as much a part of its identity as the blue-plate specials. The Weiss family also owns Othello's Italian Restaurant at 1 S. Broadway, which opened its Edmond location in 2000 after the original Othello's launched in Norman in 1977, according to the Oklahoma Gazette.
To mark the anniversary, the diner is selling 75th-anniversary coffee mugs and shirts alongside menu specials, giving longtime customers a way to take a piece of the milestone home. Joel Alberts, who aims to visit a couple of times a month, is among the regulars who have watched the diner reach this point.
All-Day Breakfast and $7.50 Blue-Plate Specials
Beyond the anniversary merchandise, the daily rhythm of the place has not changed much. Around the Corner serves all-day breakfast alongside $7.50 daily blue-plate lunch specials — meatloaf on Wednesdays, a turkey club on Mondays — and keeps hours from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays and Tuesdays, and 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, per its own listed schedule.
The diner also doubles as an early-morning meeting spot for local groups. The Edmond Amateur Radio Society holds Saturday breakfast gatherings there at 6:30 a.m. before conducting its morning radio net, according to the Edmond Amateur Radio Society. Around the Corner and its staff also take part in the Downtown Edmond Business Association, which supports district promotions including the annual Downtown Edmond Arts Festival.
Surviving Suburban Growth and a Wave of Closures
Around the Corner's 75-year run stands out in a suburb that has changed dramatically around it. Edmond's population grew nearly 5% from 94,428 in 2020 to roughly 99,040 in July 2024, keeping its status as Oklahoma's fifth-largest city, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates cited by a Lindsay Greene Real Estate report. That kind of rapid suburban expansion has brought waves of chain restaurants, and regional culinary surveys have noted that Around the Corner is one of fewer than ten non-chain, independent restaurants still operating continuously in Edmond across multiple decades.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the leisure and hospitality industry led in job-openings rates, underscoring the continuing demand for workers in the broader sector that includes restaurants.
Recent history shows how rare that longevity is. Louie's Grill & Bar on E. 15th Street permanently closed this past spring after 20 years in business, a closure that sent regulars elsewhere for their usual outings. Around the Corner's downtown location also sits within a historic corridor that grew up around a Santa Fe Railroad water and coaling station established in 1887, two years before the 1889 Oklahoma Land Run, according to the Edmond History Museum — a rail line that still bisects downtown today.
