Comfortably turning customers away: J.J.'s Gourmet Cafe in Tulsa

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Nov 13, 2006 by Kirby Lee Davis

With business simmering as hot as his burgers, Jerry J. Conley decided to stop advertising his J.J.'s Gourmet Cafe. He dropped his telephone service. He refused to accept checks or credit cards. He required membership before allowing anyone through the doors. He dropped his operating hours to a mere eight a week.

And still customers keep coming, as they have for 37 years - often in defiance of the deteriorating neighborhood that surrounded his 647 S. Peoria restaurant.

"To be so defined in your business approach," marveled Becky J. Frank, president and chief executive of Schnake Turnbo Frank Inc. of Tulsa, chuckling at Conley's containment efforts. "But he has a thing that's just working for them and it has for years."

That "thing" seems to be customer infatuation, translated to strong word-of-mouth.

"I didn't even know about it before I got invited there by a friend," said Damen Banks, who operates the Tulsa office of Swahill Studios.

"Steve Turnbo introduced me," Rex Public Relations client relations manager Donna Laughlin said of her first visit to J.J.'s.

"A client invited me there six years ago," said M. Jake Dollarhide, chief executive of the Tulsa firm Longbow Asset Management Co. He spoke for everyone when he added, "It's just a great place. A good burger."

J.J.'s specialty - indeed, just about its only product - is its rib-eye hamburger. The 68-year-old Conley offers several variations, all listed at $10.95.

"They're first-class all the way," said Dollarhide. "Their burgers taste unlike any others."

Conley first tried the delicacy at Connor's Corner, a 1950s institution in the Tulsa marketplace run by John Connor.

"It was a premium beef burger that sold for $3 back in 1959," Conley said. "Everyone stood in line for them - and I did, too."

The Tulsa native managed to get his hands on the recipe after Connor died, though not yet with commercial intent. Instead Conley took it with him to pursue a Hollywood career behind the camera.

There he enjoyed rare success, achieving journeyman status in five years while landing a key position with CBS Television Studios. That allowed him to not only rub elbows with such stars as Carol Burnett, Dean Martin, Dick Smothers, Johnny Carson and Dan Rowan, but it also brought him roles lighting stages for three Academy Awards telecasts, as well as high-profile miniatures production of the Stanley Kubrick classic 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Even so, the glamour of Southern California soon wore off, and rather than continue a career that required 105-hour weeks amidst nonstop chaos, he chose to come home. Drawing favorable tests from his burger recipe, within a year Conley bought a gingerbread-style house made of redwood and cedar, refurbished its paneled interior, replaced 17 windows with stained glass crafted by his own hands, and opened J.J.'s Gourmet Cafe.

If ever a business reflected the spirit of its owner, J.J.'s is it. About 1,500 mementos grace the walls, evidence of his worldly travels and scuba-diving travails, his love of World War II-era culture and modeling, his Tinseltown lore and outdoorsman exploits, his DJ/stand-up comic days, or just his outlandish sense of humor. He keeps the 50-seat dining room full of 5-o'clock shadows, all reflective of his relaxed contentment.

His journeyman's eye for detail applies not just to the decor, but also the food. Conley hand-picks his ingredients, preparing many himself or with head chef Bernie Burt, his one employee. Conley even grows his own herbs.

"I've always kept it private and unique," he said of J.J's. "I built everything so that I could run it."

He determined early on to avoid expansion or franchising.

"Years ago I had five people here; that's when I ran longer hours. But it got to be a pain. That's when I went back to eight hours a week," he said. "Anything that was ever a problem, I've removed it."

As his final quality control, Conley cooks only 50 burgers a day. Once they're sold, he closes.

"Sometimes it takes less than an hour," he said. "I just tell people, 'Look, I'm sorry. We're all out.'"

One time the Tulsa Performing Arts Center, which Conley helped get started, ran an article about his restaurant in its newsletter. The next week he found a line of customers going out the door.

"So I closed down a week," he said with a laugh. "When I came back, they were gone."

His desire to contain sales reflects more than his laid-back lifestyle.

"This way a small group of people can have a really good time in a really cool atmosphere," he said. "There are very few places anymore where you can experience an owner-operated, owner-decorated restaurant."

With developers like Peter Rommel and Jamie Jamieson crafting dramatic designs for his neighborhood, Conley may find it even harder to restrain customer demand.

Rommel, owner of The Hotel Savoy, has acquired almost half of the Peoria block - including the lots on either side of J.J.'s - with plans to add another hotel and restaurant.

Jamieson, developer of The Village at Central Park just across the street, has even grander designs for the area: a series of canals to connect three lakes - and hopefully attract more commerce - across what they now call The Pearl District.