Chef Colin Stringer serves guests at Nonesuch, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Instagram, often a first reference platform for an intimate “background check” on everything from a job to a new restaurant, is becoming a discovery destination for culture in ways never imagined – especially when it comes to reaching the rural outposts of America.
In fall 2016, Nonesuch, a concept restaurant opened its doors in Oklahoma City’s Midtown district and for the first nearly two years had under 5,000 followers on Instagram, with an average nightly seating of 10-20 people.
One day last year, the trajectory of Nonesuch’s story and business quickly changed when the restaurant’s Instagram page was discovered by Andrew Knowlton, named America’s Best Restaurant by Bon Appetit Magazine, and was covered in a prime Sunday segment on the TODAY show. In less than a year, the tasting menu restaurant quadrupled its social following, began booking out 3 months in advance, and increased sales by 250%.
Chef’s Colin Stringer and Jeremy Wolfe experiment with dishes inspired by Nordic cuisine, making them available using local flavors foraged from nearby nature reserves and farmers markets, often times perfected by YouTube.
“I try to find someone else that can do it better than me on YouTube,” explains Chef Jeremy, “I’ll watch [the video] over and over and try to pick up small intricacies and little things that they are doing.”
As technology and social media span generations, communities, and geographies, new ideas permeate unsuspecting groups. In lieu of traditional culinary school training, the Nonesuch team brings together combined experiences in hospitality, fine-dining, fast-casual, and casual-casual [diner style] with something arguably more valuable than a culinary degree – an insatiable drive to introduce people to unsuspecting combinations and flavors under the guise of experimentation.
Along with General Manager Kyle Kern, and a kitchen staff which includes a professional-dentist-turned line-cook, the Nonesuch team is a relatively analog bunch that posts on Instagram “when they can”. May seem like an odd strategy for a business that was discovered on Instagram but that’s what works for Nonesuch – focusing on the product and experience first, social media later.
The ‘New American’ tasting menu concept that is now Nonesuch started as a barely permitted pop-up named Nani inside of 100-year-old Victorian house hosting an array of regional guest chefs. Attracting the attention of locals and adventurous eaters in neighboring states Texas, Kansas, and Missouri where the existing culinary landscape plateaus at roadside steakhouses – Nonesuch cemented a unique concept of fine-dining offline driving legitimate interest online.
“Culturally, we are 10 years behind,” says Chef Colin Stringer of Nonesuch, “things that were popular years ago everywhere else are now popular here.”
While the restaurant maintains minimal digital strategy for promotion as it has from the start, no dress code, and no policy on technology use for guests, the seemingly analog chefs have been able to harness the proper digital and physical tools to provide an elevated experience one might expect from a major-city Michelin-style establishment – in Oklahoma.
Nonesuch's Instagram-worthy plating.
Coastal cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, even New York come to mind when farm-to-table enters the conversation but this time, the unlikely middle-of-America region of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma enters more cultural conversations – often led by social media.
Looking at creatively-fueled, visual-forward ventures through social media often feels like wearing rose colored glasses. How is this image so perfectly aligned and color-coordinated with the table-setting? How does the entire Instagram grid look like something that could be framed in a museum? How is this dish plated so beautifully that it could have been done by Picasso? Is it going to be the same in real life? Is it worth the price? Who else will be there?
Instagram often leaves many questions unanswered while somehow stirring up just enough curiosity to commiserate with the technology in decision making. Looks drive the visual platform and who understands that better than those under 30 which Chef’s Colin and Jeremy are.
