Lets Get On With It:

For now we’re stuck with a white elephant and it’s a real drag…frustrating that Pinal County put all that money into a building down the street that’s mostly been ghosted by our community while a glaring opportunity in the center of town goes unaddressed.

Ever since the OI structure was remodeled by owners at the time Red and Elida Hildreth it has struggled to operate profitably - opening and closing erratically. (We knew both of them pretty well back in the day.) When the remodel started to take shape we were mightily surprised. “Too big and barny”, many locals thought…which proved to be true as Red and subsequent owners and managers discovered to their sorrow.

The explanation for the revolving door of openings and closings isn’t an absence of customers because lots of folks from around the region were and are potential customers. The problem is the remodel design led to an over-build that transformed a warm and cozy eating and drinking establishment into a cavernous, oddity that would cost a prospective owner a fortune to re-re-remodel, heat, cool, and staff.

Nobody can fault the Darimonts! They gave it a good shot over many years until a family health issue changed the equation. And nobody can fault the many locals who worked there.

Now someone with deep pockets and a fertile entrepreneurial imagination would have to come along to restore the OI to its rightful place in Oracle’s business/culinary firmament.

Or we can all get together and figure it out.

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Yes, we have the talent here to pull it off. Consider the brilliant makeover at Rancho Robles - from near compost to the spectacular functional beauty of today. Or Triangle L glowing for all the world to see. Or the stunning makeover of an abandonned Circle K into Way of Bean Coffee Club. Or the re-purposing of Sue and Jerry’s. Or Troy and Suzanne Letwak’s re-creation of Don Juans as the the Ore House Hilltop Tavern. Or the amazing Secret Garden Collective re-doing the old Oracle Ridge School on the edge of town. And the magnificent makeover of the Masonic Lodge by the Oracle Piano Society from near teardown into world class concert venue recommissioned as OrCA high on a hill above town. Want to tell me again we don’t have the talent and skills locally to make lemonade out of white elephant lemons?

So, yes, we have the talent and ingenuity to remake the OI into something we could all be proud of. And maybe Pinal County could surprise us all and get behind what Oracle wants and needs.