Media: A decade in, Kitchen 66 serves as catalyst for transforming Tulsa’s food scene

Kitchen 66 launched in 2016 as the brainchild of the Lobeck Taylor Family Foundation. It’s a multi-week program designed to help food entrepreneurs turn their ideas into fully fleshed-out businesses. 

In its first decade, dozens of chefs, restaurateurs and entrepreneurs from across the world have graduated from different cohorts — and planted roots in Tulsa’s expanding food scene.

Afrikan Delights

Fifame Alahassa was hungry for something more. 

Alahassa immigrated to Oklahoma from Benin 20 years ago, following in her parent’s footsteps by pursuing a career in medicine. But cooking was her real passion. 

In 2024, she entered the Kitchen 66 Launch Program, where she was granted access to a commercial kitchen to test out food concepts and market herself.  

It wasn’t long before she and her husband Yannick became the official owners of Afrikan Delights, a west African restaurant now housed in Mother Road Market on Route 66. 

“Before you start your business, you have to gain some knowledge,” Alahassa told The Eagle. “Just because you have the talent is not enough … Just because you can cook doesn’t mean you can run a business.” 

She specializes in authentic west African cuisine with a little “European influence.” This includes foods like jollof rice, rice with tomato stew, fufu with egusi, puff puff and fish. 

Since entering the food business, she has found a sense of fulfillment that she didn’t have in her previous job. Before Afrikan Delights, she would constantly check the time during work, wondering when she could clock out and go home. 

“I was not happy,” she said, “but when I’m here, I’m not looking at the time. I’m happy doing it. I work 12 hours every day, and I’m happy doing it.”

Alahassa and her husband will celebrate one year as owners of Afrikan Delights in July. Their goal, she said, is to become the first African food chain in Oklahoma.

To read the full article, visit The Oklahoma Eagle, here!