Ten years on the Mother Road
We opened in December 2016, on a stretch of NW 23rd Street that has been Route 66 since the road was drawn. In 2026 the Mother Road turns one hundred and we turn ten. We are still on the same block.
Dec 2016Where it started
We are a Vietnamese-American family, born and raised in Oklahoma. When we opened Chick N Beer in December 2016, the idea was not complicated: cook the food we actually grew up eating, but put it on something nobody in Oklahoma needs explained to them.
Nobody here needs an introduction to a chicken wing. The gochujang, the fish sauce, the Thai chili, the double fry — that is the part that is ours. We fry our traditional wings in potato starch rather than wheat flour, twice: once at a lower temperature to cook the chicken through, then hotter to set a thin crust that survives being tossed in sauce. It is how Korean fried chicken has always been done, and it is why ours still crunches when it reaches the table.
Oct 2020The year Guy Fieri showed up
Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives came through and filmed the episode “From Vikings to Wings,” which aired in October 2020 — not an easy year to be a restaurant. It put us on a map a lot bigger than NW 23rd. But the thing that actually kept the lights on was smaller and far less glamorous: Oklahoma City kept showing up, week after week, long after the cameras left.
Nobody here needs an introduction to a chicken wing. The gochujang, the fish sauce, the Thai chili, the double fry — that is the part that is ours.
May 2025Doubling down on the block
In May 2025 we opened a second business, Egg & CàPhê, at 727 NW 23rd — next door. Vietnamese coffee, egg coffee, matcha, brunch. Not a diversification strategy. We just liked this neighborhood enough to bet on it twice.
Between the two, the block now runs from 8 in the morning to 10 at night. Cà phê and brunch next door, wings over here. Same family, two doors, one stretch of Route 66. You can find Egg & CàPhê at eggandcaphe.com.
Jan–Oct 2026The year we went dark
In January 2026 we closed Chick N Beer. Not quietly, and not because the food stopped working — because the right space opened up a few doors down and we decided to build the restaurant we actually wanted instead of patching the one we had. That meant going dark for most of a year, which is a long time to ask a city to remember you.
We reopened on 12 October 2026 at 733 NW 23rd, as CNB. Dropping “Beer” from the name was deliberate. The food was always the point, and the old name was telling people something we did not mean — that this was a bar first. It never was. Families had been eating here for a decade.
We still serve beer. It is simply no longer the headline. Same family, same recipes, same street — a name that finally matches who actually walks through the door.
2026Ten years, one hundred years
Route 66 was commissioned in 1926. In 2026 it turns one hundred, and the stretch running past our front door through Oklahoma City's Uptown 23rd district is part of that hundred years. We have been on it for ten of them — a Vietnamese-American family cooking Korean-style wings on the Mother Road, which is about as American a sentence as we know how to write.
December 2026 marks our tenth year. We tend to celebrate in January, when the industry is quiet and we can actually enjoy it. Watch @chicknbeer for how we mark it.
TodayWhere to find us
CNB — 733 NW 23rd St, Oklahoma City, OK 73103. Open every day, 11am to 10pm. (405) 673-7321. See the menu, ask about catering, or order online.