Q&A with Bar K's Dave Hensley: 'So many things happening'

By Nate Fisher / Development / June 30, 2022

Editor’s note: Bar K, the first private development in the Boathouse District, recently began construction of their unique dog park, bar, restaurant and event space concept on three acres near the Oklahoma River alongside the Whitewater Center. Greater OKC Chamber members Rose Rock Development Partners and Pivot Project are co-developing the project, with Chamber member Miller-Tippens Construction constructing and Chamber member Oklahoma State Bank financing. Founding partner David Hensley graciously sat down with VeloCityOKC for a quick update on the project.

Bar K co-founder and partner Dave Hensley brought his dogs, Bogart, left, and Bishop to check out Oklahoma City in October 2020. Photo courtesy Georgia Read

VeloCityOKC: First, I’d like to hear a little bit about yourself and your background and just how you ended up in this business in general.

David Hensley: I grew up around Wichita. My family, we always had dogs, but I wouldn't say we were that different than most families who had dogs back then. They spent as much time in the backyard as they did inside and they rarely went anywhere with us. I went to school in Kansas and then graduated and I worked in medical and pharmaceutical sales for 12, 13 years. So while I was in Kansas City working in pharmaceutical sales, I had met my business partner through a mutual friend and we had become friends. We had big group that would hang out and do social things together, grab coffee, beers, go to restaurants.

But by a sheer coincidence, on the same weekend, he and I got our dogs. We hadn't once talked about it. I was coming back from picking up my dog, and I called him and said, “Hey, you gotta meet my dog.” And he said, “You gotta be kidding me!” He had just adopted a dog that day as well. So that sort of set us on a separate path where now we started going to dog parks, trying to bring our dogs with us to restaurants, coffee shops, bars, sitting on the patios. And it doesn't take long when you do that, that you realize that that's not the best experience for dogs. Then when you go to the dog parks, you realize that, while they're fun, it's not always the best experience for the humans. And there's also no gatekeeper, so sometimes you never know what you're going to get.

Right. It probably can get a little hairy, so to speak.

So that's when we started thinking, hey, what if we combine these concepts of a dog park and a bar and a restaurant, and really make a community meeting place for people, and their dogs – and that’s where the idea for Bar K came from.

"When we first came to visit and we didn't know what to expect, we just found that [OKC] had this energy of entrepreneurship and growth and movement in a positive direction – you just look around and you see the different vibrant neighborhoods and you see different developments popping up."

So, I had a background in entrepreneurship and sales. My business partner had a legal background and at the time was an executive in the insurance industry, and we just decided to drop everything and launch Bar K. We .aunched that in Kansas City in 2018. Since then we've had well over half a million people come through the space, and over 400,000 dogs. And I think it was what many people were waiting for. I mean, really, what's a better icebreaker than dogs? We’re in a time when there are so many reasons for people to disagree on things, there's a lot of polarizing elements of the world that are out there right now -- dogs are sort of the opposite of that. They break down barriers to conversation. It allows people to find commonality and to start a conversation and maybe not have their guard up quite as much. I think, to me, that's the best part about Bar K, is really the community building.

Yeah -- and do you think that the pandemic-related work from home and further isolation that a lot of us were forced into, more or less -- do you think that may have also helped sort of pique people's interests for this sort of concept and that type of community building?

I mean, it certainly didn't hurt, right? Everybody got dogs. You know, I think when we got out of the pandemic, people were just really hoping to find that community and to connect with people again, so I think the timing of it worked out really well. The other piece that helped us is, whatever market we're in, we have one of the largest outdoor spaces for a bar and restaurant out of any such place in that city. We need so much space to make sure that the dogs are able to stretch their legs and run and have a natural dog experience. So when people got out of the pandemic and were able to sort of get back out again, some of them were a little nervous. They didn't want to go inside restaurants. Well, at Bar K, they could spread out and have plenty of space. I think that was also something that benefited us.

More: Bar K Oklahoma City

Thinking about that space and the the area that you are building in, why did you choose Oklahoma City for your next expansion?

There are multiple factors -- one of them being proximity to Kansas City, you know, it's a pretty easy trip and our first location was in Kansas City. But that wasn't the primary driver. I think the primary driver was that you have really dog friendly, dog-centric community in Oklahoma City. And there's also so many things happening when you come to town. When we first came to visit and we didn't know what to expect, we just found that it had this energy of entrepreneurship and growth and movement in a positive direction – you just look around and you see the different vibrant neighborhoods and you see different developments popping up. And then of course there's the whole Boathouse District, which is this world class location that I think was just a great example of ingenuity and vision on the part of Mike Knopp and other community leaders. And we thought that that was a perfect fit for us, with all of those elements.

Another big driver for us coming to Oklahoma City was this rare combination of growth with a home town feel. There is a strong movement that is felt by others that come to OKC of, “Hey, we really want to improve our city, make it an attraction and build these things out for young people to want to move here or stay.” You know, every time I would come to Oklahoma City, I would be welcomed with open arms, invited to go out to dinner, or come to an event, or be invited to somebody's house. I mean, it just had that hometown feel, but yet an energy of growth. So you feel that growth, but you still have that sort of extended family feel where you're only one degree of separation from someone else and people in the city really want to introduce you to somebody who can help you be successful.

You all did a couple “introduce yourself to the community”-type events during the last couple Dogtobers that they had at RIVERSPORT. What was the response like to Bar K and the concept, and the community’s enthusiasm and readiness for something like this there at the river?

It's a great question. We felt that at the events that we had, we were able to interact with the community, and there was definitely an excitement where people are looking for this experience and were looking to be able to have this community location that they can go to. So a lot of excitement, but just to be honest, there were also some people that are probably going to be surprised once Bar K opens. Truly, until you go to a Bar K, seeing it on a poster board or in a slide presentation, or even seeing a video, it just doesn't do it justice. You maybe don't understand the scale, you don't understand the joy and the community feel -- those things can't be shown in a PDF document or in a video. It's hard to capture that element. So I’m looking forward to seeing the wide eyes of first-time visitors once we’ve opened the doors. I think that’s when we can really show people what we're all about.

What it is that you're looking forward to most when you get to the point of opening up?

I just keep going back to community. You know, it's a really special foundation of Bar K and we've been able to see just an incredible community built in Kansas City and St. Louis. We launched in St. Louis in November – I’m actually there now -- and it's just great to go out and see the friendships that have been built. Members and guests are creating their own subgroups of Bar K because they want to make sure that they're here when their friends that they've met are here. We've got a group of older gentlemen who come in three or four times a week in the morning. And then the other piece is introducing Oklahoma City to THEIR Bar K.

"Every time I would come to Oklahoma City, I would be welcomed with open arms, invited to go out to dinner, or come to an event, or be invited to somebody's house. I mean, it just had that hometown feel, but yet an energy of growth."

When we go to a city, the goal is not to just pop a Bar K in and say, “Hey, here we are,” we partner with local distilleries, local breweries, local companies, to where, when someone in OKC looks around Bar K, they see brands and partners that they know and love and trust. And they can tell that this Bar K is their Bar K. It's not the same as Kansas City. It's not the same as St. Louis. it's theirs and it's unique. And it celebrates the city.

That's awesome. As a local craft beer fan, I'm very glad to hear that.

Yeah. You'll see some fun elements. I can't announce those yet. <laughs> You know, we've already had quite a few conversations with multiple people throughout the city. And I just got off the phone with an Oklahoma City muralist today who will be doing some unique installations at Bar K. There's just a lot that I'm excited about where people come in and say, “Wow, that’s a great partnership. And I love the fact that they didn't make this to be just a boilerplate Bar K. They made this to be our Bar K.”

I do think the location where you're going to be is going to help be a draw for some people to the Boathouse District that maybe hadn't thought about going down there before. But I also think that what you do is such a natural fit for some of the other things that they have going on out there, it's just going to be a really good synergy between you all.

I think so. They're attracting an active group of people, and it's just in an incredible location, obviously, a world class collection of facilities. And we just feel very fortunate to be located where we are. I mean, every element, if you were to put it on a list, it checks the boxes: centralized, we're close to downtown or close to highways where it's visible, we're in an area that is recognized as a destination already -- when we've gone into other cities, we really developed in areas where there wasn’t much there, so this is the first time we're going to where we're sort of being welcomed into an area that I think the people in the city are very familiar with and something they're really proud of.

That’s something we talk about a lot internally here at the Chamber – there are a lot of things that we have that perhaps some other cities also have to offer, but the Boathouse District is definitely something that’s unique to OKC and something we’re pretty proud of and glad to have.

Yeah, well, you should be. I think that some people tend to have short tunnel vision instead of seeing the long term. With the Boathouse District, you've created something there that, 50 years from now, will still be recognized as an incredibly unique destination, where there's nowhere else like it in the world. When you first move here, you’re curious to see what Oklahoma City has to offer. And then you start adventuring around and seeing all the amazing things that have happened in the city, with the convention center and Scissortail Park and the Boathouse District and everything else, and all of a sudden you're thinking, “Wow, growth is happening here. Positive things have really put the city on the map.”

Yeah, that's great to hear because that’s what we’re trying to make sure people see, things are happening here! So when did you move to Oklahoma City?

I think it was probably about two months ago. I live in Film Row, just down by the Jones Assembly. Now, I travel a lot, and I’m on the road about half of the time. But technically my bed and my furniture and silverware are in Oklahoma City. Whenever I’m here I’ve tried to be a local as much as possible! My first weekend was the OKC Marathon and the downtown Arts Festival, both of which I was able to participate. These really gave me a flavor for the city and gave me an opportunity to make some new Oklahoma City friends.

That's awesome. It sounds like you definitely jumped right into it. That's a particularly busy couple-week stretch there. I think you can definitely punch a couple notches out of your official resident card if you ran in the Marathon and volunteered at the Arts Festival your first weekend!

Yeah. But you know, how fun is that? I come and there's all those activities going on that I think really highlight the city and show off that community element and togetherness that the city has. That marathon was just an amazing event. I’ve run in other things before, but that one was pretty special.

It definitely is. That’s very cool! So tell us about your projected opening date as of now.

It’s December of this year. The building's under construction -- people can go by and see it, but not everything's in place. Right now, it's a building on a piece of land in an incredible area, but I think that all the characters is going to come out here in the final stages when we add in the partner elements and we put in the turf and all the play features in the park. So I'm excited to get to that stage, but yeah, December is when we're looking to launch.

What are you most excited about when it comes to the future of Bar K as a concept, and maybe about OKC’s location specifically?

For Bar K as a concept, I'm excited about the opportunities that our relationship with dogs can create. And that can happen in any city. So, for us -- for Bar K -- I'm excited to bring Bar K to other cities and for them to have the benefit of the community building and the conversations that happen because of our relationship with our dogs. Dogs have moved from the backyard to the bedroom; they're full-fledged family members now, and because of that, we’re trying to bring them everywhere with us and conversations are happening that were just not happening before. So to me that creates so much potential for other things that we can do that may not necessarily be something that you first think of Bar K for. With people coming together as a community, now things can move forward and momentum can happen. For Oklahoma City, I'm excited to meet the people that are going to be the foundation of this Bar K community, because it happens organically. We don't pick and choose who comes to Bar K, people come to Bar K because of their shared relationship with their dogs, and the conversations naturally happen.

I know I said “community” like 10 million times, but to me that's pretty special.

"With the Boathouse District, you've created something there that, 50 years from now, will still be recognized as an incredibly unique destination, where there's nowhere else like it in the world."

Well, that kind of comes full circle to the origin story about how you guys created a business coming out of essentially making a connection through your dogs! And that's such a great example of the types of things that can come to fruition when people come together like this, and create their own sense of community that way. I think that's great.

Yeah. And the love for dogs, it doesn't have boundaries -- it doesn't have political boundaries, it doesn't have economic boundaries. People -- all races and classes – they all love and own dogs. And that's the kind of world I want to live in.

Q&A with Bar K's Dave Hensley: 'So many things happening'

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