Oklahoma Gazette readers are once again subjected to my words this week, as I offer my take on the whole Iguana-Taco John’s debacle:

This is the kind of thing that local businesses are up against. It’s also why they are almost always better. The restaurants; the stores; the little, out-of-the-way places owned by your neighbors; the people in your neighborhood; the people you go to church with — they have to be a hundred times more creative, a hundred times more resilient and persistent and straight-up good, because they don’t have zillions of dollars for next-to-the-highway real estate and ad time during “The Bachelorette.”

The whole article is over at their website or, if you’re lucky enough to live in the OKC, in print.

Seriously, people. I know the Olive Garden has unlimited salad and breadsticks. Of this I am aware. But maybe the last thing America needs is "unlimited" anything – go to Flip’s. Falcone’s. Zorba’s. Nomad. Sophabella’s. Deep Fork Grill. Trattoria il Centro. The list of awesome locally-owned establishments in Oklahoma City is literally endless; keep the money local, people.

One great way to do so? Try as many of aforementioned Gazette‘s "Best of OKC" picks. They’re listed right here.