Tulsa Loves IKEA
2024
In early 2024, we heard IKEA was scouting for new locations in our part of the Midwest. Historically, Tulsa’s closest IKEA stores have been in Kansas City, 4 hours to the north, or the Dallas suburb of Frisco, 4 hours to the south. We knew we had tough competition with Oklahoma City nearby, which has a slightly higher population than Tulsa’s 1 million.
So Atento retained its longtime co-conspirators, Gitwit, and together we teamed up with the Chamber of Commerce, Partner Tulsa, Tulsa Young Professionals, and local chef collective et al, to court IKEA to our lovely city.
Keeping our role behind-the-scenes, Atento and Gitwit created a “Tulsa Loves IKEA” campaign with fun elements to get the company's attention:
Road Trip: A charter bus packed with over 60 Tulsans drove four hours to the IKEA in Frisco, Texas, to prove the city's shopping demand. IKEA managers in Frisco welcomed us with special merch.
Open Letter: An online campaign collected hundreds of passionate messages from locals begging for a store. “I dream of Swedish meatballs and the smell of wood veneers every night,” wrote Jesse in one message.
Public Art: Artists created a public installation in Tulsa’s Gathering Place park using 30 of IKEA's popular Mammut children's tables.
The "Tulsmå" Restaurant Pop-Up: A local, high-end restaurant served a Nordic tasting menu inspired by IKEA's cafeteria, including a Swedish sweet pancake and a hotdog served with potato lefse, caraway pickled beet cabbage, ground mustard, and crispy onion. Yes, there were meatballs. Every night of the four-day pop-up restaurant was sold out.
The Atento team also used numerous personal and professional connections to reach as many IKEA executives as we could, and had multiple meetings with IKEA decision-makers.
In early 2026, we found out that IKEA would open its first and currently only Oklahoma store in Tulsa! The $40-million, 51,000-square-foot store will be part of the Tulsa Hills Shopping Center and will offer design planning, online order pick-up, a selection of smaller furniture and other items, and, of course, Swedish meatballs. The store's economic benefit to Tulsa is expected to be more than $100 million.
In early 2024, we heard IKEA was scouting for new locations in our part of the Midwest. Historically, Tulsa’s closest IKEA stores have been in Kansas City, 4 hours to the north, or the Dallas suburb of Frisco, 4 hours to the south. We knew we had tough competition with Oklahoma City nearby, which has a slightly higher population than Tulsa’s 1 million.
So Atento retained its longtime co-conspirators, Gitwit, and together we teamed up with the Chamber of Commerce, Partner Tulsa, Tulsa Young Professionals, and local chef collective et al, to court IKEA to our lovely city.
Keeping our role behind-the-scenes, Atento and Gitwit created a “Tulsa Loves IKEA” campaign with fun elements to get the company's attention:
Road Trip: A charter bus packed with over 60 Tulsans drove four hours to the IKEA in Frisco, Texas, to prove the city's shopping demand. IKEA managers in Frisco welcomed us with special merch.
Open Letter: An online campaign collected hundreds of passionate messages from locals begging for a store. “I dream of Swedish meatballs and the smell of wood veneers every night,” wrote Jesse in one message.
Public Art: Artists created a public installation in Tulsa’s Gathering Place park using 30 of IKEA's popular Mammut children's tables.
The "Tulsmå" Restaurant Pop-Up: A local, high-end restaurant served a Nordic tasting menu inspired by IKEA's cafeteria, including a Swedish sweet pancake and a hotdog served with potato lefse, caraway pickled beet cabbage, ground mustard, and crispy onion. Yes, there were meatballs. Every night of the four-day pop-up restaurant was sold out.
The Atento team also used numerous personal and professional connections to reach as many IKEA executives as we could, and had multiple meetings with IKEA decision-makers.
In early 2026, we found out that IKEA would open its first and currently only Oklahoma store in Tulsa! The $40-million, 51,000-square-foot store will be part of the Tulsa Hills Shopping Center and will offer design planning, online order pick-up, a selection of smaller furniture and other items, and, of course, Swedish meatballs. The store's economic benefit to Tulsa is expected to be more than $100 million.
