J.T. ‘Pappy’ Runyon, grandfather of longtime owner Darrell Wheeler and great-grandfather of current owner Darren Wheeler, opened a grocery store at Grand and Harvey at the dawn of statehood. He called it Honest John, and his business thrived. By 1929 he was ready to expand into a new, larger operation. 

That is where Runyon started specializing in meat. He made his own lunch meat, wieners and chili in a big walk-in oven with a black kettle. His daughter, Lola Runyon, married Oceail Wheeler, who worked for Pappy until 1936, when he opened his own store.

Tragically, one of Lola and Oceail’s children O.T., died at the age of six that year.  Oceail used a $500 insurance policy to pay for the funeral, buy clothes for the family and open the new store, which he called Honest John the Poor Man’s Friend. Darrell, who was born in 1938, grew up working there.

“The store was small - around 200 square feet,” Darrell recalled, “so we arranged more groceries outside than inside. Each morning we carried outside and displayed ax handles, brooms, sacks of potatoes and flour, and other merchandise too big to leave inside.”

In 1946 Oceail built a new store and in 1951, he added another and Darrell started running that location. In 1967 the expansion continued and the Wheeler’s built a brand new 4,000 square food facility to meet the growing needs of Oklahoma City shoppers.  Darrell ran that store with his fathers help until 1987 when the family sold the business.  A year later, Darrell and his son Darren, opened Wheeler’s Meat Market.

Today, Wheeler's is the model of an old-fashioned butcher shop. Meat is on display in a case and at busy times customers must take a number and wait to place their order.

But Wheeler’s also looks for ways to enhance the customer service experience, so the family has modernized the way products are offered using online ordering and other modern systems.

"We strive everyday to provide our customers the finest cuts of beef, pork and chicken available," said owner Darren Wheeler. "We hire the right people, train them well and above all keep them happy. Our meat may be fantastic, but if the customer has a bad service experience it's ruined,” said Wheeler. "In this day and age time is more valuable than ever before, if we can save our customers a little time so they can be with their families, then it's the right thing to do."