YALE — “We cried all day Friday. We cried all day Saturday and we prayed all day Sunday. Now it’s time to go to work. We’ve got a lot of clean up to do.”
For Darrell Mueggenborg, the days after the fire at Mugsy’s Grubhouse have been measured in tears, prayers and the work waiting ahead.
For Yale and the surrounding communities, the loss reaches across years of meals and memories: birthdays celebrated around its tables, reunions in its banquet room, familiar faces stopping for supper and visitors discovering a small Oklahoma town through a restaurant that made them feel welcome.
A fire Friday, Oct. 16, destroyed the restaurant Darrell and Jennifer Mueggenborg opened in July 2017. Silver City Fire Department described Mugsy’s as a total loss. Everyone escaped safely, according to statements from the restaurant and responding firefighters.
“It was a tragic loss, but nobody got hurt,” Mueggenborg said.
That gratitude runs through his account of the afternoon. So does his appreciation for the people who came to help and those who had filled the restaurant for nearly a decade.
“I want to thank everybody who supported us for the last nine years,” he said.
The fire
Yale Fire Chief Terry Bradley said his department was dispatched to the commercial structure fire at 1:53 p.m.
“Fire progressed quickly, and the building was fully engulfed within minutes,” Bradley said in a statement. “Once the fire was under control, it was obvious that much of the building had been damaged from the blaze.”
Mueggenborg said manager Doug Hanson saw the fire toward the back of the building, at its south end, and tried to extinguish it.
“He went back with a fire extinguisher,” Mueggenborg said. “It didn’t do no good and he told the girls to get out and to get everybody out. Everybody got out. They went out through the north door.”
Mueggenborg said Hanson saw the fire away from the kitchen and smoker. An official fire report was not available by press time.
Payne County Emergency Management reported that arriving crews found heavy fire and smoke inside Mugsy’s.
Firefighters from Cushing, Ingalls, Ripley, Oilton, Olive and Silver City responded to assist Yale. Other responding agencies included Payne County Emergency Management, Yale Police Department and the Payne County Sheriff’s Office.
Ingalls Fire Department received its mutual aid request at 1:57 p.m. and sent Tanker 2 and Brush 4 within minutes. Its personnel assisted with exterior fire suppression, followed by interior overhaul and mop-up after the initial knockdown. Ingalls crews were released at approximately 4 p.m., after the fire was brought under control.
The firefighting effort heavily depleted Yale’s water resources, according to a city statement. Residents were told the water towers would need time to refill and rebuild pressure.
For the departments responding, Mugsy’s was a familiar place. Some had been on the receiving end of the same generosity they were now working to help protect.
“Upon arrival, IFD firefighters learned the fire involved Mugsy’s Grubhouse in Yale, a local establishment that has shown our department support through meals and kindness over the years,” Ingalls Fire Department said in a statement. “We are saddened to see a business that has been so generous to our community affected by this incident.”
Bradley also noted Mueggenborg’s support for Yale firefighters and others throughout the community.
Mueggenborg said he thanked the responders personally.
“I don’t know how many departments came, but I went around and shook hands with every single one of them,” he said.
A building full of stories
Long before Friday’s fire, Mugsy’s had become a place where the history on the walls was as personal as the conversations around the tables.
A 2022 feature in About Us magazine documented the care the Mueggenborg's put into the restaurant, from family photographs to reclaimed wood. Jennifer guided the decorating, and Darrell could explain where seemingly every piece came from.
Tin from the family’s old milk barn covered the waitress station. The wood around it still carried traces of red paint from its earlier life on the farm.
An old cream separator stood in the front room. To diners, it was an antique. To Mueggenborg, it was something he had turned with his own hands as a boy.
“I cranked that rascal when I was six years old,” he said in the 2022 interview. “This is the Cadillac of separators. We poured that cream over the blackberry cobbler Mom used to make. I think it was so good because we picked them blackberries ourselves, you know. Woo Hoo!”
That was how a tour of Mugsy’s could unfold. A piece of equipment became a childhood memory. A photograph became a family introduction. A question about the walls became a story about the farm.
The building itself had a history in Yale. It previously housed Oklahoma Tire and Supply Company, where appliances and tires were sold up front and mechanical work was done in the back.
The former shop became a banquet room, making space for larger gatherings and overflow crowds. A dark stain remained in the concrete floor, a reminder of the building’s working past.
In the restaurant’s “loafing shed,” horsestall materials purchased from an Oklahoma State Fair surplus sale formed the walls. Mueggenborg turned whiskey barrels, wagon wheels and glass into tables.
The details reflected the hands and ideas that had shaped the restaurant. They also gave people something to ask about and gave Mueggenborg another chance to visit.
Yale’s history, a family’s history
Along the walls, photographs preserved pieces of Yale and the people who had called it home.
Historical images supplied by Carl W. Hensley, known as “Mr. Yale,” showed the community’s oil industry and railroad activity. Mueggenborg recalled in the 2022 feature that Hensley would sit at the restaurant and share the photographs with visitors.
“He loved Yale, and had all these pictures and told me they needed to be hanging at the restaurant,” Mueggenborg said then.
Family photographs reached back through generations of Mueggenborgs. A picture of Jennifer’s grandmother, longtime Yale Postmaster Treva Courtney, also had a place in the dining room.
In the hallway, livestock photographs traced another kind of history: young people growing up, working with their animals and standing beside the buyers who supported them.
Mueggenborg appeared first as a young exhibitor with his own steer. In later photographs, he stood beside other children as a premium buyer.
“We kept all these pictures in a box for a long time,” he said in 2022. “We had no idea they would have such an important impact at the Grubhouse.”
The display reflected his lasting connection to FFA. A former Yale chapter president, Mueggenborg credited the organization with helping him find the confidence that would carry him through decades as an auctioneer and, later, a restaurant owner.
“FFA taught me public speaking. FFA taught me to shake hands. Everybody who was in FFA knows how to shake hands,” he said in the earlier interview. “That’s the stuff it did — forced the shy right out of me. I’m a product of FFA, that’s the bottom line.”
The welcome people remember
For all the thought that went into the decor and the food, the welcome became one of Mugsy’s most recognizable features.
Mueggenborg greeted diners with a hearty “Woo Hoo!” He asked where they were from, visited at their tables and offered tours to those who showed an interest in the things around them.
Jennifer encouraged him to keep the greeting after hearing him use it with customers when the restaurant first opened. It became part of Mugsy’s identity, appearing on license plates, shirts and hoodies.
The restaurant brought people into Yale who might otherwise have driven through on State Highway 51. For local families, it offered somewhere familiar to mark an occasion or share an ordinary evening.
“Mugsy’s is a staple in our community,” Bradley said. “People would travel from all over the state and country just to have an exceptional dining experience. Locals would visit on a regular basis, and it was a favorite spot for celebrations.”
There was plenty of work behind those meals. Before opening, Mueggenborg and members of his culinary team traveled to Georgia to attend pitmaster Myron Mixon’s cooking school. The restaurant’s menu grew around smoked meats, steaks and comfort food, with blackberry fried pies among the desserts.
But when Mueggenborg explained his work in 2022, he returned to the people.
“When I was an auctioneer, I was a people person — 35 years in the business. It wasn’t an auction business, it was a people business,” he said. “Now I own a restaurant but I’m not in the food business, I’m in the people business.”
After Friday’s fire, the statements of support described that same connection.
TV-31 in Stillwater recalled a visit that was still fresh when news of the fire arrived.
“It was just Wednesday that our Tv-31 crew was at Mugsy’s, enjoying an amazing lunch, wonderful hospitality, and the friendship that makes this place so special,” the station said. “It is hard to believe that just two days later, they are facing such a heartbreaking situation.” The station described Mugsy’s as a gathering place and a local business built on hard work.
“To our friends at Mugsy’s — thank you for always welcoming us with open arms,” its statement said.
A community answers
As Mugsy’s owners and staff faced the loss, neighboring businesses began finding ways to help.
Little Lemon Co. announced three special drinks, with all money from those drink sales going directly to affected employees.
According to owner Ashley Wiley, The fundraiser features the Orange Dream, an orange creamsicleinspired lemonade or soda; the Mugsy, a peach mango lemonade; and the Bulldog, made with Orange Crush Alani, vanilla and sweet cream. Listed prices were $8 for lemonades, $5 for sodas and $9 for the energy drink.
“Little Lemon Co. is going to be offering THREE special drinks, and EVERY SINGLE DOLLAR from every drink sold will be donated directly to the employees who lost their jobs,” Wiley said. “Not a portion. ALL of it.”
Its appeal focused on workers whose livelihoods were interrupted by the fire.
“Let’s show these employees that even when everything changes overnight, they aren’t standing alone,” Wiley said. “We’ve got them.”
Native Wildflower Boutique announced fundraising shirts for $25 each, with all profits going to Mueggenborg to help with needs following the fire. The boutique offered “Pray for Mugsy’s” and “A Community that Stands Together” designs and reported 53 shirts sold in an update included with the statement.
Owner Kelli Minney said Mueggenborg had supported both the boutique and another family business and had an order awaiting delivery when the fire occurred.
“He’s the first to donate to anything going on in town and he’s truly a light in our community,” Minney said.
For the boutique, the fundraising was a way to respond to kindness already received.
“Thank you soo soo much to all that have ordered already,” Minney said. “We are already making a difference. I’m so proud of this community and coming together for Darrell.”
TheCityofYaleextendedits sympathies to Mueggenborg and the staff. Payne County Emergency Management expressed concern for the owners, employees and everyone affected.
Bradley thanked dispatchers for their work during a chaotic response, Yale police for their assistance and neighboring departments that responded or stood ready to help.
Then he turned to what he had seen after the flames.
“Following this tragedy, I have seen so much support and love poured out to those affected,” Bradley said. “A true meaning of the word community.”
The days ahead
Mugsy’s announced it would remain closed until further notice. Mueggenborg would not say whether the restaurant would rebuild.
That question remains open as cleanup begins and the people who worked there face the disruption to their lives.
In its statement, the Mugsy’s Grubhouse family asked the community to keep Darrell and the staff in their thoughts and prayers.
“Mugsy’s is so much more than just a restaurant,” the statement said. “It is a place filled with memories, friendships, laughter, and a whole lot of love. This is an incredibly difficult time for everyone who has poured their heart into making it what it is.”
The same statement put the loss beside the afternoon’s most important outcome.
“Buildings can be replaced, but people cannot.”
For now, the familiar dining rooms are closed. The place where families gathered, visitors paused and Mueggenborg shared the stories behind the photographs has suffered a devastating loss. Its future has yet to be decided.
But the help being offered is already taking shape in drink sales, shirt orders and messages from people who remember how they were treated when they walked through its doors.
“I don’t know what the future holds for Mugsy’s Grubhouse,” Bradley said. “But I feel confident that Mugsy’s, the employees, and the community will come away from this day stronger than it started.”
Bradley ended his statement with the greeting that had carried across the restaurant so many times, a small, familiar expression of welcome offered back to the people who made it their own.
“Lastly, but certainly not least ‘WOOHOO.’”