Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology helped Caleb Mohr realize his true calling, and he is now living his passion as a chef at one of Tulsa's most unique, stylish restaurants.

Mohr is the chef de cuisine at FarmBar, a farm-to-table burger eatery that features a multi-course tasting menu, a five-course prix fixe menu and wine pairings. 

But crafting some of the finest and most innovative cuisine in the Tulsa metro wasn’t originally at the top of his career menu. He first studied biomedical engineering at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond.

“I did a year there, and kind of concluded that engineering was not the right path forward for me. I knew for a long time that I enjoyed to cook,” Mohr said.

Mohr started cooking when he was about 8 years old. He cooked at home; he cooked in the Boy Scouts — it was an ability that grew as the years went on.

His mother recognized his talent for cooking and gave him some invaluable guidance when he arrived at an academic crossroads. She encouraged him to enroll in OSUIT’s Culinary Arts program.

“She dragged me sometime in 2017 to go tour the campus,” he said.

A few weeks later, after some careful consideration, Mohr returned to Okmulgee and enrolled at OSUIT.

“I knew I wanted to get a degree. I didn't want to just go to a community tech program. I wanted to go to a university,” he said. “And I think the [Institute of Technology] in Okmulgee was a really, really good kind of bridge between those desires to have a hands-on technical program but still with an accredited university where I'm going to get an associate degree and have the opportunity to continue to go on if I wanted.”

OSUIT’s Culinary Arts program helped Mohr expand his skills and refine his technique. It was a humbling experience, he said.

“I was very cocky going into my first semester,” Mohr said. “My first semester, my instructor, Brenda Nimmo, had to break me down and check me a little bit and then build me back up.”

It was a foundational experience, he said.

“Having her as an instructor and pointing out, ‘Even if you already know X, Y, Z, you have to learn A, B, C. You have to build up to it, and you have to allow yourself to be in a constant state of learning and a state of growth.’ From there, I just wanted to learn everything I could,” Mohr said.

One of Mohr’s great aspirations was to study food preparation in France. He leapt at the opportunity to work with a French chef who traveled to Oklahoma to prepare food for a gala at the Botanic Garden in Tulsa. He signed up to work both morning and night shifts. He received Nimmo's permission to miss a week of classes at OSUIT, with the understanding that he would still be quizzed on the lessons he missed.

Mohr did what he described as grunt work, peeling countless cherry tomatoes and supreming citrus. The French chef noticed his ability.

“She did in fact try to convince me to drop out and move to Paris with her to help her open up her new restaurant. I did, in fact, tell her that if I did not graduate, my mother would disown me. So, I stayed,” Mohr said.

However, the chef told Mohr that he was welcome to travel to France and work alongside her when he was ready. He gladly accepted the invitation when it was time for him to complete his final-semester internship.

Traveling to France and staying for a few months to complete the internship was beyond Mohr’s financial reach. The OSU Foundation helped him fulfill his dream.

Contributions from a donor through the OSU Foundation provided Mohr the funds he needed to travel to France and work at the chef’s side. It was an invaluable education that Mohr credits to OSU and its supportive culture.

Mohr said he did not reach out to the OSU Foundation. Culinary faculty members reached out on his behalf.

“It was in large part the faculty kind of making that connection for me, and, once again, providing the support for me to make my culinary journey at OSUIT into what I wanted it to be,” he said. “I think it speaks to the dedication of the staff at the Culinary program to really nurturing the next generation of culinarians and how they will go the extra mile and they will work so hard to help you make your dreams come true.”

Mohr began working as a sous chef at the chic, stylish Palace Café in Tulsa after returning from France and graduating from OSUIT. He was promoted to chef de cuisine within six months. He worked at Palace Café until 2023, the year the restaurant’s owners retired.

He is now a chef de cuisine at FarmBar, where he prepares delectable dishes with ingredients sourced directly from local farms. It’s a change he relishes.

“I knew I wanted to shift to having a higher focus on farm-to-table cuisine, because I got very curious about it at OSUIT in Seasonal Kitchen,” Mohr said.

He also remembers local farmers directly supplying the restaurant where he worked in France.

“It does not get more farm to table, more local than that kind of direct relationship with the farmers,” he said.

FarmBar Chef Lisa Beckland and her partner, Linda Ford, recruited Mohr. He started at FarmBar as a sous chef, then was promoted to chef de cuisine. He said FarmBar is a restaurant that’s rooted in Oklahoma agriculture.

“I think my favorite thing about Farm Bar is that we are working with local farmers and local ranchers. And if they're not from Tulsa, we're getting things from the broader state of Oklahoma, from our neighboring states, but it's still people we have a relationship with,” Mohr said.

The connection to farmers makes FarmBar a community-oriented restaurant, Mohr said.

“And I love that so much,” he said. “I love cooking, not just feeling like a job I'm doing every day. I love that the restaurant doesn't feel like it's just here to make money.

"It feels like we have a broader role and a more important role in that we're really connecting folks with the land around them and the work around them being done by our agricultural community. And we extend that wherever we can.”