Why do people go to steakhouses?

Why do people go to steakhouses?

The mark up is insane. It's easy to cook a decent steak and there's no specialist skill or equipment required.

steakhouses have deals with wholesalers to get better cuts before the plebs can get them
some people don't trust themselves enough to dry age a steak properly
your corporate expense account is picking up the tab
you can afford it and are out of town

>steakhouses have deals with wholesalers to get better cuts before the plebs can get them
this and literally only this

People who don't know or care much about food sometimes just need a "big night out" but are intimidated by actual nice restaurants because they're afraid they might "break the rules" and be humiliated.

Simple rules at a steakhouse. Blue rare, rare, or medium rare. Salad or potato. Want some wine? Don't ask the somm, that's a sign of weakness. Besides a place like this probably doesn't have one. Just research autistically in advance. Pick a number of Parker Points between 90 and 95 (let's be honest here these kinds of people are unlikely to be able to afford a wine that got a 100 score, even as a splurge). Find one that isn't embarrassingly cheap and point to it on the list while looking up at the waiter with an expression of barely contained panic. Nod as he says words you can barely understand. Watch him bring it out and relish the relief as he presents it. The hard part is over. Take the cork he presents and sniff it. Swirl it in the glass, nod approvingly, and look very serious.

Steak arrives, eat it reverently while saying something like "put it right in my coronaries LMAO" or perhaps "we were meant to be a carnivore, the vegans are the worst"

Then agonize over whether to "spring" for dessert. I mean hey why not we're celebrating right? Get the fashionable new flourless chocolate cake that's taken the high end steakhouse community by storm. Oh, the bus boy is here to take the wine bottle away, better save that cork as a memento!

Then you tip fifteen percent to show how you're totally keeping up with the times (back in my day it was five!) and that was your memorable night out. Crisis averted, you can go back to your "comfort food" which is even less challenging than a slab of cooked salted beef and a side of baked potato.

>It's easy to cook a decent steak and there's no specialist skill or equipment required.

I beg to differ. A cast iron pan is mandatory, as are some basic cooking skills.

>a cast iron skill is "specialized equipment"
With all the half assed trolling and shitposting about pores and flaxseed, sometimes I lose sight of how deep the genuine, batshit craziness is in the cast iron fanboi community

More people don't own a cast iron pan than do.

That's just a fact.

And it is kind of mandatory for cooking a decent steak.

>More people don't own a cast iron pan than do
More people don't own a computer than do, and yet.

Certain things can be taken for granted given a context.

Not really. If you develop a relationship with a good butcher, he'll get you high quality restaurant prime.

The problem is most 'murrican peoples' conception of a high fallutin' steakhouse is a chain like Texas Roadhouse which doesn't even serve prime.

So yeah, if you live in bumfuck backwater that doesn't have independent butchers and you're a mouthbreather that thinks chains are fancy pants quality, just barely tolerable because they don't "put on airs," then sure, you believe you can't do better.

Yeah I have no idea what this "prime is for the restaurants" meme is about. Practically every grocery store around, except maybe C-Town and Gristedes, carries prime.

>its mandatory

Lol no

Quality post

I can cook a good filet mignon in a nonstick pan.

Some people have a lot of money that they didn't work very hard for and they don't care if they get over charged for a decent steak.

Sometimes a company will take it's employees out, or clients out. It's expensible on the company's taxes that way and CEO's aren't going to sit there and cook steaks for their fucking clients.

Although, I worked at a small start up and we did charcoal grilled steaks about once a month at an after hours happy hour sort of thing and the CTO was usually the grill master.


Anyway, yes people can cook steak at home. You could make the same argument for any high end restaurant pretty much. You can get a cheap steak some places too. In Georgia, Meehan's has a brunch menu that includes a rib eye and 2 eggs... (steak and eggs) for 12 bucks. 7 more bucks for bottomless mimosas to go with it! That's not a rip at all... There are also breakfast places down the street that are serving eggs benedict for 24, and people still go there because they have money and they don't care and they like variety and getting out and socializing with friends and not having to worry about the cooking and cleaning.

I happen to usually find myself at the more frugal spots, but that's because I know what I am doing and have worked pretty hard for the money I have. "Thank you daddy" is not in my vocabulary.

I'm sure your Steak-ums came out quite nicely.

He's very flyover and doesn't have anything besides the winn dixie.

That's because you can literally cook anything perfectly in a non stick pan. Baillard reactions happen at 360 - 430 dungarees Frankenheit. Teflon doesn't degrade till over 460 degrees and is oven safe so long as it has a good handle. It will have the same heat retention as any other pan so long as it is nice and heavy.

But the cast iron meme fucbois around here won't let you say this without giving you lots of shit.. so pepper your angus.

did you type this, or is it pasta?

it's amazing.

i'm not that guy, but high end steak houses will have access to beef from different small and sustainable farms that produce VERY high quality beef. also, you aren't going to find wagyu or anything like that at your local butcher.

if you're at a REALLY nice place, you can pick the cut you want off of a chalkboard that's written that day that shows all the steaks they currently have in house

another thing is most people aren't going to want to fuck with dry aging a steak at their own house.. it's not like it's difficult, it just takes a while and you have to buy the whole fucking ribeye/strip/whatever loin and lose 20-30% of the meat due to drying out/trimming off.

steakhouses are good, dudes. and the absolute best part is that they're all the same.. you get a house salad with ranch (it will have bacon, eggs, and blue cheese on it no doubt), a dry-aged strip steak with crab bordelaise, either the twice baked (or hasselbeck potato) or a family sized bowl of mashed for the table, and a side of asparagus. then for dessert, you have Robert the wise-cracking 80 year old man who operates the flambee cart come over and do you up a bananas foster.

fuck, i like steakhouses.

It's not particularly hard to grill up a nice steak, but I don't have a grill at home anymore, and at a steakhouse, you can get cuts of meat you wouldn't always at home.

At the very least, it's an inoffensive place I can take my dad for a nice, filling meal.

>not grilling your steaks on a clean burning propane grill

Why are you mocking me? :(

I dunno.

I can get three thick ribeyes for about the price I can get one cooked for me in a restaurant. It's not that bad.

If were to complain about mark ups it would be with salads, pasta or pizza. $3 in ingredients can be sold at $25 to a customer. That's enormous compared to the ribeyes. And the skill involved is comparable or even less.

flyovers have more cows than people, checkmate coasties

Quality material here.
Great post user.

>flyover
>quality beef available for purchase retail

Try, just try to find it. It's shipped to the money, which are the coasts, which support your states raggedy ass financial debacle where your people receive 2.5 times the federal money they contribute. You should kiss the feet of every Californian and New Yorker you meet.

Nothing you said is incorrect, but I'm still with OP. I can get much closer to what a steakhouse gives me at home than I can an actual labor-intensive meal with complicated ingredients. Even if the costs are similar, the time costs are not. I want to go out to eat for something I can't easily do at home.

Time also factors in to why I would go somewhere or get something else even on someone else's dime: I only eat so many meals in a day, I'd rather get something special and unique that I can't easily reproduce than a steak.

You disagreed that no specialist equipment is required by citing a pan most people have and use for many different purposes.

You disagreed that no specialist skill is required by using the words, "basic cooking skills."

What are you having trouble understanding?

lmao

#rekt

>i'm not that guy, but high end steak houses will have access to beef from different small and sustainable farms that produce VERY high quality beef. also, you aren't going to find wagyu or anything like that at your local butcher

So your local butcher is the wal*mart meat counter. Got it.

i seriously doubt most butchers regularly stock wagyu beef, you queer. if they have to go through a purveyor to get it, why wouldn't i just go through one of my four or five purveyors i get proteins from?

i realize not everybody has connections like that, but for most people the odds of getting a really good steak at a steakhouse is better than going out and trying to find the hookup for good steak.

restaurants have these connections.

I only go when my parents are paying, but the steak is cooked far nicer than I typically manage to get it

also side dishes are done perfectly and there's a selection of cocktails or other drinks that I get brought to me and I get to be lazy and drink while my meal is prepared

>Why do people go to steakhouses?
Because not everyone is an autismal foodie super-taster that analyzes every mouthful of food for a full 30 seconds and then jots down their assessment in their notebook before requesting a tour of the kitchen facilities.

Some people just want to go out to eat in order to socialize with friends and have a good time. Sometimes they feel like eating steak when they do this.

The short answer is that people enjoy the experience of eating at a steakhouse, and are willing to pay for that.
The long is that
Some people are totally unable to cook steak
It is percieved as a status boost
As
People know what they're getting
The quality of meat and aging is superior to what people could acquire themselves

I am a chef meself, and occassionally take the missus out for steak, and though tis nothing I couldn't produce, it can be a nice feeling working through 20oz of rump with ones SO. Also note that markup is rarely considerably more than other dishes; ingredient cost will usually lie between 25-40%, and especially compared to stuff like most pastries, soups, salads, etc.