Old San Fransisco Steak House

This begins as a story about a story. As I have contemplated what to blog about over the next couple of weeks, I considered writing a review of the Old Hickory Steakhouse, located in the Gaylord Texan Resort, in Grapevine, Texas. I ate there a couple of weeks ago, while working at my employer’s annual convention. I had there what might have been the best steak of my life. It was easily the most expensive. I ordered the special, which was a bone-in filet not on the menu. I assumed the price would fall in line with the other steaks, which range from $30-$43. They delivered a beautiful steak, cooked rare to just barely medium rare, exactly as I had asked. As is my usual way, I cut the thick steak into strips as thin as possible and lingered over every bite. It was delightful. When I was about halfway through, my friend Peyton leaned across the table and asked if I knew how much my steak cost. I didn’t. “It’s $65, just for the steak,” she said. Ouch! That’s quite a different world for a guy who reviews NightHawk frozen steak dinners on his blog. All told, a dozen of us racked-up a $1400 bill. It was excessive. It was exquisite. It was…expensed! Whew.

Since I was considering writing a review of a steak house, the next step was to go to my clip files and see how a good steak house review is written. I found a review of L.A. steak houses, written by Alan Richman for the March 2003 issue of GQ magazine. Great article, which I re-read over the last couple of nights before I went to bed. Then today, while I was at work, I began to outline the review in my head. I decided there would be no way that I could write a steak house review for my blog, without spending some time with an important detail of my background. My first job, from 1984-1986 (and again very briefly in 1988), was at the Old San Francisco Steak House here in Austin. It’s an important time and place in my life, which deserves a thorough examination in a later blog entry. Among other things, it was where I met two of my closest friends, Charles Braden and Rob Booth. One of my other best friends, Mat Farabee, got me my job there, when I was 15.

Anyway, as I was thinking about the OSF (as we called it), I wondered how it was doing. I last ate there seven years ago with my groomsmen and friends, before my bachelor party. Even then it seemed different than how I had known it. It seemed to be catering to a different crowd and it felt a little lost. In all of my years of dining out with family and friends, I have never once heard anyone ever suggest eating at OSF. It’s not, nor ever has been on the radar. It has always been in a terrible location, which is only getting worse. So, how could it be surviving? Certainly its days are numbered. Those thoughts were running through my head today. This evening, my mother called and said that she had gone to the OSF just last night (a decent enough coincidence by itself) and found out that Sunday is to be its last day open. They are closing!

Though Mrs. Pribble and I are well over our dining budget for the year, I think I would regret not eating at the OSF one last time. We plan to have dinner there tomorrow night and I’ll have a full report soon.

The Workout: 30 minutes on the home treadmill.

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