Big Texan Steak Ranch

7701 E H 40 East, Amarillo, TX - (806) 372-5000

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Posted By Michael Stern on 3/29/2000 12:00:00 AM

If you are a seriously big eater, you might already know about The Big Texan, where steaks are available in every size up to seventy-two ounces. That’s right: a four and a half pound hunk of grilled sirloin, accompanied by a salad, baked potato, and dinner roll. If you can clean your plate of everything but fat and gristle within one hour, you get your meal for free! Plus, you get your name inscribed on The Big Texan Honor Roll along with the nearly 5000 carnivores who have successfully ingested the ridiculously large hunk of beef since the free-meal offer began in 1960. Some 25,000 people have tried and failed. (If you do not finish it all, you pay $54 for the dinner.) A gentleman named Frank Pastore ate the whole thing in 9-1/2 minutes; Klondike Bill, a professional wrestler, ate two steak dinners in one hour back in the 1960s. The oldest person to do it was a sixty-nine year old grandmother; the youngest, an eleven-year-old boy.

We recently arrived in Amarillo, ready to tackle the challenge. Then the waitress said that anyone who picks up the seventy-two-ounce gauntlet must sit at a table on a stage in the center of the restaurant, where an illuminated scoreboard clock counts down the minutes. As you eat, you are scrutinized by the management, which makes sure you don’t share the meal and that you consume every bite except the inedible parts (of which the restaurant staff are the final arbiters). Daunted by the prospect of becoming a floor show, we demurred and ordered a mere eighteen-ounce Lone Star sirloin, a twenty-two ounce T-bone, and a mighty slab of prime rib with a cup of "au jus," which the waitress referred to as our "Oh, Jaws Sauce"! The meat was preceded by an order of “Texas hors d’oeuvre” that included rattlesnake chunks, calf fries (testicles), buffalo meatballs, and Texas caviar (black-eyed peas).

Despite the patent goofiness of this place, the steaks are quite delicious, and we’ll return to The Big Texan any time we’re traveling through the panhandle and feeling in need of a major protein fix. It is a big barn of a restaurant where beer is sold by the bucket (but there’s a four-drink limit just to keep the dining room civil), and where you can wile away the time by having a picture of yourself taken next to a stuffed bear or shooting popguns in a rifle gallery in the lobby. The souvenir menu is designed to resemble a hundred dollar bill. A true Texas eating experience!

Scorecard

Overall: Excellent - Worth a Detour

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"This is what it's all about. An 18 oz piece of meat, that is so good, it makes you forget all of the hype, and glitz."
Neal Pritchett

"The Big Texan menu is so large that only two-thirds of it fits on our flatbed scanner!"
Michael Stern

"Texans do like their icons to be larger than life."
Anne Ritchings

"This mobile bovine generally is parked in the lot outside the Big Texan Steak Ranch."
Michael Stern

"The Big Texan glows like a whole city at night."
Michael Stern

"The yellow exterior is as bright as a neon sign."
Anne Ritchings

"Everything is big about the Big Texan, including its signs by the side of the road."
Michael Stern

"Big Texan billboards decorate I-40 (formerly Route 66) for miles to the east and west."
Michael Stern