The Old Homestead Steakhouse is a
steakhouse
A steakhouse, steak house, or chophouse is a restaurant that specializes in steaks and chops. Modern steakhouses may also carry other cuts of meat including poultry, roast prime rib, and veal, as well as fish and other seafood.
History
Choph ...
established in 1868 whose flagship location is in
Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
, New York City. The restaurant is the oldest continuously operating steakhouse in the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
.
Staff at the Old Homestead Steakhouse are represented by
UNITE HERE
UNITE HERE is a labor union in the United States and Canada with roughly 300,000 active members. The union's members work predominantly in the hotel, food service, laundry, warehouse, and casino gaming industries. The union was formed in 2004 b ...
Local 100.
History
In 1868, a German family established the Old Homestead Steakhouse, then called Tidewater Trading Post, in Manhattan's
Meatpacking District
The Meatpacking District is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan that runs from West 14th Street south to Gansevoort Street, and from the Hudson River east to Hudson Street. The Meatpacking Business Improvement District alo ...
on West 14th and
9th Avenue. In the 1940s long-time employee and former dishwasher, Harry Sherry, purchased the restaurant. Sherry later passed the legacy down to his family. The steakhouse is now owned and operated by his grandsons Greg and Marc Sherry.
In the mid-20th century, a Texan who enjoyed the restaurant told Harry Sherry that he would send him a cow. Two weeks later a statue of a cow was delivered and has since become a signature symbol of the Old Homestead.
In the 1990s, the restaurant was the first in the United States to introduce
Wagyu beef
Wagyu (, Hepburn romanization, Hepburn: ''wagyū'', ) is the collective name for the four principal List of Japanese cattle breeds, Japanese breeds of beef cattle. All wagyū cattle originate from early twentieth-century cross-breeding between ...
from Japan. In order to be certified, Greg and Marc had to work with Japanese farmers to bring their facilities up to the health code standard in America.
Two additional locations were opened with one in
Atlantic City
Atlantic City, sometimes referred to by its initials A.C., is a Jersey Shore seaside resort city in Atlantic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.
Atlantic City comprises the second half of the Atlantic City- Hammonton metropolitan sta ...
at the
Borgata
Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa is a hotel, casino, and spa in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It is owned by Vici Properties and operated by MGM Resorts International. The casino hotel features 2,798 rooms and is the largest hotel in New Jersey. Borg ...
and the other in
Las Vegas
Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...
at
Caesars Palace
Caesars Palace is a luxury hotel and casino in Paradise, Nevada, United States. The hotel is situated on the west side of the Las Vegas Strip between Bellagio and The Mirage. It is one of Las Vegas's largest and best known landmarks.
Caesar ...
. The Atlantic City location was named best restaurant in Atlantic City by
Zagat
The ''Zagat Survey'', commonly referred to as Zagat (stylized in all caps; , ) and established by Tim and Nina Zagat in 1979, is an organization which collects and correlates the ratings of restaurants by diners. For their first guide, coverin ...
's "2012 America's Top Restaurants".
In 2023, it was announced the Caesars Palace location would be closing and would be replaced by a
Bobby Flay
Robert William "Bobby" Flay (born December 10, 1964) is an American celebrity chef, food writer, restaurateur, and Television presenter, television personality. Flay is the owner and Chef de cuisine, executive chef of several restaurants and fr ...
restaurant.
The Old Homestead is the oldest continuously operating steakhouse in the United States and is senior to
Keens (founded 1885) and
Peter Luger Steak House (founded 1887).
Ratings
In 1994,
Ruth Reichl
Ruth Reichl ( ; born 1948) is an American chef, food writer and editor. In addition to two decades as a food critic, mainly spent at the ''Los Angeles Times'' and ''The New York Times'', Reichl has also written cookbooks, memoirs and a novel, and ...
of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' stated that "for sheer quantity, nothing can beat the Homestead". Reichl described the porterhouse for two as "thicker than the Manhattan phone book and twice as heavy".
In popular culture
The steakhouse has made appearances in multiple television shows, including a 1995 episode of ''
Seinfeld
''Seinfeld'' ( ) is an American television sitcom created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, with a total of nine seasons consisting of List of Seinfeld episodes, 180 episodes. It ...
'' and a 2004 episode of the
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
series ''
The Sopranos
''The Sopranos'' is an American Crime film#Crime drama, crime drama television series created by David Chase. The series follows Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), a New Jersey American Mafia, Mafia boss who suffers from panic attacks. He reluct ...
''.
See also
*
List of restaurants in New York City
*
List of steakhouses
References
External links
*
{{coord, 40.741256, -74.004863, type:landmark_globe:earth_region:US-NY, display=title
1868 establishments in New York (state)
Restaurants established in 1868
Restaurants in Manhattan
Steakhouses in New York City