A perfect marriage of steak and BBQ.
by Marcy Harris
Recently I got caught up in a debate with a friend about steak at the Roadhouse. He was convinced that we are not well-known for our steak. Considering that many people think of the Roadhouse as a BBQ establishment, he has a point. But what he did not know is how much care and time we put into the quality of the steak we serve at the Roadhouse. He also hasn’t tried our smoked ribeye. Yet.
How we do our pit-smoked steak.
We’ve had steak on our menu since we opened in 2003. Really good steak for that matter. Admittedly, there have been times when I’ve come in for dinner and I have been torn between our tender, dry-aged ribeye and our hand-pulled pit-smoked BBQ. So you can imagine my excitement when Chef Bob Bennett rolled out a smoked ribeye about a year ago. Talk about the best of both worlds.
A guest recently described it as a “perfect marriage of steak and BBQ”. I can’t think of a better way to describe it. Our pitmaster smokes a whole, dry-aged ribeye over oak for about 2 hours. Our in-house butcher then portions the steaks, and we grill them to order for dinner. It tastes so good as it is, we only add a bit of butter to melt over the top. But we really want you to taste the deep smokey flavor of the beef. We actually take a lot of pride in our beef at the Roadhouse, so it is super important that we don’t add too much to overpower the natural flavor of good quality steak.
Taste the difference with our beef.
So what makes any of our steaks so noteworthy? At the Roadhouse, as with anything we serve, it starts with the source. We are able to constantly evaluate the quality of our meat because we are very careful about where we get it from. By selecting animals that are farm specific from Northern Ohio or Southern Michigan, the Roadhouse can make sure we know exactly where we are getting our beef from. The steers are humanely treated and all pasture-raised to ensure better tasting and more tender beef. We also make sure the beef is processed locally, which leaves a much smaller carbon footprint. We purchase whole animals, and our in-house butcher customizes all cuts and dry-ages the primal cuts for up to five weeks.
You can definitely taste the attention to detail in the flavor of our steaks. They are richly marbled with flavor. But then we definitely take it up a notch with the smoking. In 2004, we welcomed BBQ pitmaster Ed Mitchell from Raleigh, North Carolina to help us design and build our 13-foot BBQ pit, located just outside the restaurant. Ed taught us the secrets to really good whole-hog Eastern North Carolina BBQ, and ever since we’ve been turning out some of the best BBQ you’ll ever eat.
So what do you when you have really good steak and the skills to make really good pit BBQ? You put two and two together and make the best smoked ribeye in town. And then you put yourselves on the local map for really good steak. Come on by and taste the difference with our smoked ribeye at the Roadhouse.