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The Texas Cattle Company's decor may be dated, but the franchise's method of grilling quality beef has never gone out of style.
By CHRIS SHERMAN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 27, 2002
Somewhere along the way to the rebirth of beef, someone decided it was permissible to eat steaks again if you got dressed up, went to a place with sepia-toned photographs on the wall and paid more than $50 a person.
There's no such foolishness at Texas Cattle Company. The people behind it have cooked steaks over wood fires for 25 years, and they know that most folks liked a thick piece of red meat long before that, still do and never wavered much in between.
So the '70s Western theme -- saloon Tiffany lamps, cowhide trim on the booths -- and cornball menu listings of armadillo eggs (jalapeno) and fried bait (calamari) fit. So do the gluttony gimmicks such as monster flaming cocktails and the 6-pound steak dare: eat it in 75 minutes and it's free (I failed this 20 years ago at a similar joint).
And all that is irrelevant.
This looks like an ersatz roadside ranch house of decades past and nothing like the modern chains covered in pressed tin and peanut shells. Yet this modest steakhouse cares about its beef as passionately as the really big-bucks beef palaces, the ones where they parade the naked meat.
Indeed, this little place on a dreary stretch of 34th Street N in St. Petersburg is the kid brother of one with a more prestigious address, Charley's Steak House on Tampa's Expense Account Row.
Here they skip the white tablecloth and the long wine list, but the beef is the same: pretty, well-marbled classic cuts, some prime and mostly choice, aged and cut in house. But you can come as you are -- shorts and Harley T-shirt if you want. All that's required is that you care about good steaks.
This is not cheap Steak prices start at $17, and you can drop $30 on a filet that'd choke Hulk Hogan. But the prices are more than fair for fine beef and plenty of it.
The price includes meat, salad and bread only, but unlike the pricey joints, potatoes and other sides cost only a couple of bucks each, not a fivespot.
Owner Ron Woodsby, whose father was a co-founder of Red Lobster, has a group of restaurants mostly in Orlando, including several top-dollar steakhouses such as Charley's. There are two Texas Cattle Companies; the other is in Lakeland.
The restaurants reflect Woodsby's taste for high-quality beef and the trick of cooking over flames of oak, mesquite (remember mesquite?) and orangewood for the extra flavor of smoke and char.
For me, the best choices are the thickest: the porterhouse (32 ounces, $21.99) and the filets (12 ounces, $17.95; 20 ounces, $29.99). Meat this good and tender ought to be enjoyed rare or medium rare in my book, and thicker steaks do best.
I had the small filet Pittsburghed, and the server and the cook knew I wanted it charred on the outside and rare inside, a rustic choice with a wood fire, but it was perfect for me.
A porterhouse ordered medium rare was overdone (pink, not red, in the middle), but the restaurant made good readily. The replacement steak was was everything a porterhouse should be: 11/2 inches thick, buttery filet mignon on one side and tangy strip sirloin on the other. It satisfied a cranky customer both ways.
The most popular cut here, and the one prime steak, is a 24-ounce bone-in ribeye, but it disappointed me: great cracked pepper crust, but the meat was tough.
As for the sides, well, no one comes here for vegetables. Those who do will get soggy carrottes or broccoli steamed too long. But the salad and rolls are passable, and fried green tomatoes, when available, are crisp and tart. The best of the taters are Texas fries, baked wedges with a hard crust.
If you've got extra money to spend, try a newfangled starter of tuna sashimi (tastes like steak, right?) or for dessert, chocolate cake. The latter is more than that. It's a six-layer affair, cut in a dangerously wide wedge, with icing laid on with a trowel -- and as moist and sweet as it is big, a rare occurence. The wine list is mostly affordable stuff (South Africa's bulk vintner KWV is on the table), but you can taste California's great '97 vintage, too.
It's all brought to you by professional servers, friendly and candid. They'll tell you the buttered apples are canned and that though the fresh fish listed on the menu include cobia and wahoo, the actual is the usual tuna, salmon, grouper and such.
There are 1-pound rock lobster tails, too, but for me and most, the draw here is simply beef -- not sides, not fish, not decor.
In the real Texas, sturdy folks used to look askance at a big-talking blusterer with a no-count ranch. "All hat and no cattle," was their summation. This place has things the right way: more cattle than hat.
2600 34th St. N, St. Petersburg
(727) 527-3335
Hours: 5 to 10 p.m. daily.
Reservations: No
Details: Most credit cards, full bar, nonsmoking section available.
Prices: $10.95 to $28.95; children's menu available.