06/27/2026
1,000 years ago, eating a hotdog at my brother’s high school graduation party, my Uncle Andy looked at me and said “I wonder what the poor people are doing.” He kind of barely chuckled, smirked and stabbed me with his elbow. I still have that Merle Haggard hat.
I've been thinking about this and I’ve been wanting to do it for a while, so here we go!
Prime Rib Night was once a great monolith of the working class. And no, I’m not talking about the one at Ale House. Not a dig at Ale House, just saying- that’s not the Prime Rib Night I am referencing here. I’m talking about the ones like The House of Prime Rib or Lawry’s. The Zeppelin Carving Stations rolling table to table. Everyone was welcome, everyone was served and the event itself was part of the meal. There was something performative and unnecessary about it all. Pomp and circumstance should never be limited to a class and “fancy dinner” doesn’t have to be stuffy and unapproachable. And it wasn’t.
Like the historic $.25 martini lunch at the great Commanders Palace in New Orleans or an ode to literally never changing anything but the carpet (allegedly) at Hobnob in Racine Wisconsin, restaurant traditions die hard and sometimes us lifers are regularly, if not always, nostalgic to a fault.
Some of those great traditions and terrible ideas have died a deserving death laid out at the feet of stubborn restaurant owner’s and chef’s own constitutions. I have done this before myself. Sometimes things needed to change. Some things never should have happened in the first place. Some things just got beat to death and eventually came out only as an anemic bastard of wherever it came from in the first place. Bad food killed some of these great traditions. Slowly something special became ordinary and worse, boring. Tasteless, poorly cooked, poorly served and fu***ng cheap, barely even discernable knock offs were everywhere. And it made all of them seem ordinary. I think the kids would say- we lost the plot.
But that’s not Prime Rib’s fault.
Test run tomorrow at 7 (maybe, sometimes s**t’s late- in advance: calm down).
Prime Rib Night - $52
14oz, medium-rare
Creamy Horseradish and Jus
Twice Baked Potato
Prosciutto Wrapped Asparagus
NY Style Cheesecake
Y’all wanna see what the poor people are up to?
Cheers, y'all
DH
