The Oldest Steakhouse In The US Is A New York Landmark

In a neighborhood of continuous change in Downtown Manhattan, there has been one constant. For over 150 years, the Old Homestead Steakhouse has been perched at the gateway to the Meatpacking District. For all that time, it has been ceaselessly delivering high-quality steaks to its customers, becoming not only the oldest continuously operating steakhouse in the United States but also one of the best in New York City.

Old Homestead serves as an unofficial landmark at the gateway of the once-seamy neighborhood, the Meatpacking District. The restaurant's life-size cow, Annabelle, stands two stories above the entrance on 14th Street and 9th Avenue, greeting visitors not only to the restaurant but also to what is now a trendy shopping and dining mecca.

A German family opened the restaurant as the Tidewater Trading Post in 1868 in the neighborhood that was once the home of 250 slaughterhouses (there are now five). Harry Sherry, who had worked in the steakhouse as a dishwasher, purchased it 70 years ago, and it is now owned by Sherry's grandsons, Greg and Mark Sherry. Once consisting of just a handful of tables and a bar, Old Homestead can now accommodate 225 people at one time.

The restaurant doesn't have a quality-over-quantity point of view. To the owners, they are one and the same. Its focus on quantity is evidenced in its creation of the doggy bag, which Mark Sherry says was necessitated by portions too large to be finished in one sitting. The brothers also say they were instrumental in bringing some of the highest-quality beef to the United States. After getting the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to lift its ban on importing Kobe beef from Japan, the brothers gained access to the Asian country's prized Wagyu beef, which was sold exclusively at auctions.

Today, the restaurant sells a 12-ounce Kobe burger for $350 and once sold a Thanksgiving dinner for $35,000. In addition to its steaks, the Old Homestead is known for old-world classics like Oysters Rockefeller, Caesar and wedge salads, and lobster tails. Its old-school feel carries over from the exterior and the food to the interior, where it is filled with red leather and wood accents. While high-end boutiques go in and out of business around it, it's nice to know there's a place where some things never change.