The Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo earlier this month celebrated its 10,000th contestant attempting to consume its famous 72-ounce steak dinner.
The 10,000th dinner was eaten on Sept. 1 by John Lamons, who accomplished the feat just seconds short of the 60-minute deadline to get it for free. The challenge requires one to eat the 72-ounce steak, salad, roll, shrimp cocktail and baked potato in an hour. If one doesn’t finish it in that time frame, it costs $72. More the challenge’s rules may be found here.
Not only does each contest attempt the feat in the middle of the Big Texan’s huge dining room, but it’s streamed live on the restaurant’s YouTube channel. A little over 10% of contestants successfully finish the meal in an hour.
According to the Amarillo Globe-News, R.J. Lee began the restaurant’s 72-ounce dinner challenge began in November 1960, not long after the establishment opened on Route 66.
Bobby Lee, who is the late R.J.’s son, said the restaurant adopted a western theme partly because of its clientele:
“Because it was a couple blocks over from the stockyards, the cowboys would come over after work, and he (R.J. Lee) would sell nickel beer, and cash their paychecks. He put them in the center of the dining room, and these real cowboys were the things that made The Big Texan,” Bobby Lee said. “The tourists would come in, and there would be real cowboys in the center of this dining room drinking beer, trying to outdo each other, dancing on the table drinking tequila.”
According to Bobby Lee, it was one of these cowboys who had come into the diner one day and ate five 1-pound steaks, a baked potato, diner salad, shrimp cocktail, and a dinner roll within an hour. From there, the owner said that “Anyone that could eat that much food should have it free,” and the meal and The Big Texas has become internationally known since.
The Big Texan’s record-holder is Nebraska’s Molly Schuyler, a 128-pound housewife (and competitive eater) who wolfed down three of the 72-ounce steak meals in 20 minutes. Her first dinner during that sitting was consumed in 4 minutes, 18 seconds, which also is a record.
Lee told the newspaper that Schuyler wanted to eat a fourth dinner, but he refused her request.
Lee also said a Bengal tiger on a leash once consumed the steak in about 90 seconds.
According to the restaurant’s self-published book “Story of the Free 72-oz. Steak” (Amazon link) that came out in 2008, Amarillo had no Wild West-themed restaurants when R.J. Lee initially bought a barbecue joint on Amarillo Boulevard, aka Route 66, in 1960. Tourists told Lee they wanted to see cowboys and other Western sights. So servers dressed in Western attire. Ten-gallon hat-wearing musicians serenaded diners with guitars and fiddles. Real-life cowboys doing business at the stockyards were welcomed at the restaurant with “two-bit beer.” It was all part of creating a memorable atmosphere.
Lee, using materials salvaged from Air Force barracks, hurriedly built a new Big Texan on Interstate 40 after Route 66 was bypassed in 1970.
(Image of a 72-ounce Big Texan contestant by Prince Roy via Flickr)
Neat. My son was just there a couple of days ago, he was going to do it but he said you had to eat bread too and he can’t eat bread. Oh well, I’m sure the steak was still good!