White and unassuming on the outside, Grub Steak’s small vestibule opens to an expansive cabin-style restaurant, its Western-style decor largely unchanged since the ’90s. Hung above an open charbroil grill area, a bison head squints a greeting to anyone who steps into in the space. And that shag gy head isn’t a prop. It’s the real deal. Executive Chef Brian Moody can tell the story, like he can tell almost every story about the restaurant, its decor, its menu and its occasional renovations. Though after 45 years, some things are bound to be a little fuzzy.  The bison, that’s one of his favorites. One day in the late ’90s he got a call from a guy in Heber City who ran a beefalo ranch, where he crossbred bison with beef cattle. After a bison attacked the man’s dog, he shot it, then dialed up the chef. “He called me and said, ‘Would you like a buffalo?’” Brian said with a laugh. “We ended up buying the buffalo from him. We sold it as a special, and it took us like a month to sell it. It was a lot of meat, 350 pounds of meat.” Brian walked past the head, which was perhaps glaring down at him, and pointed out the bar at the front, inset and topped with a stage. That’s the newest part of the restaurant, which he and his brother refreshed at the beginning of COVID. Past the bar is the “main room,” decorated with old-timey black-and-white sketches of people, shotguns and cowboy boots hung around the walls. Next is the “moose room,” adorned with an assortment of antlers. One of those vintage-looking sketches is blown out on one side, framed by Brian, and hung on a wall built by Brian that hides a waiter’s station. In the back is the “miners room,” the most Park City of all, with images from the town’s historic mining days. Executive Chef Brian Moody knows the stories behind plenty of the Grub Steak decorations. The restaurant reached 50 years in business this year, and Brian has been there through (almost) all of it, from four owners on through the pandemic to today.  The Southern California kid turned Park City lifer got a broiler chef job at Grub Steak his first winter here as a ski bum in 1981 — and then never left. Of his 45 years at the restaurant, 39 of those have been as executive chef. He took the role when he was just 27. His tenure is staggering, especially in the culinary industry, but he’s not the only one. Five people in his kitchen have been there for over 30 years. His brother was there for 38, and his daughter, Katie, is almost at 17 years off and on. Katie had no intention of staying that long, she was almost embarrassed to admit. She was 14 when she started at “the Grubby” to help with “math club,” the annual three-week Park City Mathematics Institute conference Grub Steak catered. She left for a stint at The St. Regis Deer Valley after graduating from the first class of the Park City Culinary Institute in 2014, but then found her way back.  “I tried to quit quite a few times on my dad when I was younger,” she laughed. “It wasn’t supposed to be full time. I absolutely love the Grub Steak, don’t get me wrong, but it was kind of like coming back to square one for me. Then I went back, and I’m like, ‘Oh crap.’” It’s the people, she said, that keep her and others at the steakhouse. And her dad is the real glue. “He’s a really calm, mellow person. It’s really hard to get him mad,” she said, lowering her voice to a knowing tone. “You have to really mess up.” Brian acknowledged that’s just his style. “I don’t yell at anybody ever. I always ask people, ‘Hey, will you do me a favor? I need this done. When you have time, can you do this?’” he said. “Just being respectful, I think that goes a long ways. People appreciate that.” It’s a family, Brian and Katie said. And the diners feel it, too. Riki Miller has been going to “the Grub” for 25 years now, and it’s the only place he’ll go out to eat these days. “It’s one of the few things around Park City that still has some local feel to it,” Miller said. He started going when all five of his kids were in elementary school. “When you go in there, everybody’s in a good mood. It’s like a family atmosphere.” He learned quickly that Brian is at the heart of it. “If you’ve met Brian, I mean, what can you say? … I don’t think that man’s really ever said a cross word to anybody,” Miller said. “If Brian calls you and asks you to do something, there’s no way that you don’t figure out a way and go do it. Because you know, if the shoe’s on the other foot, that Brian will do it for you.” While Miller always felt like part of the family, his son later married Katie, and it became official — to his benefit.  “I can go to Brian’s house anytime I want,” he laughed. “I’ve never walked out of there with a bad meal, either.” Miller’s a businessman, a general contractor and property manager in Park City, and he grew up with parents who ran a restaurant in Louisiana. So he knows how incredible it is that Grub Steak has made it 50 years. That’s all Brian, too. “The biggest problem with a restaurant is food waste and the way you prevent having food waste is having someone that’s smart enough to know how much to order and having someone that’s preparing it in a way that people are coming and eating it,” Miller said. “To do that for the length of time that the Grub has been in business is pretty remarkable.” During the 2002 Winter Olympics, Grub Steak played host to the athletes from Switzerland. It hasn’t been easy, the chef said. The pandemic was tough, of course. Especially when the restaurant did away with the 45-item salad bar and lost a bunch of local diners. And there’s always the off-seasons in Park City, which the business never closed for, instead scraping by with a small team.  Inflation has made the past three years really difficult: Meat prices have gone up 30% every year, Brian said. “A steakhouse is really tough to sustain, to keep your prices down. In a restaurant, you’re always trying to run basically a 25% food cost, and that’s not really obtainable here. Basically an 8-ounce prime rib, I’d have to charge like $120 to get 25% food cost,” he said. “It’s just one of those things where you’re hoping some of your other items that you can get a better food cost on balances everything out.” So he’s smart about it, as Miller pointed out. All their extra meat scrap goes into housemade meatloaf and hamburgers, and any overcooked prime rib that can’t sell is turned into cajun meat bites served in the salad bar, which was brought back this year. Despite the rising prices, Brian said he never sacrifices on quality. All their meat is certified Angus beef, meaning the cows are kept with a certain amount of marbling at all times, a spec only about 8% of the cattle can meet, he said. He also insists that all steaks have at least 30 days of aging, compared to the usual week-long process. Enzymes further break down the meat in that extra time, making it more tender. Brian’s got other requirements, too, like a 2-inch filet side on the porterhouse steaks.  The prime rib, for which they’re known, is slow cooked fresh every day. After almost 20 hours of cooking time in a special oven, it still comes out rare and incredibly tender, he said.  In keeping Grub Steak going, Brian’s also learned to be a clever salesman, like selling desserts off a sampler tray brought to each table at the end of the meal. About 60% of people end up getting a dessert that way. It’s definitely worked on Miller: “If you’ve never had their bread pudding, you owe it to yourself to have it. I mean, you might be a little sluggish the next day,” he joked. Hitting the five decade milestone brings up plenty of memories. Katie grew up running through the halls, literally, and her dad’s life there permeates her childhood. Her dad would have his two days off during the week — her mom’s teacher schedule giving weekends only — and Katie joked she was conveniently too sick to go to school on her dad’s days off. As kids, they’d stay up late to see him come home in the evenings.  “It’s always been a very consistent thing in my life. We’ve had a lot of big moments there. I’ve had birthdays and graduations, dinners, and all sorts of things there,” she said. It’s the same for plenty of others, she said. Her brother and his friends grew up helping out, plus her cousins and their friends, and the restaurant’s sous chef’s family, too. Credit: Photo courtesy of Brian Moody Credit: Photo courtesy of Brian Moody Credit: Photo courtesy of Brian Moody Chef Brian Moody, shown left, says the Grub Steak is home to family, and not just his own. Riki Miller, shown right, is a longtime patron of the steakhouse. “I’m kind of on my third generation of people since I’ve been here so long,” said Brian. “I’ve had a lot of people that used to work for me. Their kids have come back and work for me, and their kids come back and have dinner with them now. So it’s really fun to see all these people, they’re having families, and then their families are having families.” Looking forward is harder. When Brian started, there were 30 restaurants in town. Last he checked, there were 270. Will Grub Steak make it another 50 years?  “The property is worth a lot now. I could see him maybe selling it and turning it into a hotel or something. It’s 10,000 square feet,” Brian said. “Otherwise, I can see it still staying in business. We have the right crew run it. … I’d like to see it stay alive, but I don’t own any, so it’s really up to somebody else, but I’ll keep it alive if somebody else wants to keep paying me.” His wife is now retired from her job as a science teacher at Ecker Hill Middle School, so he’d like to spend more time with her. Maybe in a couple years. Now that the restaurant is only open for dinners, his lifestyle is a kind of semi-retirement, with plenty of time to bike or backcountry ski in the mornings before going into work. “I get my four or five runs in a day and ski powder,” he said. “Then I come to work in the afternoons with a smile, cook hundreds of meals for people. It works great.” But those who know the Grub, and how much of Brian is in the place, aren’t sure what the future holds. “You know the old saying, you don’t appreciate something until it’s gone,” Miller said. “I would feel like if and when Brian retires might be when you get a new name on there.” How could they replace him? Miller said. Katie agreed, but she’s hopeful it’ll last and will keep putting her heart into it, too. “We try really hard. We put a lot of love in that restaurant. My dad puts a lot of energy into it,” Katie said. “He really does a lot for that restaurant. He really, really does. I don’t think it ever would have lasted as long if it wasn’t for him.” The post Five decades later, chef’s dedication keeps Grub Steak alive appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less