LongHorn Steakhouse has proven itself to be one of the most popular steakhouse
chains in the United States. From its humble beginnings in Georgia to its tips for novice
grillers and fanfiction romance (not joking), this steakhouse has an incredibly interesting story.
Before opening his first Longhorn Steakhouse in Atlanta, George McKerrow had a decade of
experience in the hospitality industry. According to a company history, McKerrow worked in the
service industry for years before opening a supper club at age 22. He sold that business and spent
the next few years working for a restaurant chain that ultimately brought him to Atlanta.
In 1978, he and a partner were able to secure $100,000 in capital to launch his own restaurant.
Seeking the ideal location, McKerrow zeroed in on a building that had previously housed
an adult bookstore, and began renovations that would transform it into his vision of
a casual dining establishment with a traditional Texas roadhouse vibe.
However, there were some big obstacles standing in
the way before McKerrow was able to open the doors of his new venture.
Reference for Business recalled that as
the renovation was underway at the LongHorn Steaks Restaurant & Saloon,
disaster struck when founder George McKerrow's business partner — and the funding — vanished.
"We can put that check in a money market mutual fund, then we'll reinvest the
earnings into foreign currency accounts with compounding interest aaaaaand it's gone."
McKerrow had to scramble to even finish construction, and reached out to his father.
The decision to seek help from his dad proved to be an exceptionally good one.
McKerrow's father not only became his investor,
but partnered with his son for the next 25 years to help expand LongHorn into a national chain.
Those early years of struggle were key for McKerrow, and taught him a
valuable lesson that stayed with him during the decades that followed.
In an interview with the Atlanta Business Chronicle, he said:
"Tenacity played a big part of my early success [...] I believed in myself and
what I was doing. You can't give up when things get tough and I had a fundamental
belief in what I was doing was going to work no matter what the circumstances were."
George McKerrow's LongHorn Steaks Restaurant & Saloon was struggling to stay afloat when Atlanta
was hit by a freak snowstorm in 1982, leaving motorists stranded and many without electricity.
As luck would have it, the LongHorn was one of the few restaurants in its area that still had power.
McKerrow came up with an idea, posting a sign outside the eatery that read "Drinks $1 while
it snows." That sign got the attention he was hoping for and the first night,
McKerrow and his crew served $700 in drinks. As the snowstorm continued for a few more days,
so did the parade of customers coming into the restaurant,
something McKerrow credits with keeping the place in business.
Not only did the restaurant survive, it thrived thanks to all those new customers
who might not have otherwise dropped by. In 1983, McKerrow opened a second location,
this one in the suburbs of Atlanta, which also proved to be successful. By the end of the 1980s,
there were 15 LongHorn locations, with the chain expanding beyond Atlanta into North Carolina.
In 2000, George McKerrow retired from RARE Hospitality International Inc.,
Longhorn Steakhouse's parent company. A few years later,
the entire chain was sold by RARE to Darden Restaurants Inc. for $1.4 billion.
Darden also owns restaurant chains like Olive Garden and Capital Grille.
McKerrow wasn't quite ready to be put out to pasture, however.
In 2002, he partnered with Atlanta-based media mogul Ted Turner to launch Ted's Montana Grill,
built upon a model that focused on sustainability. One key difference
between this new venture and LongHorn was that beef wouldn't be the primary focus at Ted's;
they would focus on bison. Speaking with The Atlantan, McKerrow admitted he found
it ironic that serving diners bison — a species that had once been hovering on
the brink of extinction — had actually helped increase the bison population. McKerrow said:
"Being at the helm of a successful enterprise is satisfying by itself,
but if you can go to sleep at night knowing that
your efforts are actually doing some good in this world, that's the cherry on top."
When holidays such as Memorial Day and the Fourth of July roll around, Americans tend
to head outdoors, fire up their barbecues and get grilling. Recognizing this annual tradition,
LongHorn Steakhouse offered assistance by providing a special hotline to serve up tips,
techniques and advice to amateur grillers called the LongHorn Grill Us Hotline in 2013.
The program proved to be successful, returning each year to offer grilling assistance.
Some of the tips include things like, when grilling with charcoal, to not skimp on
the briquettes since the ideal temperature to cook a steak is 550 degrees Fahrenheit.
If using a propane grill, they advise turning it on 10 minutes before cooking
so the grill has enough time to heat up to the desired temperature.
"What if somebody wants theirs well done?"
"We ask them politely yet firmly to leave."
For most people, LongHorn Steakhouse conjures up images of thick, juicy ribeyes and tantalizing
T-bones, while Denny's elicits thoughts of eggs over easy nestled next to a pile of fluffy
pancakes. That was not the case for some folks who followed the LongHorn Steakhouse Tumblr account.
In fact, certain fans of the two restaurants placed the two
restaurant chains within some highly romantic and very weird fan fiction.
As DailyDot reported, it all began when LongHorn Steakhouse launched its Tumblr account, run by
an anonymous employee. Apparently, the person running the Tumblr was regularly propositioned,
and would respond by joking that they already loved Denny's. That throwaway joke led fans to
start posting stories and drawings featuring a fictional romance between a young couple:
LongHorn, a handsome male occasionally depicted with horns on his head, and a
fetching young woman named Denny, often drawn in the style of an anime [AN-ih-may] character.
This fictional relationship eventually came to be dubbed "Denhouse."
And… that's quite enough about that.
As demonstrated by its holiday grilling hotline, LongHorn Steakhouse is not
stingy when it comes to helping its customers recreate their steaks at home.
The same holds true for the chain's recipes. In fact, the LongHorn Steakhouse website features
a special page that's bursting with recipes that have been inspired by LongHorn chefs.
Surprisingly, only a few of these recipes featured steaks; among these were a coffee-rubbed ribeye
and a herb-rubbed beef tenderloin topped with a portabella mushroom cream sauce.
Meanwhile, those who enjoy LongHorn Steakhouse's ribs can fire up the grill and cook up a batch
of grilled baby back ribs, accompanied by a sweet-and-spicy bourbon BBQ sauce.
If there's one thing that LongHorn knows how to deliver to its customers,
it's variety. In fact, LongHorn's menu offers an impressive array of diverse cuts of meat,
ranging from its signature Outlaw Ribeye to the savory Renegade Sirloin. Then there's the
LongHorn Porterhouse, which is described as "the biggest steak in the game," a
22-ounce slab of beef that combines a bone-in strip and a tender filet into a single cut.
"What's happening to me? There's still food but I don't wanna eat it.
I've become everything I've ever hated."
In addition to all those regular menu items, LongHorn Steakhouse also serves
up some special-selection cuts on occasion. The chain's website says these steaks are:
"Hand-selected for their one-of-a-kind marbling and textures,
they're prized possessions for any steak lover."
These special cuts include a 14-ounce Delmonico, a 12-ounce
New York strip and the six-ounce Flo's Filet. The LongHorn website says of this last steak:
"It's tender, buttery and you won't regret a single bite."
One of the key secrets to achieving the juicy and delicious steaks enjoyed by customers of
LongHorse Steakhouse is that the restaurant is insistent on using fresh, never frozen steaks.
Speaking with The Daily Meal, LongHorn's Chef Michael Senich conceded that frozen
steaks may be more cost-effective for restaurants, allowing them to be
stored for significantly longer, but the quality of the meat ultimately suffers.
In addition, he explained that freezing a steak can also result in the formation
of ice crystals and lead to freezer burn; meanwhile, if a frozen steak isn't correctly
thawed it can hamper the ability to grill it to the proper level of preparedness.
Senich also stressed the importance of keeping one's grill clean, which will prevent a steak
from being ruined by sticking to the grates. For home grillers striving to reach new heights,
he recommended first scraping the grates of the grill and then firing it up.
While the grill is heating up, Senich advised dipping a hand towel in canola oil,
gripping the towel with tongs, and then running it along the grates as they heat up.
When the coronavirus pandemic led restaurants throughout North America to shut down,
many eateries that had the capability shifted to a
business model that emphasized takeout orders placed online, often using app-based delivery
services. Among these restaurants that shifted was LongHorn Steakhouse.
The strategy proved to be a winning one in the steakhouse's home state of Georgia.
According to the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, an analysis of consumer tracking data in Georgia
showed that LongHorn Steakhouse was the most visited fast-casual
restaurant in the state since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
While the appearance of a Longhorn Steakhouse in a newspaper headline
is typically seen as a good thing for the company from a public relations perspective,
that decidedly wasn't the case in 2019 when a LongHorn location in Clarksville,
Tennessee was the scene of a brutal double homicide.
Reportedly, two men were gunned down in the parking lot of that location after a dispute.
The public at large was not thought to be threatened at the time. Not surprisingly,
when the shots were fired, many people reportedly fled from the scene of the
shooting. The two victims were rushed to a nearby hospital, where they later died.
As The Leaf Chronicle subsequently reported, two men were arrested and
charged in connection with the two murders. The suspects were indicted on two counts
of first-degree murder and one count of reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon.
Let it never be said that LongHorn Steakhouse doesn't respond to the feedback offered by its
customers. In 2019, a 6-year-old's Instagram review went viral when he critiqued the Shirley
Temple he was served at a LongHorn Steakhouse. According to the kid — identified by People
magazine as Leo Kelly, aka The Shirley Temple King on Instagram — it was the tallest Shirley
Temple he'd ever had, but he had to diss the drink for containing not one single cherry.
In response, an Instagram post from LongHorn Steakhouse trumpeted the news:
the restaurant was altering its recipe. Their new Shirley Temple upped the cherry
game substantially by adding five cherries — three on the bottom of the beverage,
and another two on top, balanced atop the rim of the glass with a skewer.
Those who dine at LongHorn Steakhouse restaurants will typically end their meals with some type of
sweet treat. One of the chain's most popular desserts is its famed Chocolate Stampede,
large enough to serve two and consisting of six types of chocolate in peaks and layers
that are served with vanilla bean ice cream.
The popularity of the Chocolate Stampede hasn't gone unnoticed by the Food Network.
They have a copycat recipe that's reportedly inspired by the popular steakhouse chain's famous
dessert. This DIY version has been dubbed the Almost-Famous Chocolate Mousse Cake.
It's certainly a worthy recreation, it may prove challenging for novice bakers.
It features a lengthy list of ingredients, including devil's food cake mix, 10 eggs (with
yolks and whites separated) and strong coffee, combined with chopped bittersweet chocolate
and butter to create the fluffy mousse that's a huge part of the restaurant's signature dessert.
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