Poor Richard’s Almanac

Our friend Ben believes in giving credit where credit is due, and occasionally, some act of marketing genius impresses me with its over-the-top brilliance. Such was the case when Silence Dogood and I recently received a postcard from our friend Rob, who was on the road taking his annual trip to the Southwest. This particular postcard showed a photo of The Big Texan Steak Ranch Motel In Amarillo, Texas. The back of the postcard displayed a photo of The Big Texan’s Texas-shaped swimming pool and informed our friend Ben that the restaurant and motel had been established by the Lee family in 1960 and were still owned and operated by the Lees.

Well, that’s nice, you’re probably thinking, but so what, another steak house. And yes, while our friend Ben was amused by the Texas-shaped pool and enjoyed the attractive hacienda style of the restaurant and the giant steer statues out front and on top of the building, I wouldn’t have given it a world of thought, either. Except for the gimmick.

Now, our friend Ben has no idea how many steak houses there actually are in the U.S., but from the number in the towns surrounding our little cottage, there must be millions of them. And while people probably have their favorites, when it comes right down to it, one is much like another. But there is only one Big Texan, Home of the FREE 72-Ounce Steak.

Say what, now?! 72 ounces is a 4 1/2-pound steak, and you get all the fixin’s along with it: bread, tossed salad, baked potato, shrimp cocktail. There was, of course, a photo of this massive steak in the upper left of the postcard, and it was big. I mean, it was as big as our cat Linus. And it looked damned good, too. (Rob confirmed that the food there was great—so good that they made a second trip through Amarillo on the way home just so they could eat there again.)

But as we all know, there is no free lunch. And before you start wondering if maybe dinner is a different matter, you should probably ask yourself if there isn’t a catch. Of course there is, though on the surface, it seems pretty harmless: For it to be free, you have to eat the entire steak dinner, including the sides, in an hour. Now, our friend Ben has eaten my share of meat and then some. I grew up eating meat, and plenty of it, three times a day. In my youth, I could have polished off a whole plateful of roast beef or at least half a fried chicken without a second thought. But eyeing the enormous, thick steak in the photo, I had to admit that I could probably have only made it through half.

This of course led me to wonder if anybody had ever eaten the whole thing in an hour, and what happened if you didn’t finish it all. Which led me to check out The Big Texan’s website, www.bigtexan.com. The website shared the history of the FREE 72-ounce steak, which was very entertaining, and revealed all sorts of fun facts. Since Big Texan founder Bob Lee started the free steak challenge, almost 42,000 people from around the world have tried to become “Big Texan champions” by eating the whole shebang in an hour or less. And amazingly, about 8,000 people have succeeded, from an 11-year-old boy to a 69-year-old grandma. The time record is held (if you don’t count the Bengal tiger) by former Cincinnati Reds pitcher Frank Pastore, who managed to gulp down the giant meal in just 9 1/2 minutes. And even more astounding to our friend Ben, professional wrestler Klondike Bill polished off two of the dinners, at least 10 pounds of food, in the 1-hour time limit. Dieters, cover your eyes.

If you’re one of the 8,000-odd who achieves this feat, you get a tee-shirt, a souvenir boot mug, a certificate proclaiming what the website refers to as your “gastronomic skills,” and, of course, your name and photo on the Wall of Fame in the Big Texan lobby.  But what if you can’t finish it? Why, then you pay for it. You pay, in fact, $72 for it. (The price has apparently risen slowly over time from its original $9.95 in the Sixties. Says something about the economy, doesn’t it?)

You do the math: 42,000 minus 8,000 means that 34,000 people have paid for their FREE 72-ounce steak. And I’ll bet that, far from resenting the drain on their wallet, they loved the whole experience. Would they have gone into any old steakhouse and plunked down $72 for their dinner? Not likely. Will they always remember The Big Texan Steak Ranch, come back to it, maybe even order mail-order steaks on the website or try again to win their FREE steak dinner? Our friend Ben would bet $72 on it.

Bob Lee, you’re a marketing genius. Our friend Ben salutes you. And folks, if you like steak and find yourselves in Amarillo, take a tip from our friend Rob and treat yourselves to a Big Texan dinner. If you decide to take the FREE steak challenge, let our friend Ben know how you fare. And if you don’t make it to the Wall of Fame, you can always console yourself with the thought that the leftovers alone will feed your whole family “free”!