Bryan's Steaks — Restaurant in Lubbock

Dinner time, With the sun hung in the west radiating its golden glow. I park weary from a day dusty and long, confused I may of been…but the door I choose…. the first door led to a hall way that echoes the quiet hum of decades of hungry folks waiting in line. I lie not!!! The sweet perfume of hot iron and raw beef overwhelm sensible ideas of a sirloin dinner. No sir, you immediately mumble out kc strip mid rare as if you were ordering from an autistic soup nazi. The gracious and humble host gently entered the order without breaking eye contact sliding me a plate like if it was a pack of smokes on a prison yard….a quick nod and as if I was being sent to war, but no a utopian love child of a salad bar. As if a cheep pizzeria and church potluck carried, birthed and raised this angel with nothing but love ,empathy, and respect for all living….even the hapless elderly. The array of colors of the various pasta and vegetable salads was reminiscent of a tulip fields in holland. Feeling nostalgic as if I was in my beloved congregation hall as mere lad sneaking in for the nourishing masterpieces put together by arthritic hands. Lord know my heart skipped a beat when I saw the pi’s de resistance… like a soft pink cloud floating in a bizarre my little pony film it sang to me not of a language we understand but of love….. immediately drawn like a moth to flame. I had a moment of clarity…… worried I only had one plate I begin loading that fluff as I begin to defy the laws of gravity and realizing I had already pulled off an engineering miracle. I sat, rejuvenated , excited like a man on a mission……. The first bite my soul went quiet, single tear forms and I feel like I am embraced by the sizzlers of yester year! My senses overloaded i was transported to being a 8th grade city wrestling champ with a gold medal around his neck, and no pending indictments. I hear number 28 in a delicate sweet voice awakes from my daydream and what lies before is a perfectly grilled marked strip, with baked potato and roll. Ignoring the high blood sugar I drove in ravishing my meal like a rabid hyena. If I was picking my first meal after a lengthy prison sentence this would be it! Bravo!!...

Considering the reasonable prices for a steak, potato, and food bar (more than just a salad bar), I really wanted to like this place, but I just didn’t have a good food experience here. The people were friendly, and they had a lot of workers—they seemed to be all over the place. However, the food was not very good. So, first off, and most importantly, the steak. It was very thin, not of good quality, gristle all in it, and the flavor was sub-par. Also, they don’t know how to cook them. When I ordered my steak, I said I would take anything from medium to medium rare, so I gave them a wide range of acceptability. When I got my steak, it was well done—there was absolutely no pink in it. I really hate to send steaks back. I mean, what a waste. But this is a STEAK HOUSE. Whose fault is it that they can’t hit anything from medium to medium rare? Yes, I sent it back. The next steak they brought me was very rare (just dark on the outside and red most all the way through). From one extreme to the other, and they can’t hit the wide target I gave them. I just told them that I would go ahead and eat it, because like I said, I really hate sending steaks back, plus I didn’t know how many times we’d go through before they sent out something like what I ordered. The food bar was not that great either. One lettuce choice, which was finely shredded iceberg, which looked fresh, but was beginning to taste old, like that prepackaged lettuce sometimes tastes like. They had some other weird cold items that I didn’t try, and they had hot items like fried okra, green beans, corn, chips and bland cheese sauce. I tried those items and wasn’t impressed. It all boils down to the steak though. “Steak” is in the name of the restaurant, so you think they’d get that right. I could have tolerated the food bar IF the steak was good. The only thing they got right was the baked potato.

Two stars is being generous, IMO. Generous rating because of the reasonable price and the nice folks...

There’s a special kind of heartbreak reserved for places you once loved—those dimly lit bastions of comfort food and nostalgia that somehow lose their soul along the way. Bryan’s Steaks in Lubbock is one of those places. It used to be a temple to the honest simplicity of a well-cooked steak. Now? It’s a mausoleum for everything a steakhouse shouldn’t be.

Let me be clear: the steak was mushy. Mushy. The very word feels wrong in the context of beef. A good steak should have a satisfying resistance, a texture that lets you know you’re eating something that once walked the earth. This? It collapsed under the fork like wet papier-mâché, and the flavor—if you could call it that—was somewhere between boiled shoe leather and apathy.

I’ve had better meals on the streets of Mumbai, where open flames, questionable hygiene, and pure culinary instinct come together to create food that punches you in the face with flavor. At least there, the cooks care. They’re alive in what they’re doing, no matter how humble. Bryan’s, on the other hand, feels like a place that’s given up—a sad, defeated relic going through the motions.

What hurts the most is that I’ve been coming here for years. I’ve sat in these tables, wiped steak grease off my hands, and thought to myself, this is what a steakhouse should be. But this time, I couldn’t finish the meal. I couldn’t lie to myself. Whatever Bryan’s once had is gone, and it’s not coming back.

To the owners: if you’re reading this, wake up. Your customers deserve better. Hell, you deserve better. But as for me? I’m done. You had my loyalty, and you squandered it. Rest in peace, Bryan’s Steaks—you were good once, but that was a long,...