Unagi2000

At the risk of boring everyone with a pedantic lesson in economics, Luger's ownership of the property is irrelevant from a business profitability standpoint and simply means that there is a greater likelihood that the operation has positive cashflow. An assessment of whether the operation is profitable needs to take into account the opportunity cost undertaken by the owners of the business. In this case the most meaningful opportunity cost would be whether they could make more money by selling the property and re-investing the proceeds at a higher rate of return or using the property for an alternative, higher (financial) value purpose besides cooking and serving low-margin steaks. My guess is that, if you were to consider the business from this perspective, it would be unprofitable. Another way of looking at this would be to say that every steak Peter Luger's serves is subsidized by the Forman family's (owners of the business) own profits. Of course this just looks at the situation from a financial point of view and does not take into account non-financial forms of value such as the enjoyment and satisfaction the owners might get out of running what is generally regarded as the best steak house in NYC. There is no question that the steak I was served on my recent visit to Luger's left a lot to be desired. If it is true that Luger's has adopted a lower-quality approach to sourcing its meat, this can be explained through another economic principle: supply and demand. First, with many new players getting into the USDA prime dry-aged steak business in NYC (e.g. Fairway, Citarella) there will be increased demand for the scarcer, high quality beef that Luger's traditionally buys and this will, in turn, increase the market price of the beef. Second, general demand for beef has sky-rocketed recently with everyone drinking the Atkins kool-aid and thinking that an all-beef diet will lead to slender hips. Although this will have primarily affected the price of mid-quality, mass market beef it will have also had knock-on effect on the price of high quality beef. If Luger's margins were already razor-thin, it probably couldn't absorb the higher price of the beef so it would have two options: 1) raise the prices on its menus and 2) source lower quality, lower cost beef. I'm guessing that with the economy still in turn-around they wouldn't have the ability to raise menu prices without negatively impacting covers. Of course, option two carries the risk of the reduced beef quality affecting the restaurant's reputation which will have a much greater negative impact on covers in the long-run. It's a slippery slope.

If I was served a cold steak bereft of flavor I'd give it back and demand another one. Did you speak to the waiter about it? No. 1) The waiter had already demonstrated a general lack of interest in my party's enjoyment of the meal coupled with an arrogant and obsequious reverence for Peter Luger steak. Consequently, I sensed that to say anything critical, no matter how valid, would have been construed by the waiter as an insult and would have resulted in a tense and awkward situation. It seems my perception was accurate: since eating at Peter Luger last week, I have read other reviews online where people who did complain about their steak at Peter Luger received a frosty response from their waiter. 2) As described in my full review, just about everything else at Peter Luger, from food to service to ambience, was so uniformly bad that I had no confidence that they could do any better.

you didn't dump the sauce on your steak before trying it i hope. A great steak should be enjoyed on its own without any sauce. The steak I was served at Peter Luger was bereft of flavor other than the bitter taste of its carbonized, cinder-like exterior. It was also brought to the table cold, below room temperature. As I said in my review, the sauce "made the steak edible".

Peter Luger's neighborhood is described as sketchy in numerous user reviews on the Internet (see Fodors, ePinions, etc.). Several reviews comment on how, although Williamsburg, as a whole, has improved in recent years, the section where Peter Luger is remains questionable. Having been there only once, last week, I'm no expert on whether it is actually safe or not. Hence my reference to its reputation rather than my own personal assessment of the area's safety. Let's also bear in mind that, given Peter Luger's extreme prices and no credit card policy, most people will be travelling there with significant amounts of cash in their wallets. I suspect most will opt for the perceived safety of a door-to-door taxi/car service.

Quite right. However, given the unsafe reputation of Peter Luger's neighborhood (deserved or otherwise) I suspect most who visit there for dinner will "want to" travel by cab. Thank you!

Peter Luger is totally overrated! A huge disappointment! I had heard that the Peter Luger experience was more about the steak than the ambiance so I was prepared for the "German beer-hall decor" described in the Zagat Guide. However, the place was more like a fraternity house on the final drunken night of rush week debauchery. Male diners outnumbered females by a factor of at least five to one and they made no small effort to make their presence known. The table behind ours kept yelling and barking in raucous unison as if cheering each other on in a beer chugging contest. The gentlemen at another adjoining table spent their entire meal describing in loud, crude and graphic detail all the women with whom they had engaged in a particular sexual activity that is illegal in nine states; not really the sort of thing you want to be overheard at your table when you're dining with your mother and step-father. The collective noise in the dining room was so deafening that everyone at our table struggled to hear what each other was saying. The atmosphere was not helped by the fact that there was a powerful vibration coming from under the floor, as if there were a never-ending subway train passing at full throttle directly beneath our table. When we complained to our waiter, he responded, unapologetically, "Yes, that's the meat compressor." We asked to be moved to another table but the vibrations were almost as bad there. Of course, all of this could be forgiven, a small price to pay for the best steak in the world. After all, the hand-selected, dry-aged USDA prime beef at Peter Luger is the stuff of legends. I was expecting a beautiful porterhouse, cooked to perfection, browned and charred on the outside, pink and juicy in the middle with a texture like butter and a flavor bursting with richness and complexity. What I got was a cold, flavorless slab of cow flesh that was burnt to ashes on the outside and completely raw inside. I do not exaggerate. The highly touted Peter Luger steak sauce was OK but nothing special, tasting like a blend of store-bought shrimp cocktail sauce and ketchup. It made the steak edible. At $32.50 per person just for the steak, you'd think they could do better. The side dishes were equally unimpressive. The creamed spinach could have come straight out of a frozen TV dinner and the fried potatoes were greasy and bland. My girlfriend (who eats fish but no meat) ordered the salmon and, at the waiter's suggestion, requested it be cooked medium. It arrived completely overcooked with a dry, rubbery texture like canned tuna fish. If you're looking for a great steak in New York, my advice is to skip Peter Luger and get the Grilled New York Steak at Gotham Bar & Grill. You will experience an amazing steak - delicious, perfectly cooked and beautifully presented - with the added bonus of enjoying one of Manhattan's most elegant dining rooms along with Gotham's excellent service. At $36, It costs only $3.50 more than the steak at Peter Luger. And, unlike the Brooklyn-based Peter Luger, you won't have to pay the $20 cab fare to get there or the $35 for the ride home with the Peter Luger car service.