Who serves the best steak in South Florida? Our readers picked one clear winner!
By Kari Barnett, South Florida Sun-Sentinel,
23 days ago
Steaks cooking on the grill at Tropical Acres in Fort Lauderdale. The steakhouse has won this month's Best of South Florida Dining contest. Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel/TNS
The grand finale of September’s steak showdown is finally here!
As part of our Best of South Florida Dining series, we asked you, our readers, to bring your taste buds to the table and spill all the juicy details on the best steak served in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties.
With so many options available on menus across the region — from traditional steakhouses and chain restaurants to ethnic eateries and everything in between — we opened the nominations to any type of steak that satisfies your big, beefy cravings. And after the submissions were counted, we were left with the following top five finalists, in alphabetical order:
Now, after almost a week of voting , everyone has had their isay in the great steak debate and the runaway winner is …Tropical Acres Steakhouse!
The response
“Because it’s from the readers, because it’s from the general public, it really makes what we’re doing so gratifying,” said Jack Studiale, who co-owns the 75-year-old steakhouse at 2500 Griffin Road with sister Carolyn Greenlaw.
For Studiale, part of having such a loyal fan base is putting in the effort to make sure the customers know they are appreciated. He said he makes it a priority for the managers to touch base with diners every night and say thank you.
“It’s really heartfelt, and we’re so gratified by the work,” he added. “It pays off, it really does.”
The details
To truly know Tropical Acres is to understand its rich history and the family behind the restaurant that’s been serving generations of hungry patrons for more than seven decades.
While some restaurant owners may shy away from being labeled as “old school,” Studiale embraces it. In fact, he’s downright proud of it.
“The nostalgia is part of it, you know the personal attention,” he said. “The customers acquire a relationship with Nick and Tony in the bar, or Joseph or Billy or Jim at the table.”
You won’t find an online reservation option, either.
“You call, you talk to somebody, we’ll take your reservation and then we transfer that to the maître d’ stand,” Studiale said.
He doesn’t use social media, but his wife, Teri, keeps him apprised of the frequent mentions about Tropical Acres from “the lovers and the haters,” as he calls them, in the South Florida Sun Sentinel’s 169,000-member “ Let’s Eat, South Florida ” Facebook group.
“She doesn’t ever respond, just because she’s biased,” he said, laughing.
But Studiale’s no stranger to hearing opinions about his restaurant. “There’s people that come in and say, ‘Oh man, this building is old,’ and I say, ‘Yeah, it’s old!’ The restaurant’s been here since 1949 and the building has been here since 1934.”
The iconic Tropical Acres neon sign still points diners 2 miles down the road to the restaurant. It stands tall along U.S. Highway 1 at Old Griffin Road as a shining example of roadside signs of the era.
What started as a 2,000-square-foot restaurant has expanded to 16,000 square feet today, including banquet rooms.
Studiale’s uncle, Gene Harvey, bought the former home in 1949, renovated it, put in a dining room and kept adding areas from there.
After the restaurant burned down in 1964, Harvey had no plans to rebuild. But Studiale’s parents, Sam and Ceil, showed interest in taking over the business after Sam had recently retired as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy.
“They said, ‘Look, we can put up some money, we can be partners and we’ll operate the restaurant,'” Studiale recounted. “So that’s how that worked out.” (Incidentally, another fire in 2011 left the restaurant with extensive smoke and water damage.)
One of eight children in the family, Studiale began to work at Tropical Acres in high school. And there was no easy way to the top, he said: “I was bussing tables and dishes and [working] in the salad prep area.”
Despite initially having no interest in walking in his parents’ restaurateur footsteps, he quickly changed his mind after college in 1973.
“My father just called me to task. He said, ‘Look, just try it. Try it for a year. If you don’t like it, then go do what you majored in,” Studiale recalled.
Yes, he took his father’s advice, and as it turned out, he liked it.
“No regrets. I’ve enjoyed it ever since,” Studiale said. “I mean, this is 50 years later and I still enjoy coming to work.”
What’s on the menu
Diners can choose from a full list of cuts, including house specialties from the charbroiler such as the 8-ounce signature filet wrapped with bacon, a 14-ounce N.Y. strip or the Cowboy, an 18-ounce, aged, bone-in ribeye.
“We’re very particular with what we purchase,” Studiale said. “We purchase by brands, by certification and by USDA grade. We only use Certified Angus Beef.”
The meats are never frozen, he said, and they use a wet-age method that vacuum-seals and refrigerates the meat to tenderize it and enhance the flavor.
“So it has to maintain a certain length of time before it is tender enough to even open up,” which could be eight or nine weeks, he said. “Then we portion it and we cut enough meat today for tomorrow, and we’re never more than a day ahead.”
Which are the most popular items? Filet mignon, first. Prime rib, second.
“We cook it overnight,” Studiale said of the prime rib, which is one of his go-to meals. “It’s about a 14- or 15-hour process of cooking it at low temperature. And that’s why it’s as tender as it is.”
The steaks come with a choice of hollandaise, bearnaise or peppercorn sauce and a side.
Studiale said he also enjoys the grilled ribeye with a baked potato with butter, sour cream, salt and pepper, along with some asparagus.
“We’re not the new fad place or the chic place to go because we’ve been here for 75 years, but we don’t compromise,” he said. “We’ve always been serving the best product that we can purchase, and then we maintain it well, prepare it well and serve it well, and a lot of people appreciate that.”
Not in the mood for steak? Tropical Acres serves a variety of seafood — shrimp, scallops, crab cake and salmon — and pasta dishes, including butternut squash ravioli and penne a la vodka.
It also offers gluten-free, banquet and holiday menus, as well as wedding packages. And if you’d rather cook at home, its Butcher Shop sells fresh-cut steaks, kabobs, frozen meats, ready-to-cook burgers, chicken and sides.
What diners say
Among the nomination forms submitted for Tropical Acres, one factor popped up most often: consistency.
“The steak has always been consistently good without paying the very high prices of some of the higher-end steakhouses,” said Rick Knee, who’s been a diner at Tropical Acres “since way back when.” (The Sunrise resident recalled a time when “there was nothing else out there and it was a one-lane road.”)
Plantation resident Monika Knapp wrote that it’s a “traditional, classic steakhouse that always delivers quality and a good dining experience — may not appeal to trendier tastes, but it’s a classic.”
Meanwhile, Fort Lauderdale resident Diane Scully called it “an institution in Broward always serving the best choice cuts.” She added: “Their ribeye steak is just right! Moist, tender, just enough marbling of meat/fat ratio, cooked to perfection.”
Derrick Hankerson, of Dania Beach, let us know that he gathers there with friends for dinner every week.
“The menu showcases their expertise as a steakhouse,” he wrote in his form. “We enjoy the availability of salads, fresh seafood and other entrees. I recently ordered and enjoyed the slightly crispy crab cake. Later, center-cut pork chop was grilled perfectly to my desired temperature of medium rare. The texture of the char and the flavors from the juices blended on my palate.
“Could be ideal for a special occasion, but made me happy and satisfied for an any-day-of-the-week evening meal.”
Tropical Acres Steakhouse is at 2500 Griffin Road, Fort Lauderdale. Visit tropicalacres.com or call 954-989-2500.
Enjoying our Best of South Florida Dining series? Don’t miss previous votes:
I like Capital Grille but newbie on the scene Gallaghers should be included. All servers are great except stay away from tall one Scott, he seems to have a chip on his shoulder. It can get noisy but great steak and great night out.
TrueAmerican
21d ago
Yay 😀 We Love ❤️ Our Tropical Acres!!!! And the tourists don’t know about it yet after all these years 🎉
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