Before Nick & Sam’s opened in April 1999, co-founder Phil Romano had a head full of ideas about who his steakhouse would serve. Then the dinner reservations rolled in.
“There were old people in there,” Romano said.
The restaurant — always a pricey place — was named after two little boys, Romano’s then-4-year-old, Sam, and co-founder Patrick Colombo’s toddler, Nick. Sam Romano grew up in that multi-million-dollar restaurant. It wasn’t really a place for kids, but Sam Romano remembers spending lots of evenings in the restaurant with his mom, critiquing the creamed corn when he was in preschool.
It’s amazing that this Uptown Dallas steakhouse, formerly a morgue, lasted 25 years in a volatile restaurant industry, Phil Romano muses. But is it? As the restaurant approaches its 25th birthday on April 21, 2024, Nick & Sam’s remains a celebrity magnet that reported more than $30 million in sales in 2023.
The little boy who grew up there, Sam Romano, is now 28 years old and in charge of his namesake restaurant.
Nick & Sam’s stands apart from the fleet of restaurants 84-year-old serial restaurateur Phil Romano started over the decades in Dallas. He dreamt up Romano’s Macaroni Grill and its singing waiters. Eatzi’s and its opera music. Fuddruckers and its build-your-own burgers.
The Romano way is to create, then duplicate.
But he didn’t do that with Nick & Sam’s. It’s just one restaurant, never scaled. To expand it to Las Vegas or Miami “would take away some of its glitter,” Sam Romano said.
His dad agrees. “There is only one Marilyn Monroe,” he said. And so, there is only one Nick & Sam’s.
Here’s a peek through the chandeliers.
Steak for the stars
Nick & Sam’s has served countless celebrities in its quarter-century on Maple Avenue, but Dallas Mavericks basketball player Dirk Nowitzki was the first, the Romanos said.
Today, it’s a hot spot for all kinds of famous folks. The New York Yankees stop in for steaks after baseball games in Arlington. Restaurant executives say comedian Adam Sandler is a regular, and that Mark Wahlberg, will.i.am, Marshawn Lynch, Julia Child and George Clooney have eaten here, not to mention a barrage of local celebrities including Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Cowboys players, past and present.
Executive chef and partner Samir Dhurandhar has a motto to “never say no” to customers, which is why chefs sometimes race on foot to the nearest 7-Eleven to buy a can of soda that isn’t stocked in the Nick & Sam’s kitchen.
“If we say no, they’re going to find a place that says yes,” Dhurandhar said in 2023 before he released the book Raising the Steaks: My Journey to Creating the Best Steakhouse in the World — Nick & Sam’s.
Servers pay attention to their deep-pocketed diners’ preferences. Former Cowboys player Tony Romo likes to start dinner with a pizza, but Nick & Sam’s doesn’t serve pizza. So someone would hustle a half-mile down the road to Coal Vines, the steakhouse’s now-closed sibling restaurant, to bring back Romo’s favorite. If the QB wants a pizza, he gets a pizza.
General manager Enoc Soltani and beverage director Sunny Hunter often open the restaurant early and stay up late.
Russell Wilson and Ciara once booked a 3 p.m. dinner so they’d have the place to themselves. Patrick Mahomes and his wife Brittany take the opposite approach and opt for a seat in the middle of the room, during the dinner rush.
Requests come at all times of day, company execs say. Shaquille O’Neal likes to FaceTime Sam Romano to ask for a table. He always sits in the same spot, table 85, in the bar. He and others are often served by “Dallas’ most in-demand server,” Benny Bajrami. Benny’s rolodex would make an agent in LA blush.
For customers, part of the spectacle of Nick & Sam’s in Dallas is knowing that celebrities might have booked the same evening you did. And part of the game is that you can’t talk to them.
“Celebrities won’t get bothered in here,” Sam Romano said. “No pictures.”
Growing up
In 25 years, Nick & Sam’s has had to evolve, Phil Romano said.
When it opened in 1999, Phil Romano said the “big struggle” was whether the restaurant should require men to wear a coat and a tie. Later, a collared shirt was enough. Today, rules are more lax: Sneakers are common. Hats are allowed in the bar.
“If people don’t want to dress up, they don’t have to dress up,” he said.
Still, Nick & Sam’s has long been a place “to show off,” Phil Romano said. The most talked-about items are cuts of beef, which can be huge, like the 48-ounce prime porterhouse for $190. Add-ons like foie gras, brandy peppercorn sauce or a blue cheese make a steak even more decadent. So do the sides.
“Sides are very important,” Phil Romano said. “It’s like your jewelry when you get dressed.”
You’re the steak, he said, in so many words. The sides are diamond bracelets or earrings. (And, if you’re going to Nick & Sam’s, wear ‘em.)
The menu of sides today has ballooned to more than a dozen options, from four cheese mac and Damn Good Fries to duck fried rice and the newest, Brussels sprouts with bacon and chili crunch.
Over the years, the menu got pricier. Today’s most expensive dish is the Emperor’s Platter, also called the Stairway to Heaven. It’s a sampler of some of the restaurant’s most specialized cuts of beef and starts at $850. The price goes up if customized.
The restaurant added sushi in 2015. Phil Romano thought it would be a risk, but that idea is long gone. Nick & Sam’s is one of many steakhouses that offers seafood splurges like truffle butter salmon or lobster-stuffed California rolls.
Dinner often ends with colorful bouffants of cotton candy, glowing from within from an LED light. They’re a Nick & Sam’s signature, as are the sparklers that come in birthday desserts.
One of the restaurant’s biggest challenges came during the COVID-19 pandemic, when business travelers paying with company credit cards didn’t fill seats Monday through Wednesday, as they otherwise had. Those who did visit the restaurant were treated like royalty, Dhurandhar said in 2023.
The bigger challenge overall, Sam Romano said, is “maintaining the quality, intensity and innovation” of a living legend restaurant for 25 years.
The future of Nick & Sam’s
The Romanos wouldn’t guess how much longer Nick & Sam’s would continue to serve steaks to Dallas’ 1%.
They’ve owned the dirt at 3008 Maple Ave. since Nick & Sam’s opened, and Sam Romano gets calls “all the time” from developers who want to build a tower there.
Sam Romano’s strength is more in real estate and investments than restaurants, he’ll admit. His family just bought part of Vista Bank. They are still investors in Trinity Groves. They own properties on Dragon Street in the Dallas Design District, including Samuel Lynne Galleries, where Phil Romano and other Dallas artists display their work.
What happens next is up to Sam, his dad said. We see more FaceTimes with Shaq in his future.
“I put a lot of time and effort into Sam,” said Phil Romano, now retired.
“My time in the sun is over.”
Nick & Sam’s steakhouse will celebrate its 25 years of history with an invitation-only party on April 22, 2024. The restaurant is at 3008 Maple Ave., Dallas.
For more food news, follow Sarah Blaskovich on X (formerly Twitter) at @sblaskovich.
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