The Best Steak House: A Saint Paul Restaurant Story Built on Family, Food, and Staying Power

There are restaurants you visit because they are new.

Then there are restaurants you visit because they have been there for as long as you can remember.

For me, The Best Steak House, located on University Avenue near Victoria Street in Saint Paul, falls into that second category.

I remember eating there as a young child. As I grew older, I continued going there into my young adult years. It was one of those places that stayed familiar as life changed around me.

And those are the kinds of restaurants I have always enjoyed eating at the most.

Not necessarily the newest restaurants.

Not always the fanciest restaurants.

But the places with history.

The places where you can feel that generations of people have walked through the doors. The places that become part of your personal food memories.

The Best Steak House was one of those places for me.

Food Memories Begin Early

Some of our strongest food memories are not necessarily connected to the most expensive meals we have ever eaten.

Sometimes they are connected to the places we visited growing up.

The restaurants our parents took us to.

The places we went with family.

The neighborhood restaurants where the food was familiar and the experience was comfortable.

For me, The Best Steak House was part of that experience.

I ate there as a young child, and as I grew older, it remained a place I enjoyed returning to. Eventually, I found myself looking at restaurants differently—not just as a customer, but as someone who would go on to build a career in the food industry.

That is one of the interesting things about food memories.

When you are young, you may simply remember enjoying the meal.

As you get older and begin working in restaurants, kitchens, catering, and food businesses, you start to notice something else.

You begin to appreciate the work behind the restaurant.

The consistency.

The staff.

The rhythm of the kitchen.

The ability to serve generations of customers.

You begin to understand how difficult it is to keep a restaurant open—not just for a few years, but for decades.

Before There Was The Best Steak House, There Was Family

One of the parts of this story that I find most interesting is the family history behind the restaurant.

Mike Hatzistamoulos, the longtime owner of The Best Steak House, was born on the Greek island of Samos and came to the United States as a child. He grew up in Saint Paul, and his connection to the restaurant business began long before The Best Steak House became a neighborhood institution.

His parents owned a Greek restaurant in downtown Saint Paul.

That detail matters.

Because when you grow up in a restaurant family, you learn things that cannot always be taught in culinary school.

You learn how to read a dining room.

You learn how to recognize a regular before they even sit down.

You learn that the kitchen never really stops moving.

You learn that restaurant ownership is not just about food. It is about sacrifice, family, customer service, and the ability to keep going when the work gets hard.

For many immigrant families, the restaurant became a pathway to a new life in America.

The restaurant was the family business.

It was the workplace.

It was the gathering place.

And for children growing up around that environment, it became an education in hospitality.

The Greek-American Restaurant Story

As a chef and someone who has spent years working in restaurants and catering, I have always been fascinated by the way immigrant families have shaped American food.

Greek-American restaurant families have played an enormous role in the history of American dining.

They opened diners.

They ran cafes.

They operated family restaurants.

They served breakfast, burgers, steaks, sandwiches, and comfort food to communities across the country.

What many people may not realize is that the Greek-American restaurant story is not always about serving strictly traditional Greek food.

Sometimes it is about adapting.

It is about learning what the community wants to eat while carrying your family history with you.

That is part of what makes The Best Steak House so interesting.

The restaurant serves classic American food—steaks, burgers, chicken, seafood, sandwiches, baked potatoes, salads, and all the familiar sides that make a steakhouse feel like a steakhouse.

But behind that American menu is a Greek family history.

That is the beauty of American food.

It is constantly evolving.

It is built by people who bring their own traditions to a new place and then create something new.

The University Avenue Steakhouse

There is something special about the old-school neighborhood steakhouse.

You walk in hungry.

You do not necessarily need a reservation.

You are not looking for a culinary performance.

You want a good meal.

You want something filling.

You want food that feels familiar.

The Best Steak House has built its reputation around that kind of experience.

Located on University Avenue in Saint Paul, the restaurant has become part of the fabric of the neighborhood. It represents the kind of restaurant that has been able to remain relevant not because it constantly reinvents itself, but because it understands the importance of consistency.

There is something powerful about that.

In today's restaurant industry, chefs and owners are constantly being told to create the next big thing.

The next trend.

The next viral dish.

The next concept.

But restaurants like The Best Steak House remind us that there is another way to build a legacy.

You can simply serve people well.

You can keep the grill hot.

You can treat your customers like neighbors.

You can continue showing up.

And sometimes, that is enough to become part of a city's history.

The Owner Behind the Grill

One of the things I appreciate about old-school family restaurants is that the owner is often right in the middle of the operation.

Not sitting in a corporate office.

Not separated from the customers.

But on the floor.

Behind the counter.

Working the grill.

Talking with people.

Making sure the restaurant continues to move.

That kind of ownership is familiar to anyone who has worked in the food business.

There is a certain rhythm to it.

You can hear it in the grill.

You can see it in the tickets.

You can feel it when the dining room starts to fill up.

And somewhere in the middle of all that movement, the owner is still paying attention to the details.

That is the part of restaurant life that does not always make it into food magazines.

The long hours.

The family sacrifices.

The constant pressure.

The customers who become friends.

The employees who become family.

The generations of people who walk through the door.

That is the real story of many great restaurants.

What Makes a Restaurant a Saint Paul Institution?

I think about this question often.

Is it the number of years a restaurant has been open?

Is it the number of customers served?

Is it the awards?

Or is it something more personal?

To me, a restaurant becomes an institution when it becomes part of people's memories.

When a person can say:

"My parents used to take me there."

Or:

"I had my first steak there."

Or:

"We still go there every time we are in the neighborhood."

That is when a restaurant becomes more than a business.

It becomes part of the history of a community.

For me, The Best Steak House is connected to those kinds of memories.

I remember going there as a child. I remember continuing to eat there as I grew into a young adult. It became one of those restaurants that was familiar and dependable—a place I enjoyed because it felt like part of the Saint Paul food landscape.

That is something I have always appreciated about restaurants.

They can become part of our lives without us even realizing it.

The Legacy of the Family Restaurant

As someone who believes deeply in the importance of food and community, I find stories like this inspiring.

The restaurant industry can be incredibly difficult.

Food costs rise.

Labor is challenging.

Neighborhoods change.

Customer expectations evolve.

And every day, restaurant owners have to find a way to keep the doors open.

But the family restaurant has always had something powerful behind it: a connection to people.

That connection is what allowed families like Mike's to build restaurants that last.

His parents' Greek restaurant in downtown Saint Paul was part of the beginning.

The Best Steak House became part of the next chapter.

And the restaurant's continued presence on University Avenue is a reminder that food businesses can become part of the history of a city.

Why Stories Like This Matter

As we talk about food in Minnesota, we often focus on the newest restaurants, the newest chefs, and the newest culinary trends.

But we should also remember the restaurants that helped build the foundation.

The family-owned restaurants.

The immigrant-owned restaurants.

The places that served working families.

The places that stayed open through difficult times.

The places where generations of people found a good meal.

The places many of us grew up eating at.

The Best Steak House is one of those places for me.

Its story is not simply about steak.

It is about a Greek family that came to America.

It is about restaurant traditions passed from one generation to the next.

It is about downtown Saint Paul, University Avenue, and the changing history of the city.

And personally, it is about the food memories I have carried with me from childhood into adulthood.

A Final Thought From Shear Taste

As a chef, caterer, and someone who believes that food is always connected to people and place, I appreciate restaurants like The Best Steak House.

Because restaurants are never just about the food on the plate.

They are about who built the restaurant.

They are about the family behind the business.

They are about the neighborhood that supported it.

They are about the customers who kept coming back.

And they are about the stories that survive long after the meal is finished.

I ate at The Best Steak House as a young child. I continued eating there as a young adult. And when I look back now, I realize that places like this are exactly the kind of restaurants I have always enjoyed.

Restaurants with history.

Restaurants with character.

Restaurants that feel connected to the community.

Restaurants that become part of your own story.

That is the power of a neighborhood restaurant.

It can feed you when you are young.

It can remain familiar as you grow older.

And years later, it can still bring back memories of where you came from.

The story of The Best Steak House is a Saint Paul story.

It is a Greek-American story.

It is a family restaurant story.

And for me, it is also part of my own food story.

Because sometimes, the restaurants that mean the most to us are not the ones we discovered as adults.

They are the ones we remember from childhood.

The ones we kept coming back to.

The ones that quietly became part of who we are.

Shear Taste: Midwest Roots, Global Flavors.