Tad’s Steaks at the Death of the Short Con

A last look back on a now-vanished institution that fed me

The last Tad’s Broiled Steaks in New York City closed to little fanfare a few weeks into 2020, shortly before the pandemic closed down so many great restaurants and bars.

And when Tad’s closed, the city lost an important way of eating, and of being. There are still places that evoke that New York —a place whose gruff indifference allowed for a feeling of true adult freedom. But there are fewer each year, and fewer still with steak.      

You stop outside of Tad’s

Drawn by the orange flame of steak-fat flare up through the painted window, you go inside. You grab a tray, say which steak you want, and they toss it on the flaming grill. If you’re a neophyte or simply haven’t been in a while, you may say a word about how you’d like your steak cooked. That will earn you an indulgent nod or a derisive laugh. The steak, which runs from $9 to $25, depending on the cut, is pretty thin.

Served with potato and garlic bread, you have the option of adding onions and mushrooms to your steak. The grill man won’t tell you, but those cost extra. As you slide your red plastic tray along the aluminum rails, toward the register, various temptations reveal themselves. For the sophisticate, it’s wine glasses covered in saran wrap. For the less serious, strawberry wine coolers. Then sodas and desserts. The cashier dispenses your salad (included) with tomatoes (extra cost).

You pay, take your tray to a table under a faux-Tiffany lamp, and enjoy your food. And the steak’s not bad. It’s the cut you asked for, and plenty of food.  

A solitary steak

When I came to New York in the 1990s, Tad’s was an immediate favorite -specifically the one on 14th Street, in the shadow of the then-closing Palladium. One reason was steak, which always fortifies my spirits. The cafeteria style was another reason. I didn’t have too many friends at first, but I did have roommates. And we didn’t get along. I needed a place to sit and eat without having a waitress acknowledge my solitude.

Even then, the place was frayed at the edges, with peeling red velvet wallpaper, and cups of green Jell-O on trays of ice. It gave me what I wanted, and I was always happy there. When that Tad’s closed, to make way for a new dormitory for New York University, I shook my fist at the heavens, and moved along.

Tad’s Broiled Steaks was once something of an institution in New York, with eight locations, including two in Times Square serving up cheap flame-grilled viands.   

A last visit

The last Tad’s stood on 50th Street, tucked off of Broadway behind a beat-up TGIFridays and a perfunctory Tim Hortons. By my last visit to tad’s, the city had changed. But not Tad’s. The grill by the window, the red trays, cellophane-covered wine glasses, unhurried, dark and mostly clean dining room.   

On that visit, the place was striking as a vestige of a better, more democratic New York. While lunchtime lines snaked and shuffled at Chopp’d down the block, Tad’s was quiet, one of the last of the Mohicans in a Mohican hospice, with the lights off in the hallways and the staff trying to sell the Mohican hospice furniture.  

I took my T-bone, the cheaper of the two offered, to the back of the dining room. The steak was good enough. It was steak, and better than you’d get at a diner most of the time. It was cheap compared with other steaks, though not with other lunches. The drink, the onions on my steak and tomato on my salad all added up. But I’d been told as much.

The short and long con

As I ate, I experienced a certain elation, as did my lunch companion. And I wondered why I was so happy at Tad’s. I realized that it was the short con, of old America.