VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: The Golden Steer Steakhouse Opened in 1958

Posted on: July 1, 2024, 07:30h. 

Last updated on: July 2, 2024, 09:03h.

Corey Levitan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Las Vegas Myths.

The phrase “Est. 1958” appears prominently on the Golden Steer Steakhouse’s sign, its menu, its website, and all its marketing materials.

Don’t believe everything you read — even on restaurant signs. (Image: USA Today)

The year is important to the eatery’s mystique since it lays claim to having been popular with the Rat Pack in its heyday. The Golden Steer has booths available that it named after Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and Joey Bishop. And it claims they correspond to the booths where the members of The Summit (as they referred to themselves at the time, never the Rat Pack) actually dined.

The Golden Steer is shown shortly after opening in 1962, not 1958. Its address was 308 W. San Francisco St., the original name of Sahara Avenue, which wasn’t changed until February 1962. (Image: Golden Steer)

However, thanks to some phenomenal sleuthing by the Facebook Page Vintage Las Vegas, we now know that the strip mall where the steakhouse resides — originally called the Lucky Shopping Center — didn’t even open until late 1960.

And it did so without the Golden Steer.

Steering You Wrong

The Golden Steer didn’t exist until January 1962. Before that, from 1960-61, its current storefront was occupied by a kosher restaurant called Valentino’s. And no other steakhouse called Golden Steer ever operated elsewhere in Las Vegas.

Apparently, Valentino’s was even responsible for some of the atmosphere that the Steer takes credit for.

“Seven full months were utilized in bringing about what people have said is one of the most beautiful rooms in all of Las Vegas,” read a Nov. 10, 1960 story on the opening of Valentino’s in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which described the décor as “copper chandeliers, oak walls, wrought iron furniture … solid oak doors, and window frames against a background of exquisite colored rock.”

The Golden Steer’s January 1962 opening date was confirmed in the comments below Vintage Las Vegas’ Facebook post by one Alexandra Roe, granddaughter of Rex Littleton, who co-founded the steakhouse with his partner, Chuck Hensley.

This Nov. 10, 1960 R-J story, uncovered by the Facebook page Vintage Las Vegas, proves that the Golden Steer was preceded in its current location by a different restaurant. Incidentally, back then, “Vegans” was short for Las Vegans. (Image: Las Vegas Review-Journal)

It was also confirmed (again, thanks to Vintage Las Vegas’ research) by a reference to the “recently opened Golden Steer Restaurant” in a Review-Journal article published on Jan. 10, 1962.

According to Vintage Las Vegas, the Golden Steer adopted its 1958 pedigree in time for a 1998 Valentine’s Day party that celebrated its supposed 40th anniversary. At the time, the steakhouse was owned by Joe Kludjian, who died in 2006.

Other Claims Steaked

This four-year correction doesn’t necessarily invalidate the Golden Steer’s Rat Pack claims. But it does cast some doubt.

The official story, as related by tastingtable.com, is that Davis introduced Sinatra and Martin to the establishment “because it was one of the only restaurants where the singers could hang out before showtime — at least before The Sands (and the rest of the Strip) were desegregated.”

However, the Strip was desegregated on March 25, 1960, which we now know was two full years before the Golden Steer opened.

To be fair, the lack of any photos of any Rat Pack members dining here doesn’t prove that they didn’t. Restaurant managers would never have allowed anyone to carry a professional camera with a flashbulb into the establishment, or risk upsetting their celebrity clientele by requesting that they pose for official photos.

Golden Steer co-founder Chuck Hensley, from left, his wife Jerri, Sharon Littleton, and her husband and Golden Steer co-founder Rex Littleton pose behind the Golden Steer’s bar in 1962, amid decor installed by the owner of the previous restaurant, Valentino’s. (Image: Alexandra Roe)

And The Summit did perform together at the Sands until at least 1963, with every member continuing to perform on the Strip separately, and often in pairings, for the rest of that swinging decade.

But the Golden Steer’s assertion, published on its website, that Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio  — the most famous celebrity couple in the world in the 1950s — dined there frequently, “always nestled together and enjoying her favorite libation, chilled champagne,” is malarkey.

Monroe divorced the baseball great in October 1954, eight years before the Golden Steer opened. And though Joltin’ Joe did re-enter Monroe’s life after she divorced her third husband, Arthur Miller, in 1961 — even reportedly proposing to her again — they kept their briefly rekindled relationship way on the downlow. They would never have risked making international headlines by dining together in public.

The four-year correction also doesn’t change the Golden Steer’s status as the oldest steakhouse in Las Vegas.

But that’s only because it never was and never claimed to be. The Golden Steer only claims to be the oldest continually operating one.

However, we did our own sleuthing and discovered that the Golden Steer doesn’t have much of a claim on even that title.

Bob Taylor cooks up his famous steaks in a cherished family photo. (Image: Bob Taylor’s Original Ranch House)

What About Bob?

The oldest steakhouse in Las Vegas is Bob Taylor’s Original Ranch House, which still stands where it has for 69 years at 6250 Rio Vista St.

In September 1955, Taylor and his wife, Ila, opened their restaurant in part of the living quarters of what was then their skeet-shooting ranch.

It was at the insistence of Bob’s guests, who raved about the steak dinners he expertly barbecued for them at the end of every day’s shoot.

Taylor would man the grill while drinking whiskey and spitting ice onto the hot coals.

Bob Taylor’s Original Ranch House is the oldest Las Vegas steakhouse and  also pretty much the oldest one in continuous operation. (Image: Bob Taylor’s Original Ranch House)

Celebrities including Elvis Presley and Sinatra himself reportedly made what was then the 20-minute drive out of town for the unique experience. (The skeet-shooting scene in the 1964 Presley film “Viva Las Vegas” was filmed at the ranch, with none other than Taylor blasting the clay targets off-camera.)

Taylor lived until March 2010, one day short of his 88th birthday. But he didn’t hold onto his steakhouse. In 1983, he sold it to Bob Ratner, about whom very little information is published on the internet.

Ratner operated the restaurant until August 1997, when a two-year road construction project nearby reportedly slashed his business from an average of 250 people a night to 50.

A month later, Ratner sold the shuttered steakhouse to its current owner, Jeffrey Special. According to the Las Vegas Sun, Special opened it right back up in October 1997 with a former business partner.

Menu from Golden Steer. (Image: Trip Advisor)

So Bob Taylor’s Original Ranch House, Las Vegas’ oldest steakhouse by seven years, was closed for only about 90 days.

Most restaurant renovations take longer than that.

So no, we don’t think the Steer can rightly claim to be even the oldest continually operating steakhouse in Las Vegas, any more than it can claim to have opened four years before it actually did.

Multiple messages left for Michael Signorelli, who has owned the Golden Steer since 2001, were not returned before this story was published.

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