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Smith & Wollensky
Smith & Wollensky opened in 1977 on Manhattan's East Side, founded by restaurateur Alan Stillman, who reportedly picked the restaurant's name by combining two surnames pulled at random from a phone book, deliberately choosing a name that sounded like it could belong to an old-money, established steakhouse despite the restaurant being brand new. Stillman had already built a reputation in New York hospitality as the founder of T.G.I. Friday's a decade earlier, and Smith & Wollensky represented a deliberate pivot toward upscale, classic American steakhouse dining rather than the casual bar-and-grill format that had made his earlier venture successful. The original Manhattan location's distinctive lime-green awning and facade became one of the most recognized visual signatures of any steakhouse in the city, and the chain has since expanded to locations across multiple major American cities while maintaining that same classic steakhouse format at each one. Smith & Wollensky's combination of its genuinely invented, phone-book-sourced name and its founder's pivot from casual dining into classic steakhouse territory has made it one of the more unusual origin stories among America's most recognized steakhouse chains.
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Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse
Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse opened in 1989 in Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood, founded by Steve Lombardo and Hugo Ralli, who took over a struggling restaurant space and rebuilt it around oversized portions and a genuinely boisterous, see-and-be-seen dining room atmosphere distinct from the more hushed, formal tone many traditional steakhouses cultivate. The restaurant became known specifically for portion sizes well beyond typical steakhouse servings — bone-in ribeyes and a dessert menu featuring cakes reportedly weighing several pounds per slice — a maximalist approach that became central to its identity and reputation among Chicago diners. Gibsons has drawn a consistent clientele of Chicago business, political, and sports figures over its multi-decade run, and the restaurant's bar area in particular built a reputation as an informal power-lunch and deal-making venue for the city's business community. Gibsons's combination of its oversized portions, its boisterous Gold Coast dining room atmosphere, and its status as a genuine Chicago business-community institution has made it one of the most locally significant steakhouses anywhere in the Midwest.
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