Last Friday our architectural firm had a booth at the State School Board Association Meeting in Oklahoma City. There were four of us at the convention and at the end of the day, I wanted to treat everyone to a good dinner. We went to Bricktown and settled on Mickey Mantle's Steakhouse which was reputed to be a great venue for steak. After we were seated and the menus where distributed, Michael posed a question concerning the prices. The cheapest steak on the menu was about $24 and rose to $49 not counting such things as potato, bread, etc. You see Mickey's group think they are great too! Back to the question: What do we order because of the Mike $18 dollar steak rule? It caught me by surprise because I never think about it, but evidently my fellow staff members do. Dinner does not fall in this unwritten but infamous, "sort of " rule.
The story of the $18 steak
It is a tradition at our firm that the entire office goes to lunch together to celebrate each person's birthday. The office pays and later in the afternoon, we have cake at the office.
The birthday person picks the place to eat. One day the honoree picked Red Lobster (a place not known for fast service (lunch is 12 to 1), but we went and everyone ordered from the Lunch Menu. Everyone, but one! One staff person who was setting next to me ordered, when it came his turn, a T-bone Steak! A well done T-Bone steak. An $18 dollar T-Bone Steak. A T-bone Steak that took so long to prepare that we were 30 minutes late getting back to work. I was so shocked that I was speechless. The rest of us ordered our popcorn shrimp, or soup & salad or catfish or hamburger. He ordered a T-Bone. He was not as speechless as I was because after a few bites he proudly announced that this was one of the best steaks he had ever eaten! He made a few other similar boasts while he dined and the rest watched.
As far as I know it may still be the best steak he ever ate! He left our employment shortly thereafter.
By the way: It wasn't his birthday!
Now you know why the question was asked at Mickey's place.
Protocol according to Webster: a code prescribing strict adherence to correct etiquette and precedence.
Lunch Protocol: somewhere south of $18.00
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