NOTE: In honor of the Saturday return of the Chicago Urban Sportsmen and Adventurers Society's annual Beefsteak, here's a classic Konkol column about a city gentleman's need to act like a gluttonous, drunken baffoon with the boys from time to time. The event returns to the American Legion Franklin Delano Roosevelt Post 923 in Bucktown on Saturday night.
Originally published February 5, 2015
BUCKTOWN — On a special day each year, a collection of domesticated men gather at the American Legion Franklin Delano Roosevelt Post 923 to collectively strip themselves of all civility and disavow proper etiquette in a celebration of gluttony, drunkenness and buffoonery.
They call it “The Beefsteak.”
It’s a tradition that dates to 19th century New York City — when working-class men would gather at saloons to gorge themselves on slices of beef tenderloin dipped in butter and served on toast, forsaking silverware and napkins to eat with their fingers and wiping grease on white aprons while guzzling beer and telling the kind of stories you wouldn’t with ladies within earshot.
And it was revived in the Bucktown Legion Hall a few years back after Andrew Hughes read a story in the New York Times heralding a beefsteak revival in Brooklyn that he forwarded to his closest pals with an urgent plea: “We NEED to do this.”
“I’m a lawyer with a lot of hours to bill, a wife and three kids at home that are always yelling at me,” he said. “I thought it would be nice to have amnesty, even for a single night, to go out with just guys, drink a bunch of beer, eat a bunch of steak and act like a buffoon.”
Hughes’ buddy Justin Ullman, who's more like a partner in crime, immediately signed on. Indeed, the idea of something like a beefsteak had been on his mind even before he married and fathered children.
“I believe that iron sharpens iron, and these days there are a lot of daddy-daughter dances and school fundraisers, but not a lot of time for guys to spend time with just guys,” Ullman said.
“I’ve always thought that we’ve got to set up something for guys so when we end up married with kids ... now I can say, 'Honey, I can’t go to your niece’s birthday in Milwaukee because of the beefsteak.'”
Hughes and Ullman strategically picked the third Saturday in February — the start of winter doldrums that begins after the Super Bowl and before college basketball season hits full swing — for beefsteak night, which doubles as a fundraiser for the Legion Hall.
Inspired by a 1939 New Yorker story titled “All You Can Hold For Five Bucks," the guys planned their beefsteak revival to emulate the most masculine night of gluttony that writer Joseph Mitchell described as being led by the life of the party, a “man who let out the most ecstatic grunts, drank the most beer, ate the most steak, and got the most grease on his ears.”
That was an era before women corrupted the beefsteak, Mitchell wrote, when it was not unusual for “a man to do away with more than six pounds of meat and thirty glasses of beer.”
With that in mind, Hughes and Ullman, leaders of the Chicago Urban Sportsmen and Adventurers Society, decided the beefsteak — their social club’s crowning event — must start with a weigh-in.
The man who eats the most steak, downs the most beer and gains the most weight during beefsteak night gets awarded with a gift certificate for even more meat from Paulina Meat Market.
Every man who walks through the door is given an apron, his only protection from getting greasy ears, as napkins and utensils are banned.
While more than 100 pounds of beef tenderloin broils on the grill, beefsteak patrons are invited to partake in what Ullman refers to as “Charcuterie” but Hughes says is best described as “Wisconsin tapas” — sausage dipped in mustard.
Like beefsteaks of a bygone era, the Bucktown buffet begins with a ceremonial address, something of a state of the union for their social club, complete with Man of Year dishonors.
The beefsteak’s man of the year typically is a fellow involved in embarrassing acts of misadventure.
Past awardees have included bawdy fellows who have had unromantic trysts with barmaids sporting Insane Clown Posse tattoos, willingly taken bites out of used urinal cakes and been diagnosed with gout, the disease of kings, and other ridiculous examples of loose behavior.
“We’re guys who are mostly on the long journey to the middle and being somewhat marginalized,” Ullman said. “We celebrate the people who bring us off that path to a lower road.”
Before guys start gobbling those butter-dipped slices of beef served on slivers of bread — that gets stacked rather than eaten to prove how many hunks of meat each man eats — Hughes and Ullman give a presentation on proper Heimlich maneuver techniques.
This year, though, as the average age of beefsteakers pushes closer to 40, the organizers plan to focus on warning the boys about risks other than choking on beef.
“This will be the first time we talk about how to spot signs of heart attack and stroke,” Hughes said. “And as we offer good luck in the competition to guys on blood thinners, cholesterol blockers and the sort, we plan on telling them that if they feel dizzy they can feel free to lean up against a wall.”
Despite the risks, men from all over the city, and even guys who have moved away, flock to the tiny American Legion Hall celebrating its 70th year, a dying breed of veteran social clubs in Chicago.
Legion Commander Clemente “Sarge” Rodriguez says he looks forward to the drunken beefeaters every year and the generous donation they make to keep the place going.
“The beefsteak helps keep us around. It’s wonderful how they support us. Last year, we used the donation to get three brand-new entrance doors that we needed before the city hit us with a $1,000 fine,” said Rodriguez, a Vietnam combat veteran.
“We’re one of two legions left in the 32nd Ward. In the '70s, there used to be 27 posts in the area. So we thank them for helping us stay open so any veteran can come home and have a place to socialize with someone who knows what they’ve gone through.”
There aren't enough aprons and meat for everyone on Feb. 21.
So you’ve got to at least know a guy who knows a guy selling the limited tickets left to enjoy all the beef and beer you can hold for $120.
But that doesn’t mean you’re out of luck.
The leaders of the Chicago Urban Sportsman and Adventurers Society, CUSAS for short, say they’re always looking for resourceful men with the cunning and ability to seek out and find a guy who knows a guy who can get himself a seat at the beefsteak.
Since I’m a guy who knows where to find a guy, here’s a hint on where to look.
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