Let Meat Mafia do the cooking the subsequent time you are craving a steak.
It’s uncommon that a drunken thought is an effective one, and it’s even rarer that the drunken thought turns right into a enterprise. However hey, it’s not unattainable—in truth, it’s precisely how Meat Mafia was born.
One night time in 2019, Joseph Manglicmot, Jenny Nguyen, Bao Quan, and Bruce Huy Bui had been out ingesting downtown on the now-closed Bovine and Barley. After just a few rounds, they, together with the bar’s proprietor, their buddy Jason Lowery, determined to deal with their alcohol-fueled starvation with meals from a close-by spot that was internet hosting steak night time. However Lowery wasn’t happy with the end result.
“We obtained the steak, and my good friend is so disenchanted,” he says. “He mentioned, , you guys prepare dinner these items method higher… We must always all do our personal steak night time. He’s like, We’ll do it at my bar.”
It was fairly late at this level, and the drinks had been flowing, so nobody actually thought something of it. However Lowery wasn’t kidding: The subsequent day, he went out and ordered a grill. The group of associates had no selection however to decide to the bit.
In the present day, the members of Meat Mafia juggle their company day jobs—starting from engineering to optometry—with internet hosting enjoyable pop-up steak nights each different week at Houston bars like BLVD Park, Christian’s Tailgate, and Tikila’s.
Manglicmot loves old style salt and pepper steak, however he and his associates felt it might be a disgrace if Meat Mafia didn’t showcase the varieties of meals they grew up with. All of them carry one thing completely different to the desk: You’ll see them incorporate Southeast Asian aptitude into the combination for his or her moist brine recipe—which Manglicmot understandably doesn’t need to share—and by together with Lao-style sliced brisket on the menu.
Meat Mafia likes to maintain clients guessing.
Manglicmot says he doesn’t need folks to maintain consuming the identical issues every time. Yearly, you’ll additionally discover pulled pork sandwiches on the menu, and smoked ribs will sometimes make an look, too.
“You simply by no means know what I’m gonna be serving,” he says. “After I do resolve to do one thing [new], we put it on the market all week. Our fundamental voice is our Instagram.”
Tomahawks are on the menu, however you need to reserve them forward of time by direct messaging the group on Instagram. It’s also possible to depend on seeing New Zealand lamb chops, prime rib eye steak, Laos sausage, garlic herb rice, and smoked shrooms at Meat Mafia occasions.
The primary steak night time the group held was in the summertime of 2019 at Bovine and Barley. Manglicmot says it was a whole catastrophe. It took them 45 minutes to get the meals out to folks and the group couldn’t cease arguing. He notes that this was additionally pre-pandemic, so between their associates who confirmed up and downtown’s foot visitors, issues had been fairly busy—and embarrassing.
“It was so dangerous, and all people may see us arguing,” Manglicmot says. “It was so humorous.”
However they had been decided to maintain going. After a lot trial and error, they lowered the wait time for meals and located their groove. Nguyen now takes orders and manages the entrance of home, Manglicmot and Quan give you the recipes and prepare dinner, and Huy Bui is dubbed the mastermind—he takes care of every little thing and something. Dian Yi, who joined the workforce this 12 months, takes care of managerial duties.
“Once we first began, we had been all simply operating round [like chickens] with our heads lower off—not realizing what to do,” he says. “And naturally, all of us fell into our place on what our roles had been going to be.”
The group’s success—particularly Manglicmot’s—ultimately garnered consideration from MasterChef. He obtained a name from the present within the fall of 2019. He thought it was a rip-off at first, however after some conversations, he determined to audition, and subsequent factor he knew, he was being invited to fly out to Hollywood.
Throughout filming, he was below strict orders to not inform anybody. He says it’s humorous as a result of he requested his job for a sabbatical, however instructed his mother he was going to Africa for work. She didn’t consider him—she thought he was going to jail and mendacity about it.
His companions had been capable of maintain down the Meat Mafia fort. However the pandemic hit mid-filming, so the contestants had been despatched residence, and all of the steak nights Manglicmot’s associates had been internet hosting got here to a halt. It was bizarre for him as a result of he was readjusting to being out in the actual world, whereas additionally studying to take action with COVID-19’s new regular. He didn’t have Meat Mafia to fall again on both, since bars had been closed.
Nevertheless it wasn’t all dangerous. “Gordon Ramsay used to FaceTime us like as soon as per week and attempt to maintain our spirits up,” Manglicmot says of MasterChef’s pandemic-era efforts.
Because the pandemic subsided and issues went again to being semi-normal, Manglicmot was invited again to Hollywood to complete filming. Though the season didn’t air till June 2021, Meat Mafia continued to realize traction throughout the Houston space.
“I believe [Meat Mafia] was blowing up by itself, and all of the present did was make it blow up much more,” he says.
You may catch Meat Mafia at one among your favourite Houston bars each different week.
Since beginning steak nights six years in the past, Meat Mafia has modified loads—and for the higher, Manglicmot says. At first, to avoid wasting cash, they purchased enormous slabs of meat and hand lower them into about 200 steaks, all of which wanted to be prepped. On the time, that was an enormous activity for a small group of individuals with outdated gear. Meat Mafia now has upgraded instruments and employs a number of folks to assist out—a lot of whom are former staff of Bovine and Barley.
The group has additionally gained a number of accolades at Houston’s Uncommon Steak Championship, an annual occasion organized by Eating Out, a nationwide advertising and marketing platform for the restaurant trade. In 2024, Meat Mafia gained the occasion’s Folks’s Alternative class. The 12 months earlier than, they earned first place for Greatest Inventive Dish: Choose’s Alternative and Greatest Conventional Dish: Folks’s Alternative.
Meat Mafia continues to host steak nights round city each different week, typically selecting new places alongside the best way. Figuring out steak nights draw such a giant crowd, Manglicmot says the group tends to stay to bars which have the area in addition to an attentive wait workers.
Wanting forward, Manglicmot hints at extra thrilling issues coming for Meat Mafia, however for now, he’s remaining tight-lipped. We’ll have to attend till later this 12 months for that announcement.
“We’ll be making some main adjustments, or exploring new issues Meat Mafia can do,” he says.
