Steak people can turn one dinner order into a full committee meeting.
Ribeye or filet? Prime rib or strip? And somehow everybody at the table is suddenly an expert.
These steakhouses approach dinner very differently. Some keep things old-school and wonderfully simple. Others bring a little more theater to the table.
I like that you are not choosing between ten versions of the same meal.
One night might call for a thick ribeye and zero fuss. Another deserves prime rib, a proper sit-down dinner, and absolutely no rushing.
So forget trying to crown one universal steak champion before you even start.
The real question is simpler.
What kind of steak night are you in the mood for?
1. Ye Olde Steak House
The story here starts in 1968, when Bunt and Helen King opened a steakhouse on Chapman Highway. After a 2002 fire damaged the building, the restaurant operated temporarily elsewhere before returning to the restored property in 2004.
At Ye Olde Steak House, beef still carries the menu. Ribeye, porterhouse, filet, prime rib, bone-in ribeye, and New York strip sit alongside a steak skewer with beef tips, peppers, mushrooms, and onions.
Most beef entrées come with two sides, which puts Woodshed potatoes, Southern green beans, broccoli casserole, baked potato, mushrooms, or fries into the decision.
Start with the cut rather than the size. Ribeye brings more marbling, filet goes leaner, and porterhouse gives you two textures on one plate. Prime rib takes a different route entirely, so it works when you want roasted beef rather than a grilled steak.
Woodshed potatoes make the side choice more specific to this menu, while Southern green beans or broccoli casserole can pull the plate toward a homestyle dinner.
Dinner service runs Monday through Saturday, so you do not have to aim for a narrow weekend window. That flexibility helps if Knoxville is only one stop in a longer East Tennessee day.
Address: 6838 Chapman Hwy, Knoxville, TN 37920.
2. Hermitage Steak House
At Hermitage Steak House, Certified Angus Beef is hand-cut, aged to the restaurant’s specifications, and grilled over hickory charcoal. Ribeye, filet mignon, and center-cut New York strip make up the core steak choices.
Each steak entrée includes the salad buffet plus a choice of baked potato, sweet potato, rice, or vegetable. Grilled onions and blue cheese butter are optional additions, so you can keep the plate plain or add one richer accent without changing the whole meal.
That setup keeps ordering simple. A ribeye with baked potato follows the classic route. Filet with vegetables trims things down.
The strip lands comfortably in between, with a firmer bite than filet and less richness than a heavily marbled ribeye.
Dinner runs Tuesday through Thursday from 4 to 9 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 4 to 10 p.m.; the restaurant is closed Sunday and Monday.
Go lightly at the salad buffet if a larger cut is on the way. The point is to arrive at the steak hungry enough to enjoy it, not to discover halfway through that the salad plate quietly won dinner.
Hickory charcoal already gives the beef its own cooking identity, so piling on every optional addition is not necessary.
Address: 4342 Lebanon Pike, Hermitage, TN 37076.
3. Snookum’s Steakhouse
Your biggest decision may be whether to stay with a familiar ribeye or move toward something leaner.
Certified Angus Beef ribeye comes in twelve- and sixteen-ounce sizes, while an eight-ounce filet mignon keeps the portion more compact. A thin-sliced ribeye steak sandwich gives lunch a different route.
Those choices belong to Snookum’s Steakhouse, a Henderson restaurant that serves lunch and dinner Wednesday through Friday and dinner Saturday.
The split Wednesday schedule includes lunch, then an evening reopening; Thursday and Friday follow a similar pattern, while Saturday starts with dinner service.
One easy route is ribeye when you want more marbling. Filet puts tenderness first. The steak sandwich works when you want beef without turning lunch into a full evening meal.
The menu also reaches beyond steak, but beef has enough dedicated space that you do not need to wander far. Keep the first order straightforward, especially if you are comparing cuts rather than toppings.
A smaller filet can leave more room for sides or dessert later. A sixteen-ounce ribeye calls for a much bigger appetite. Lunch is also where the steak sandwich makes sense, especially when you want the ribeye flavor without a full steak dinner.
Appetite gets the final vote.
Address: 806 E Main St #1706, Henderson, TN 38340.
4. Junkyard Dog Steakhouse
A twenty-ounce porterhouse, twelve-ounce hand-cut New York strip, filet mignon, ribeye, and sirloin in two sizes give this stop a broad steak section before you even reach the more dressed-up choices.
The Bleu Healer uses blackened ribeye with blue cheese butter, while the Ragin Cajun starts with a ten-ounce sirloin and Cajun butter.
Sides cover plenty of familiar ground: baked potato, fried okra, green beans, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, onion rings, mushrooms, rice, and fries. That gives you room to keep the steak simple and move the personality to the side plate instead.
The kitchen doing all of this is Junkyard Dog Steakhouse in downtown Hohenwald. Dinner is available through most of the week, with longer evening hours on Friday and Saturday.
Go with the porterhouse when dinner is the main event. A six-ounce sirloin is the easier call when the appetite is smaller. Blackened ribeye with blue cheese butter belongs somewhere in the middle, where the topping is meant to be part of the order from the start.
This is one section where choosing the cut first saves a surprising amount of menu wandering. The menu is broad enough to tempt you elsewhere, but filet, strip, ribeye, sirloin, and porterhouse give steak eaters a clear lane from the start.
Address: 18 N Maple St, Hohenwald, TN 38462.
5. Olympic Steakhouse
Established in 1985, Olympic Steakhouse has spent decades serving Ripley from its Highway 51 location. The restaurant still identifies flame-broiled steaks as a central part of what it does, and its menu keeps top sirloin and ribeye among the lunch choices.
The broader menu is much wider than steak alone, with sandwiches, pasta, chicken, salad-bar options, and other familiar categories.
That actually makes the beef section useful for mixed groups: the steak eater can stay with sirloin or ribeye while the rest of the table takes a different route.
Top sirloin is the leaner starting point. Ribeye brings more marbling. Neither needs a complicated plan, especially when the goal is a straightforward plate rather than a stack of add-ons.
Lunch and dinner keep the Highway 51 dining room active throughout the week, so this one does not require the narrow scheduling of a weekend-only steak stop.
This is a good place to keep the order uncomplicated. Choose the steak, add the side or salad-bar route that suits the appetite, and let everyone else at the table roam through the rest of the menu as needed.
The long menu becomes an advantage when a group wants one table but very different dinners.
Address: 475 Highway 51 N, Ripley, TN 38063.
6. Chisholm Lake Store
Friday and Saturday evenings are the whole schedule here, so this is the entry that asks for the most planning. The dining room opens for weekend dinner service, and steak remains one of the central choices alongside crab legs and fried catfish.
The restaurant is Chisholm Lake Store, set beside Chisholm Lake outside Ripley. Its steak dinner has been offered with baked potato and salad, while grilled shrimp and Chicken Monterey provide alternatives when somebody at the table wants to move away from beef.
The short menu helps. You are not working through pages of cuts, sauces, and combinations. Steak is the direct route, and the lake setting supplies enough character without needing much extra decoration on the plate.
Take one of the waterside seats when available and keep the meal easy. A steak, potato, and salad already cover the important territory. This is not the section for comparing six different beef cuts; the focus is the compact weekend dinner format and the lake just outside.
Because the restaurant operates only on Friday and Saturday evenings, treat it as a specific destination rather than an improvised detour. A quick call before a long drive is sensible when the entire weekly schedule fits into two evenings.
Address: 23 Chisholm Lake Camp Rd, Ripley, TN 38063.
7. Edward’s Steakhouse
A steakhouse menu does not need twenty cuts to give you useful choices. Here, filet mignon, center-cut New York strip, bone-in ribeye, boneless ribeye, and center-cut top sirloin cover the main textures, with multiple sirloin portions for different appetites.
Each steak includes a side salad and one house side.
House sides include baked potato, garlic mashed potatoes, mushrooms, broccoli, seasonal vegetables, and steak fries.
Specialty sides such as asparagus, sweet potato, twice-baked potato, onion rings, and macaroni and cheese can shift the plate without forcing a bigger entrée.
Those steaks come from Edward’s Steakhouse on Franklin Street in downtown Clarksville. The family-owned restaurant opens at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.
Filet is the tenderness-first route. Bone-in ribeye brings more richness. Sirloin gives you more control over portion size, which helps when dinner includes a side salad before the steak even reaches the table.
The location also makes it easy to pair dinner with time downtown. A filet and garlic mashed potatoes make one route; bone-in ribeye with mushrooms creates a heavier plate. Keep the ordering decision simple, then let the evening do the rest.
Address: 107 Franklin St, Clarksville, TN 37040.
8. Old West Steakhouse
Western décor sets the stage, but the steakhouse identity is straightforward at Old West Steakhouse. The Paris location operates daily and keeps steaks and sides at the center of the restaurant’s identity.
The steak lineup includes ribeye, New York strip, sirloin, T-bone, hamburger steak, and country-fried steak. An Outlaw Sirloin adds onions, peppers, and mushrooms, giving you one clear option when a plain grilled cut sounds too restrained.
Steak dinners come with a house salad or soup, a side, and Texas toast. That structure means your biggest choice after the cut is whether the plate stays classic with a baked potato or moves toward another side.
Go plain when you want the beef itself to do the work. Choose the Outlaw Sirloin when onions, peppers, and mushrooms are part of the craving. Country-fried steak belongs to a different comfort-food mood entirely.
Friday and Saturday run later than the rest of the week, which gives weekend dinner a little more breathing room.
The restaurant also serves lunch, so a sirloin does not have to wait for a special-occasion evening. That makes this one of the more flexible stops on the list.
Address: 1123 E Wood St, Paris, TN 38242.
9. The Peddler Steakhouse
Tableside cutting changes the usual steakhouse decision. A cart arrives with full loins of ribeye and New York strip, and your portion can be cut beside the table before heading to the kitchen. Both cuts are then grilled over Tennessee hickory charcoal.
Filet mignon, filet medallions with portabella mushroom sauce, and prime rib add several more beef routes.
Entrées include the salad bar, one side, and bread on request, so a baked potato, seasonal vegetables, steak fries, or wild rice can complete the plate without needing a separate round of ordering.
The restaurant behind that tableside ritual is The Peddler Steakhouse, which opened in 1976 in a former riverside home in Gatlinburg. Dinner begins daily at 5 p.m., with Saturday service starting at 4:30 p.m.
Decide on cut before the cart reaches you if you can. Ribeye brings more marbling, strip keeps a firmer bite, and filet shifts toward tenderness. Prime rib changes the cooking style entirely.
The salad bar is included, so restraint there leaves more room for the reason you came. Tableside cutting also makes portion size unusually tangible: you can see the loin, choose the cut, and decide how much steak the evening actually needs.
Address: 820 River Rd, Gatlinburg, TN 37738.
10. Folk’s Folly Prime Steak House
The final stop began in 1977, when Humphrey Folk Jr. converted a house into a small restaurant and created what became Memphis’ original prime steak house.
The business remains tied to the Folk and Boggs families, with the next generation involved in the restaurant.
At Folk’s Folly Prime Steak House, the prime-cut section includes filet mignon, petite filet, New York strip, bone-in KC strip, porterhouse, ribeye, and cowboy ribeye.
The cuts range from an eight-ounce petite filet to a twenty-four-ounce porterhouse, so appetite matters before anything else.
Sides are ordered separately and include baked potato, twice-baked potato, garlic-and-leek mashed potatoes, steak fries, creamed spinach, asparagus, onion rings, and several other vegetables and potato preparations.
Start with the cut, then share one or two sides rather than turning the table into a side-dish inventory. Porterhouse already brings plenty of food. Petite filet leaves more room for something richer beside it.
The bone-in KC strip and cowboy ribeye sit between those extremes for anyone who wants a larger cut without going straight to the porterhouse.
Dinner is served every day, with Monday through Saturday running from 5:30 to 10 p.m. and Sunday from 5 to 9 p.m.
Address: 551 S Mendenhall Rd, Memphis, TN 38117.