TJ H.
Yelp
BAR-Ranch Steak Company has been one of my favorite meals of the year!
Downtown Plano is a quick drive away from my office at our companies HQ, and one day a group of four of us picked it out for a little lunch celebration we were having. It was my first trip to downtown Plano which is a nice quaint strip of bars, restaurants, and shops that reminded me of any of the small one/two stop light towns around my home of NC, even though you're really surrounded by metro Dallas highways and city.
The atmosphere, the food, the service, was perfection. I'll do my best to describe, but if I was creating a restaurant, I'd tell you to go here, and that is what I want. The restaurant itself is very nice, certainly upscale enough for a super nice date night, but also casual enough at lunch time for a business casual outfit. The area itself is relatively small and intimate, I'm going to guess 10 or less tables, and a spot for a few people at a small bar. Right beside the bar is the grill where you can see, hear, and smell the food being cooked!
The owner was our waiter, and just like the rest, service was plenty formal yet also laid back. He did everything how you'd expect in a fine dining restaurant, but also was comfortable in a baseball cap and laid back fine with having a conversation. He was happy to tell us about the restaurant itself, the interior which he built out himself, and was enthusiastic about what he was serving and told us everything about the meat and sides. It was great seeing someone so proud and excited to tell his costumers about every aspect of it. He alone would make me want to be a regular visitor.
But then there is the food! Perfection! All four of us ordered the Wagyu NY Strip, so he just told us he would serve it on a board with plenty of sides to fill us up. We didn't even have to tell him how we wanted the steak cooked, he said everything was cooked to 135 and it came out absolutely perfectly! Quality tasty meat, true wood flavor, it was what I normally have to cook myself at home to get! The sides were great as well, charred broccoli (which I'm a sucker for, marbles potatoes, fries, all wonderful! The menu is not huge, but I think that's perfect. Do what you do well and you don't need a multi page menu full of random dishes.
BAR-Ranch knows what they are and they excel at it! It's not cheap, but personally I'd rather have one meal of exceptional quality over multiple cheaper meals that leave me feeling "meh that was fine". Personally I'll be back and can't wait for another opportunity to try it!