What started as a pandemic ritual and an inside joke turned into an actual restaurant that people in New York City were on a waitlist for. Mehran's Steak House has 4.8 stars on Google, with 112 reviews. It's also not a real restaurant.
In 2021, Mehran Jalali regularly made steak dinners for his 16 roommates. One roommate renamed their home "Mehran's Steak House" on Google Maps, and friends wrote fake reviews praising the restaurant. Shortly after "Mehran's Steak House" was listed on Google, people began looking for it and wanting to eat at the restaurant.
One review from several months ago gushed: "It took me over a year to get a table here, I almost gave up because of how hard it is, but to anyone else trying you should definitely keep trying. It was one of the best food experiences of my life and I can’t wait until I get a chance to go back."
"I can only describe this restaurant with the sound chefs kiss," another person wrote. "Eating the here was like that scene in Ratatouille where Remi puts the cheese and the fruit in his mouth at the same time and fireworks start going off in his mind. These analogies are colorful but only because its so hard to describe how truly incredible this place is – will definitely be back and highly recommend, if you go you'll know."
A website with a waitlist was created for the nonexistent steakhouse, and eager diners waited for the chance to dine at the restaurant, with the waitlist eventually surpassing 2,000 people, New York Post reported. “The steak house is fully booked for the next six months," the website boasted.
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The friends eventually decided to turn their joke into a restaurant for just one night. According to the New York Post, the group of friends found volunteer staff members for the night, found an event space, acquired the necessary permits and contacted some of the diners on their waitlist.
When Mehran and his friends decided to turn their joke into an actual restaurant, Mehran wasn't even living in New York City anymore. He flew from San Francisco to New York and had about 60 friends help him create a restaurant for a night. They even went to some other steakhouses for research and developed a menu.
The menu was built around the theme of "The Bovine Circle of Life," which maybe could explain why the restaurant's only drink options were wine and dairy milk. Most of the volunteer staff members did not have cooking experience, The New York Times reported.
Surely people noticed that there was something off about the restaurant, right? New York Post reported that although there were two events that seemed staged (fans screaming for Drake outside and a man proposing to a server), some guests appeared to not notice. Many of them, however, did believe that something was not quite right. One guest, The New York Times reported, began to suspect that the restaurant was actually a "social experiment" or an "[New York University] production."
Still, though many guests later realized that the whole restaurant was an elaborate prank, some said it was an interesting experience and one that pushed them to explore a different area of the city. Novelty was not enough to satisfy all of the fake restaurant's customers though.
Upon discovering that the restaurant was a prank, one couple reportedly decided to take legal action, according to the New York Post. The New York Times reported that some of the diners enjoyed their food while others sent it back.
"I got the luxury of being able to attend the one night only pop up and it did not disappoint!" noted a five-star review of the restaurant. "The waiter was very attentive and he didn’t bat an eye even when my husband asked him to recook the steak 5 times! Always smiling. We received complimentary wine because of this event. It was delicious, chef told me he personally crushed the grapes with his feet and fermented the juice for 98 years."
