Hearne: Happy Steak & BJ Day (And You Thought We Forgot)

Gentlemen, start your engines…

Monday is the big day, March 14th. The now fully official holiday known as Steak & BJ Day. Never heard of it? C’mon. Even my former editor in the FYI section of the Star, Mary Lou Nolan, stamped her blessings upon the holiday by allowing me to fully report on that day five long years ago!

That’s right, a "family newspaper" that routinely snuffs out commmonplace words like "sucks" and keeps a police state like watchful eye on double entendres that have anything whatsoever to do with s-e-x allowed me to lay one up for a holiday based around blowjobs.

Go figure…

So return with me now to that 2006 column and let’s relive the magic. Then go relive it yourself if you wish later at the Cowtown’s unofficial Steak & BJ Day headquarters, Raoul‘s in Overland Park..

The basic premise being the holiday got its start as the male equivalent of Valentine’s Day.

"We’ve got a group of about 20 people who make a (dinner) reservation every year,” Shawn McClenny, owner of Raoul’s Velvet Room in South OP. told me then “And every single one of the guys always has a steak. And (last year) was the third year that we’ve heard about it.”

Raoul’s server Whitney Nichols take at the time?

“There was a bunch of couples who all ordered steaks and I didn’t know why they were here, so I asked them,” she said. “I thought it was odd. The men ordered steaks and the women didn’t. I asked them what they were going to have for dessert and they said they were going to have their dessert at home.”

The revelers outward appearance: everyday average.

“Just normal business people, and their wives” Nichols said.

McClenny’s take on the big day: “It’s a male version of Valentine’s Day. The women get chocolates and cuddly on Valentine’s Day and on March 14 the men get their steak and their stress relief.”