How long can you run a high-quality steak restaurant out of someone’s living room and backyard? Chef Brad Thomas and local ceramicist Clay Wood recently decided to find out.
In a time when many businesses struggle to stay afloat, and in a city where people are always craving a new adventure, they launched Steak Freaks as a creative experiment but quickly realized its limits.
Taking advantage of Long Beach’s new Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operation (MEHKO) law, the two wanted to combine artistic expression and high-level cooking to give locals a taste of the law’s potential.
Before the MEHKO framework, which the City Council passed this spring to allow home-based food businesses, Steak Freaks was a transient pop-up. When Wood met Chef Thomas, he was intrigued and offered up his home as a more permanent location.
“I love the pop-up food scene because it reduces so many barriers to entry, and there’s a lot of great chefs and cooks popping up that don’t own restaurants yet,” said Wood.
Soon, Thomas was planning out “my perfect experience,” a whimsical playground of a restaurant.
They began shuffling furniture, turning couches into seating for customers, and extending Wood’s kitchen into the backyard. “Today, in this economy where we’re at right now, a lot of creatives are just being stuffed out … we gotta survive,” Thomas explained. “So I’m trying to create a little oasis for creatives to come relax and play and actually make stuff that’s fulfilling.”
Starting in May, Steak Freaks sold out the house with over 20 people per night, multiple nights a week, with curious locals and foodies who found the experience on Instagram or through word of mouth. The price, just $69 per person, was also a huge draw. To keep up, Thomas hired staff, and the in-home restaurant operated with the hustle of a full-service kitchen: a server, bartender, cooks on the frites and grill, a dishwasher, and Wood greeting guests while Thomas ran the backyard.
The lucky visitors who snagged a reservation got a drink of choice between alcoholic and the house cola cocktail, followed by the first course: Thomas’ pimento Basque cheesecake. Starting with dessert was intentional. “The whole concept of Steak Freaks is selfish. It’s literally my favorite meal,” he said. “It’s a bite that’s meant to disarm you and confuse you, … but it’s going to be a unique experience.”
Next was the signature “Cheesy Garlic Brad” bread, a salad that changed daily, then the main event: steak frites, grilled and locally sourced, served with what Thomas called an “entre-faux sauce,” since “the French would murder me” for adopting the name. The sauce is rich and buttery, with a hint of bone marrow and herbs.
Four dessert courses follow, from dark cherry tiramisu to a crème fraîche ice cream with wagyu tallow caramel and crispy fries on top. The night would close with homemade limoncello from lemons grown in Thomas’ yard, optionally paired with a smokable cigarette, joint, or candy cigarette.
“I don’t know how long we’re going to be able to do that,” Thomas said last month in the midst of his experiment, “but for now, we’re going to have as much fun as we can.”
He was right. The limitations of MEHKO soon arrived, as the Long Beach law caps them at selling 90 meals a week and $100,000 in annual sales. While the revenue cap seems sizable on paper, it is tighter once food, staff, and utilities are factored in. Kitchen and sanitation inspections are now required, and alcohol is prohibited — a rule Wood and Thomas said was incompatible with the culture they built.
Their experiment has turned out to be shorter than either of them expected. Steak Freaks served its last dinner on July 26. But they teased something new would come soon.
Now, Wood is moving out of the house that hosted the dinners, and ownership of Steak Freaks has shifted as Wood turns toward other passion projects of his own. For Thomas, the idea was never meant to be permanent. “This was always supposed to be sort of just like a launch project for me,” he said, “a way for me to kind of find myself as a chef again.” According to him, it worked. “We broke every single rule,” he admitted, and the demand simply outgrew what a backyard could hold.
So Thomas is rebranding, same energy and a new name, and is touring restaurant spaces for the next phase, hoping to create an upscale diner by day, serving the best pancakes and burgers around alongside his steak frites — then turning into an avant-garde tasting menu by night, cooked with chef friends making whatever excites them rather than what they think will sell.
Whatever form it takes, Thomas says the spirit isn’t going anywhere. “Steak Freaks is coming with me wherever I go. I am Steak Freak,” he said. “This whole project was for me to find myself again and get some spark and get going again. So I think it did its job.”