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The only Prime steakhouse in central Michigan

This location is at 6800 Soaring Eagle Boulevard, inside the Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort operated by the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe. Geography is the whole story here. Mount Pleasant sits in the middle of the state, an hour and a half from Grand Rapids and two hours from Detroit, and there is essentially nothing else in that radius serving USDA Prime beef in a white-tablecloth room.

Central Michigan University is ten minutes away, which means this room does heavy business on graduation and parents’ weekends on top of the casino traffic.

What the kitchen does

The method is the same everywhere the chain operates and it is worth understanding: USDA Prime beef, hand-cut and custom-aged, cooked in a broiler that runs at 1,800°F. Heat that extreme crusts the exterior before the center can overcook. The steak is then plated on ceramic heated to about 500°F with butter, so it is still cooking when it reaches the table — order one temperature under what you actually want.

The 19oz bone-in New York strip is the cut the company’s own menu names as its favorite. The 26oz Cowboy Ribeye is the bone-in ribeye for anyone who wants more fat and more of it. Sides are ordered separately and portioned to share.