Are You Curious About The Lawton Meat-Truck Steaks?

Once in a while, a big refrigeration truck will pull into Lawton and start slinging boxes of steak out of the back. There's always a bunch of looky-loo's that swing by for a peek, so I figured I might as well just post the photos here so you can do a little more investigating before you go stand out in a parking lot.

The company in town at the moment is called Steak Stop and they make a living traveling the country selling foods out of their truck. Direct food sales is an increasing business model these days because it allows sellers to cut out the middle-man... These guys buy direct from processors and sell it directly to consumers. Because they shrink the supply chain, the belief is you get a better product for less than buying the same from grocery stores.

I was curious and started adding up steaks on my grocery app. While it's hard to get concrete weights online in the app, the box of all USDA prime grade steaks came out just shy of what the local grocery store could offer their lower grade steaks for...

Of course, people aren't showing up to see the big boxes of steak... 99% of people want to see the advertised "20 Ribeyes For $40" deal.

It sounds like a deal that's too good to be true, and in a sense, it is and isn't. You just have to calm your expectations on what you're buying.

Is $40 going to buy you twenty one-pound prime-graded ribeye steaks? No. Of course not... but people show up expecting just that. Instead, the 20 for $40 deal is comprised of what we always called breakfast steaks. Smaller center-cut ribeyes that are on the thin side... but there are twenty of them in the box. One might not fill you up, but there are no rules against eating two or three of them. Priced per weight versus Walmarts ribeye price, it's a competitive deal in the current world of hyper-inflated meat prices.

Over the weekend, while I was hanging out broadcasting with Steak Stop while they're set up in the Goodwill parking lot, I literally heard one dude say "These can't be prime steaks with all that fat in the meat."

I wanted to slap him.

If you didn't know, lean meat is cheap meat. Fatty marbled meat is the good stuff. It's the same reason you put milk on cereal or butter on bread, fat is flavor. The fattier the meat, the higher the grade, the better it tastes.

I've got a wagyu steak in my freezer at home at the moment that would likely give my mother a panic attack just looking at it. There's almost as much fat as there is meat across the entire cut. She likes her steak cooked well-done to burnt, hates the fatty parts. She looks at the steak me and dad eat and gets disgusted. We chalk it up to her being Texan, but when we sneak a ribeye on her plate, she loves that fatty cap layer around the top side still not knowing it's all that fat that makes it taste so good.

Fatty marbling is also what makes steak tender and buttery.

I think a lot of people are intimidated by the thought of buying prime steak in bulk. It's a big box of steak and as such, there's an upfront investment that comes with it. Normally steak is a treat for most. Perhaps swinging it once a month fits the regular budget really well, but the idea of buying the next year of steak nights all at once gives some people anxiety. Personally, I like having goodies like this in the deep freeze. That way when I skip a week of regular groceries, I still have something epic to pop on the grill at a moment's notice.

Regardless, payday isn't until Friday so you have some time to think about whether it's the right deal for you. The Steak Stop guy says he'll be here for like two weeks, but once he sells out, it's gone. You owe yourself to at least go look at it in person. Here's a pic of that complete big steak box.