Why Is It Called Ruth's Chris Steak House?

"Fancy" and "chain restaurant" are not usually words that go together. Amongst the landscape of fast food retailers like McDonald's and Taco Bell, as well as fast casual places like Applebee's and Olive Garden, it says something that the extravagantly decorated Cheesecake Factory — accompanied by its twenty-page menu — leads the pack as one of the fancier options. But then there's Ruth's Chris Steak House, a favorite destination across the country for people looking to celebrate something really major. For birthdays and anniversaries where the local joint won't quite cut it, you go to Ruth's Chris. Even in New York City, which has no shortage of non-chain steakhouses like the smoking pipe-collecting Keen's Steakhouse in Herald Square, the chain was a hit. The Times Square Ruth's Chris closed down after 30 years in business due to a post-COVID slowdown, in 2023.

Despite its popularity ... well, the name doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, does it? It may be a nicer chain of steakhouses than Outback or Texas Roadhouse, but at least those chains don't have names that make you feel like Daffy Duck (with his iconic, exaggerated lisp) whenever you pronounce them. But it turns out there's a good reason for its unusual name: In short, a woman named Ruth bought a restaurant called Chris Steak House, but had to come up with a new name when she set out to expand — and the original restaurant burned down.

The story begins with the "Chris" half of the restaurant's name. The Chris in question was one Chris Matulich, who opened Chris Steak House in New Orleans, in 1927. He ran the business for almost forty years, during which time he sold the restaurant half a dozen times, only to end up buying it back after each new owner made a hash of things. With that string of luck, Matulich may have felt fated to run the restaurant for the rest of his life. But the seventh time proved to be the charm. In 1965, Matulich sold Chris Steak House to Ruth Fertel, a single mother who mortgaged her house to buy the restaurant in hopes that she could make enough money to send her sons to college.

Against all odds — and the advice of those around her — Fertel proved to be much better at running a restaurant than the previous six guys who tried, establishing a loyal customer base and attracting lines out the door. But when she moved to open a second restaurant, Matulich sued: There was only one Chris Steak House. So the second location was named "Ruth's Chris Steak House" — and when the original restaurant burned down, the chain would remain Ruth's Chris. Fertel, for her part, confessed to hating the name, but the chain's success proves it couldn't have been that much of a hindrance.