By Dathan Kazsuk
Yes, there are steaks. Big ones. There are bottles of wine worth lingering over, cocktails at the bar, and a dining room that still feels like going out to dinner is supposed to feel like something.
But spend enough time at Sullivan’s and you start to realize the steak may only be part of the reason people keep coming back.
“We’re more neighborhood friendly,” says Assistant General Manager Ian Gans. “And it’s just more personable with us.”
That might sound like an unusual way to describe an upscale steakhouse, but it makes sense when you hear Gans talk about the restaurant. Sullivan’s opened its Raleigh location in 1999 inside the historic Creamery Building, and since then it has become less of a special-occasion-only destination and more of a Raleigh institution.
Gans himself is evidence of that longevity.
He started at Sullivan’s eight years ago as a server, eventually moved behind the bar, worked banquets, and became a manager before working his way up to assistant general manager.
And while Sullivan’s certainly knows how to handle an anniversary, birthday, or business dinner, Gans says the restaurant has tried to build relationships that extend beyond a single meal.
The restaurant offers wine lockers for regular guests, a plaque program, and VIP drink coins for longtime customers. Anniversaries might mean rose petals on the table. Birthdays can come with a rose. The staff will even take a photo tableside, print it in-house and give it to guests as a keepsake.
“We’re just different compared to other steakhouses,” Gans says. “There’s a lot of things we do that other steakhouses don’t really do.”
Of course, being different only gets a steakhouse so far if it can’t cook a steak.
Sullivan’s keeps its preparation relatively simple. Gans says the steaks are seasoned with salt and pepper, finished with butter and cooked under a broiler rather than over a traditional grill. Several cuts are butchered in-house, including one of the Raleigh restaurant’s biggest sellers, the cowboy-cut ribeye.
“You have the ribeye part of it. There’s going to be tons of flavor, and then you have the added bone to it, which adds a lot more flavor,” Gans says.
For those looking beyond beef, there’s also a menu item that has essentially become part of Sullivan’s Raleigh history: the sea bass.
Gans says the dish has been served since the restaurant opened and the recipe has remained largely untouched—simply seasoned, pan-seared and finished in the oven before being served over bok choy with a soy-sherry glaze.
Executive Chef Edward “Eddie” Eusebio has his own Sullivan’s success story. Like Gans, he moved through the ranks, beginning as a line cook before eventually becoming executive chef. Gans calls him one of the best steak cooks in the building and says Eusebio has placed a renewed emphasis on consistency and food quality.
But after decades in Raleigh, Sullivan’s has accumulated some stories that have nothing to do with what came out of the kitchen.
GalaxyCon has been especially good for celebrity sightings.
Gans remembers actor Ron Perlman—of “Hellboy” and “Sons of Anarchy” fame—dining at Sullivan’s while Gans was still a server.
“Everyone was trying to get a picture with him,” Gans recalls. “It was really cool.”
Over the years, he says Sullivan’s has also hosted professional wrestlers, voice actors and even a member of the Backstreet Boys.
Then there’s perhaps the most Raleigh story of all.
Years ago, when Sullivan’s still allowed cigars in its bar area, longtime regular John Randall noticed a younger man looking somewhat lost as he tried to select a cigar. Randall offered to help.
Afterward, the stranger invited him to join his group for dinner in one of Sullivan’s private rooms.
Randall accepted.
Only after walking into the room did he realize he had just joined members of the Carolina Hurricanes during their 2006 Stanley Cup championship season.
The Stanley Cup was sitting there with them.
“He had no idea,” Gans says with a laugh.
And maybe that story explains Sullivan’s better than simply describing another ribeye.
For 27 years, people have walked through the doors at Sullivan’s for steaks, cocktails, birthdays, business dinners, and date nights. Sometimes Ron Perlman happens to be sitting nearby. Sometimes the Stanley Cup is in the next room.
But most nights, it’s simply a Raleigh restaurant filled with familiar faces—exactly what Gans means when he calls Sullivan’s a neighborhood steakhouse.
After all these years, that may be its biggest accomplishment.
It isn’t simply a steakhouse Raleigh knows.
It has become a steakhouse Raleigh knows by name.
