Where's the beef? Along Route 9
Purveyors of an American favorite proclaim their steaks to different crowds
FRAMINGHAM -- There's so much that's new on the "golden mile" -- the busy stretch of big-box stores and strip malls along Route 9 in Natick and Framingham -- that it's easy to miss the old French-style farmhouse.
Ken's Steak House was opened by Ken and Florence Hanna in 1941 on what was then the two-lane Worcester Turnpike, nicknamed Starvation Alley because "everyone who opened a business on that road went broke," recalled their 61-year-old son, Tim, who followed them into the family business.
The Hannas paid $7,000 for the 4.25 acres and a tiny 11-seat diner on the westbound side of the road.
Over the next six decades, they expanded the building and cooked up their own brand of suburban steakhouse culture. With the arrival in 1951 of a summer stock playhouse as part of the new Shoppers World, Framingham grew into a mecca for live entertainment in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, and Ken's served up prime rib and baked potatoes loaded with sour cream to celebrity guests, including Tony Bennett, Robert Goulet, Diana Ross, and Engelbert Humperdinck, along with ordinary folks celebrating an anniversary, birthday, or Sunday family dinner.
So, the idea of a 36-year-old restaurateur opening a new steakhouse across the street sounds like some sort of gustatory David-and- Goliath tale.
But Peter Sarmanian, co-owner of the month-old Metro 9 Steak House, said he, in a way, is paying homage to a local institution that pioneered the regional dining scene.
"It's a compliment, not a competition, definitely," Sarmanian said. "We're doing something very different."
Sarmanian, a Wellesley native, wants to craft a Next Generation-style steakhouse, offering the feel of a high-end downtown Boston steakhouse for $45 or $50 per guest, instead of $80 or $90.
Ken's still holds sway with a certain segment of diners, Sarmanian said. But Metro 9 would like to attract their children and grandchildren -- in other words, the Chowhound.com generation, young, upscale western suburbanites (and their stylish baby boomer parents) who want a trendy martini menu and nice dinner out without the hassle and expense of getting downtown to places like Morton's, Fleming's, or Ruth's Chris.
Metro 9 sees itself as a family-owned pioneer of sorts, just like Ken's was back before World War II.
"We'd like to be a city restaurant in the suburbs," Sarmanian said. "We'd like to be a place where people can afford to come regularly, but still have an upscale and elegant experience."
To that end, he gutted the space that had housed Desmond O'Malley's, his family's nine-year-old Irish pub, which had seen its business plateau.
The new restaurant is painted in rich shades of cappuccino, with dark hardwoods and leather chairs, but it takes pains not to be stuffy: Women are important customers, and Sarmanian didn't want to turn them off with an overly clubby, masculine feel.
Steaks -- wet-aged and seared to order at 1,800 degrees -- are the main event at Metro 9, but free-range chicken and seafood are also on the menu. A la carte side dishes are a mix of traditional (shrimp cocktail and French onion soup) and stylish (Thai spare ribs and a green apple-arugula salad). Wine is sold by the glass and half-bottle to appeal to younger diners who increasingly prefer to order wine that way.
Ken's pays a call
Over at Ken's, which doesn't charge extra for side dishes -- an iceberg lettuce or Caesar salad, potato, and a vegetable come with every entree -- Tim Hanna said he isn't bothered by the new arrival.
"We're considerably more of a family restaurant," he said. "I like competition. It makes real estate values go up. I wish them well, and I wish me well."
But Hanna isn't ignoring the new kid on the block, either. He slipped into Metro 9 a few weeks ago for a cocktail at the bar and a quick look around.
"It's a very nice restaurant. It's a copy of the Capital Grille, and that's not an insult, believe me," Hanna said, referring to the popular high-end chain with locations in the Back Bay and Chestnut Hill.
That's what Metro 9 is aiming for, said Sarmanian's partner and stepfather, restaurateur Skip Sack, who began his career washing dishes at the Howard Johnson's in Coolidge Corner as a teenager in the early 1950s and rose to become a senior vice president for the chain. He operated the Red Coach Grill chain in the late 1970s before opening New England's first Applebee's restaurant in Newton, eventually expanding his franchise to 16 dinner houses.
In 1997, Sack's company opened Desmond O'Malley's, followed by two sister pubs, the Asgard Central Square, and the Kinsale in Faneuil Hall. Those are doing "extremely well" and are not slated for a makeover, Sack said.
He, Sarmanian, and their partners had been mulling the steakhouse concept for years, Sack said, and decided Desmond's prime highway location made it the ideal spot to launch Metro 9. With lower profit margins on food and wine than other upscale steakhouses, it depends more on volume to make money, he said.
Volume is something the 650-seat Ken's has always done well. It's the rare western suburbanite over the age of 35 who hasn't attended a sports banquet, Rotary Club meeting, or office party in Ken's chalet-style Lamp Post Room, or who doesn't know the familiar tang of its eponymous salad dressing, now sold in supermarkets nationwide.
These days, Ken's is nestled next to a
There may be fewer famous faces at Ken's Steak House for dinner, but still plenty of familiar ones: On a good Saturday, Ken's feeds as many as 1,000 customers steak or the ever-popular baked scrod, Hanna said.
The chain challenge
Despite the generational gulf separating them, Metro 9 and Ken's are rarities of a special sort, independent eateries in a neighborhood that in the past 15 years has became home to just about every national casual-dining chain.
More recently, "casual-elegant" chains -- with meal tickets costing $30 to $60 per customer -- have been flooding in. Legal Sea Foods and Skipjack's Seafood Emporium are a stone's throw from Metro 9, and a Melting Pot fondue restaurant opened last fall. The
This is no surprise considering the demographics found west of Boston, said Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of research for the National Restaurant Association.
And despite incessant debate about healthy eating and avoiding fats, steak continues to be enormously popular -- with most American cities hosting a dozen or more high-end chophouses, and lower-priced chains like Outback, Bugaboo Creek, and LongHorn colonizing suburban strip malls everywhere else, including Route 9.
All that doesn't matter much, Hanna said. Real estate may have changed, but people's perceptions of hospitality and a good meal haven't.
"We're in the business of serving quality at a fair price," Hanna said, "and that's why we've been here so long."
Erica Noonan can be reached at enoonan@globe.com. 
