For three decades, Old Range Steakhouse in Tahoe Vista has attracted loyal patrons with delectable food in a time-honored setting

The barometer by which a steakhouse is judged isn’t necessarily in the variety of the menu, the pleasantness of the wait staff or the flourishes of the meal itself. While those are all nice-to-haves, the main quality of a steakhouse is in the feeling you get as soon as you cross the threshold of the restaurant itself.  

The cozy interior of Old Range Steakhouse

Are you transformed the moment you walk in the door to a place that’s at once civilized and pleasantly down to earth? 

Does the lighting make you look 10 years younger, or at least feel a decade better?

Do the people around you put their phones away, not for minutes but for hours at a time, as they chat merrily over meals so delicious that nobody wants the experience to end? 

If the answer to all of these is “yes,” then the job of the steakhouse has been accomplished. 

It’s a job that John Morrissey, owner and overseer of Old Range Steakhouse in Tahoe Vista, takes seriously—and delivers with seamless perfection night after night. 

His domain is an unassuming two-story building clad in black siding, a cloaked phantom that comes so fast around a bend that it’s easy to miss in broad daylight and blends so naturally with the forest after dusk that it’s almost invisible. 

All of this, of course, is by design. 

Bottles line a pleasantly backlit bar shelf at Old Range

Morrissey’s fingerprints at Old Range are everywhere, yet they are also invisible to the naked eye—from the menu to the seating to the bar program to the light that softens with the sunset to his anonymous work in the kitchen, where he disappears behind an Oz-like curtain to make it all go.

“I want to make sure this isn’t about me,” Morrissey says, emphasizing repeatedly that the business, which turned 30 this past summer, is its own living thing. “It’s got to be about the steakhouse.” 

Morrissey remains dedicated to preserving the continuity that has defined Old Range since its opening in 1996, when he moved from his native Chicago to work in the kitchen for the restaurant’s original owner, fellow Chicagoan George Boorus. Morrissey bought the restaurant when Boorus retired in 2017.   

In a 2006 Sacramento Bee profile, Boorus said he’d rather patrons believe that Old Range, like the water in the lake it faces, simply exists and always has, and is there merely for us and our viewing (and dining) pleasure.  

And for the many who visit, that’s exactly how they see it too: an institution that is indelible and hard to imagine life without. Something there for the many, sure, but also a place specifically for them.  

For the People

On a late June evening, a customer named Kevin Coy sits at the bar. If one of the tried-and-tested markers of a good spot is the number of service-industry patrons who are regulars, then Old Range passes with flying colors. 

“I just stumbled in here a couple weeks ago, and it’s been my go-to,” Coy says. 

A cocktail served with a smile at the Old Range bar

A personal chef, Coy lives in Hermosa Beach and works full-time cooking for a family. He usually gets paid summers off, but this year the family decided they wanted to decamp to Tahoe for the season and asked him to come along. Their home is across the way from Old Range. 

“I wanted a steak one night, looked it up and said, ‘Whoa, it’s right across the street,’” Coy says. 

It didn’t take long for him to become a regular—and to be treated like one too. 

“They do the simple things good,” he says of the Old Range staff. “Not too much fuss to it. Super comfortable. You can come in here and get cozy.”

Coy adds that it’s the ability to blend in—to have a little food, a little drink and a little conversation in a comfortable setting—that he looks forward to most. 

“It’s really, really approachable,” he says. “Not too over the top.”

Meanwhile at a nearby table, Old Range regulars Jim Congdon and his partner, Marti Pozzi, are already planning their next visit before their meals even drop: They will share their beloved Tahoe steakhouse with their granddaughter in just a few days. 

“It’s our favorite Tahoe watering hole,” says Congdon, a Bay Area expat who now call Portland home. “It’s such a classic old-school steakhouse, and it doesn’t change.” 

“It’s just an annual thing we do,” Pozzi says of their visits, citing the food and atmosphere as her favorite things about the restaurant. “It’s a tradition.”

In an industry challenged by rising prices, particularly for beef, Morrissey says he does his best to keep prices affordable for his loyal patrons.  

“We have definitely tried to absorb a lot of the cost. It has gone up considerably,” he admits. “Also, too, you’re trying to deliver and give a great value. That’s what our cornerstone has been, our whole idea: delivering a great value to our customers. … We keep it simple. A lot of the cost is on the plate. We toe the line and try not to be the San Francisco-priced operation. It’s tough, but everything’s gone up.”

Meat That Melts in Your Mouth

The cost, and the time, care, energy and even simplicity, does indeed surface on the plate, as Old Range takes pride in serving delectable, heavy-aged, corn-fed beef sourced from the Midwest.  

The house specialty prime rib is put through a salt rub and roasted for hours. The meat slices like warm butter and practically melts off the fork en route to your mouth. 

A hearty ribeye at Old Range Steakhouse

The cowboy cut (the largest portion) is enough to feed a family of four. A hungry couple might struggle to take down the cowgirl cut (the smaller version), but in the end, once the meat is set down in front of you, it’s impossible to stop yourself from inhaling each briny, pink-hued, au jus- and house-made horseradish-dipped bite after bite until nearly catatonic. 

For those not in the mood for the prime rib big guns, the steaks come in more manageable sizes—smoked, juicy and set off with Old Range’s cabernet-mushroom sauce. 

The unassuming star of the show may be the beef tenderloin tips. The medallions are even more tender (if that’s possible) than the prime rib. This isn’t the marbly tomahawk or slab of ribeye associated with your average steakhouse, but delicate, fine-grained slivers of meat that carry Old Range’s signature salty sting offset by the mushroom sauce and a crumble of blue cheese on the top that sends your eyes rolling into the back of your head.  

For those who aren’t married to the idea of beef, Old Range does a lamb shank featuring the same demi-glace served with a side of broccolini and gnocchi that can only be described as an elegant and worthy departure from the beef staples. 

Lamb shanks are among the toughest cuts to cook right—and can be even tougher on the intake if not prepared painstakingly well. It’s a tissue- and collagen-rich culinary bear trap of a cut that, in lesser hands, can be a regrettable order. Not so here. In fact, in a murderers’ row of all-star meats, chargrilled or slow-roasted just right and slathered in enough sauce to make you forget about the world’s problems, the lamb shank might be the restaurant’s true sensation, worthy of the fawning and praise from seemingly all who take a chance on it. 

The menu also features a slow-roasted pork shank and three seafood options—grilled salmon, surf & turf (petit filet mignon and king crab legs) and Alaskan king crab legs for those who want to take on these spidery giants from the sea. Vegetarian dishes include grilled portobello caps and an artichoke sauté, the latter of which holds just as much promise as any of the meat entrées. 

Traditional Stop

On a pleasant summer evening, I sat in a corner booth, enjoying a meal with my small family. Not a regular beef eater, I couldn’t help but order the restaurant’s signature dish, the prime rib, in honor of my father, who introduced me to Old Range in the early 2000s. 

Table lamps add to the homey vibe

Although Bacchi’s Inn was his go-to spot, you could often find him on a summer Friday at Old Range, where he’d stop for dinner smack dab in the middle of his enviable commute from Dollar Point to Incline Village. While prime rib is probably a once-a-decade meal for me, if that, for him, it signaled the ceremonial kickoff to the weekend.  

I thought of him as I sat in my comfy booth and stared out on Lake Tahoe—talking about whether it was worth putting the boat in for the summer, hemming and hawing while sipping on an iced tea, secretly counting his blessings in his head. 

I thought of him while chatting with the friendly people at the bar, where the conversations never stray far from what they’ve always been: How bad the Giants are; how full the lake is this year; and whether it’s going to snow next year. Over and over again. 

I thought of the sentiment Morrissey shares about the place he continues to make a traditional stop for the latest generation of Tahoe locals and visitors: It’s not about him. It’s about continuity. That’s what keeps Old Range going.  

“It’s great for the customers to see the same faces and same people,” Morrissey says. “And it makes it special for some people to get that kind of recognition, to be welcomed back and hear, ‘It’s great to see you again.’ Personal touches maybe you can’t get everywhere.

“Yeah,” he continues after a pause, “I think we’re doing all right.” 

Old Range Steakhouse, located at 7081 North Lake Boulevard, is open daily from 5 p.m. Reservations available by phone or online at skeakhousetahoe.com. 

Andrew Pridgen loves a great bar program, but will always at least start with a Shirley Temple at Old Range.