Are the rumors true? Is Springfield's best steak served at a gentleman's club?

Sporting a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirt, Kitchen Manager Robert Baker moved swiftly around the tight kitchen, briefly slipping into a freezer to grab a large, silver pot holding a loin of beef from which he carefully sliced a thick steak to be prepared on the cast-iron grill.

Two years ago, Baker became a part of a local legend and according to food critics and chefs, is preserving a well-kept secret: that some of the best steak in town is prepared in the kitchen of a gentleman's club.

For more than 15 years, Springfield Centerfold, located at 2800 W. Sunshine St., has been winning recommendations (sometimes whispered) as a great place to get a well-cooked cut of beef. When the question comes up in Facebook Groups like "Welcome to Springfield MO | Connecting YOU to OUR Community" and "I Love Springfield MO Food Group," at least a handful of users invariably will throw out Centerfold's name.

Industry veterans also hold Centerfold steaks in high regard. Jeremy Smith, general manager of Big Whiskey's on Battlefield Road and former co-owner of City Butcher, described the club's ribeye as "immaculate."

"As of the last time I had it, I would say hands down it is the best steak that I've found anywhere in this area," he told the News-Leader.

The first time Smith visited Centerfold to try the steak was about six years ago, but he had heard rumors about how "fantastic" they were long before that. Smith recalled a peer in the local food industry encouraging him to give it a go.

"It seemed implausible that a strip club would have steaks and food in general, because that just seems like a weird place to go for food," Smith said. "But then this person, who I felt like I trusted in the food world, was telling me it's the best steak I could get anywhere around. I laughed it off several times in conversations with that person and others, but I kept hearing it more and more and more."

Eventually, a close friend of Smith's convinced him to drive out to the club. Smith sat at the bar, where he ordered a ribeye steak cooked medium with two sides: a pasta salad and another he couldn't remember.

"It was probably 10 or 15 minutes later, we had these giant, gorgeous-looking steaks in front of us," Smith said. "I was blown away, I really was. It was totally inexplicable to me. It was perfectly cooked, perfectly seasoned, awesome-looking grill marks. It was immaculate and I devoured every bit of that."

After that first visit, Smith was a "convert." Over the years, he's had seven or eight steaks from the club and he said whoever is behind the kitchen's swinging doors has "absolutely killed it" every time.

What's the secret?

Simplicity is key when it comes to Centerfold's steaks. The kitchen is manned by a single kitchen manager who makes everything fresh, as orders come in.

"We don't promise it to be fast," General Manager Eric Collins said. "It's just the one guy who cooks everything from scratch. As soon as an order comes in, the fries are going to get cut, the ribeye is cut off the loin."

The club purchases USDA Choice meat from Gold Crown Food Company, a food distributor based in Springfield. When it comes to preparation, sirloins are cut directly from the loin, lathered in butter and seasoned with a "secret" mixture made in-house that neither Collins or Baker were willing to share.

"It's nothing too fancy or wild, but I feel like simplicity goes a long ways when it comes to good steak," Baker said.

The praise for what comes out of Centerfold's kitchen doesn't stop at the steak. Not traditionally a fan of pasta salad, Smith said it was surprisingly "incredible."

"I don't want to keep sounding like I'm being modest here, but ... It's just a cold pasta salad with some cold pasta, dressings put together, a little bit of seasoning and some cheeses," Collins said about Ward's homemade recipe. "There's noting spectacular about it."

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Baker became Centerfold's kitchen manager two years ago but has been working at the club for about five years total. Baker said he worked closely with the previous kitchen manager — who is now the club's DJ — for the first three years before taking over.

"Nobody is necessarily classically trained," Collins said. "We don't have 'chefs.' Just everybody who works here is a cook that has a passion for food."

Feeding family

It's not just that secret seasoning that sets Centerfold apart; it's also about relationship building.

"I know it's little things, but (the kitchen manager) even leaves the kitchen to deliver food. It doesn't get handed off to a waitress," Collins said. "A lot of people will even know who's cooking their food. It's definitely more viewed as feeding family than working in a restaurant around here."

For four years before joining the Centerfold team, Baker was a cook at Waffle House. He said he enjoys working in environments where he can both cook and interact with those enjoying his food.

"I get to go out, ask the person how their food is and that to me, means that I get to know that I did a good job," Baker said.

Feeding family is important to the Centerfold crew, but so is working alongside them.

"Generally, especially in this industry, there's rapid and tons of turnaround, but I think most of my people have been here a long, long time," Collins said. "It really is a family here. It really, truly is."

Word of mouth

Keeping the price of products down serves as Centerfold's main source of advertisement, Collins said.

Centerfold's one-pound ribeye, which Collins said is the most popular item on the menu, is $29 and sirloins start at $20.

Jeffrey Bates, who manages 417 Good Eat'N, a food blog, visited Centerfold for the first time in 2021. He said the steak lived up to the hype, especially at its price.

"It's super affordable too, like ridiculously affordable for what you get," Bates told the News-Leader. "I would definitely say it's in the top five steaks I've had in Springfield in that price range."

For comparison, Jimm's Steakhouse & Pub offers a 14-ounce ribeye for $40 and an 11-ounce Angus sirloin for $25. More comparable prices can be found at Colton's Steakhouse, with a 10-ounce sirloin for $19 and a 16-ounce ribeye for $30 and Longhorn Steakhouse, with a 12-ounce ribeye for $25 and an eight-ounce sirloin for $18.

"It is our advertisement because the way a lot of laws and standards work around here, we don't have very many, if any at all, advertising avenues," Collins said. "The radio will work with us and that's about it."

According to Missouri law established in August 2004, sexually-orientated billboards are prohibited in the state, which includes references of adult cabaret, semi-nudity, sexually-oriented businesses and sexually-oriented materials. A sexually-oriented business is defined by law as "any business which offers its patrons goods of which a substantial portion (more than 10%) are sexually-oriented materials."

Word of mouth seems to be working for the club though. On average, the club sells about 140 sirloins and 70 ribeye steaks a week, Collins said.

"It's starting to get to a point where we're getting crushed under our own success really," Collins added. "The kitchen's getting so busy I don't have storage for everything now. I'm sometimes shopping twice or three times a week. You can have worse problems in life."

Expanding isn't an option for Collins (unless he were to win the lottery).

"It's just something we wouldn't even want to consider, just because we'd have to change so much to become an actual kitchen," Collins said. "I don't know if we could do it with the same prices because if this was a traditional restaurant, I'd probably have two or three more staff."

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Where the magic happens

The late John Ward, known by close friends as "Johnny Boy," opened Centerfold in 2001 and added the club's kitchen a few years later. At the time, offering food in a gentleman's club was unheard of, Collins said.

"It was my understanding, and I even saw it to some degree ... (John) would have to do a lot of literally giving (food) away," Collins said. "There was a stigma there that really needed to be broken. You still get that from time to time from some people, but it just took a lot of persistence."

Collins has worked at Centerfold for 17 years and holds fond memories of Ward, who died in 2015.

"It was good times; I miss that man," Collins said. "We'd just sit around all afternoon and watch on loop ... there were about eight different movies he'd watch constantly: 'Godfather,' 'Donnie Brasco,' 'Goodfellas.' I had never seen 'Raging Bull' and then working here, I bet you I saw 'Raging Bull' without sound on like 48 times before I was like, 'Okay, I'm going to go home and watch this.'"

Ward's love for classic mobster movies bled into his work, with the naming of menu items like "Vinny, "Carlito" and "Lefty," references to characters in "My Cousin Vinny," "Carlito's Way" and "Donnie Brasco," respectively.

When he added the club's kitchen, Ward served as the "ringleader," and only a few others have held the title since his passing. Collins said over the 17 years he's worked at the club, he can only recall four kitchen managers, including Baker, who have worked in the small kitchen.

When asked about the exact size of the kitchen, Collins began to count the one-foot tiles on the floor.

"Twelve by," Collins pauses as he starts to count more tiles. "... 20."

In the kitchen's 15-plus-year history, the club has gone through three different grills and is edging toward number four, Collins said.

When can you try Centerfold's steak?

Centerfold's kitchen is open during normal business hours: noon every day to 1:30 a.m.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Springfield gentleman's club serves 'immaculate' steak, chef claims