“. . . travel through the city in high-end accommodations, complete with multimedia experience . . . and a meal at . . . the restaurant almost as famous as the many sports figures who have walked through its doors . . . enjoy an intimate . . . dinner with a New York sports personality.”
Dinner Hosts
Keens has been a part of sports history for well over a century. There, one or more post-tour dinner hosts add to the tour story of how sports in New York has influenced culture and society.
Each dinner host is identified on the ticket calendar at some point four or more days before the dinner, unless the tour/dinner sells out before the host’s name was scheduled to appear.
“. . . food lovers will savor the lunches and dinners offered after the tours. The fact that the meals are hosted by various New York sports personalities make them all the more special.”
“Marty Appel . . . was a most gracious and affable host. He talked with all of the participants. He shared stories. He was kind, thoughtful, and respectful . . . Keens, the restaurant host, was also tremendous . . . We were provided with a special menu that allowed for a wide selection of great dishes . . . Keens is a New York landmark with a great history all of its own. It is the perfect location from which to conclude this experience.”
“Purchase some gift cards for . . . New York Sports Tours. This . . . luxury bus tour gives guests . . . the option to dine after the tour at the iconic Keens Steakhouse in Midtown and enjoy a wonderful meal.”
“. . . conclude at Keens Steakhouse with a sports personality. What a super-cool experience and an interesting and thought-provoking one . . .”
“. . . the tour ended with dinner at historic Keens Steakhouse, where guests dined with former Yankees centerfielder Mickey Rivers.”
“. . . 40 years ago, Sports Illustrated reporter Melissa Ludtke, in her 20s, fought Major League Baseball and the City of New York. Female reporters were a no-no in men’s team locker rooms. Melissa took a stand — and won. The landmark Ludtke v. Kuhn equal-rights decree granted women reporters access to the Yankees clubhouse. Other teams followed. The ruling served as a catalyst for equality rights . . . she’s hosting a New York Sports Tour around NYC . . . The [next day] is a Keens Steakhouse private luncheon. Her attorney, who’ll attend, is F.A.O. Schwarz’s great-grandson . . . Lunch is in Keens’ Lillie Langtry dining room, named for its first lady customer.”
“All tours end at Keens Steakhouse, an iconic restaurant that has hosted sports figures for more than 130 years. On select days, the experience continues with an intimate lunch or dinner with a New York sports personality.”
“New York’s oldest and still the standout among the city’s dozens of high-end palaces of beef . . . Virtually every famous figure in American history the past century has patronized Keens, from . . . Babe Ruth to Albert Einstein . . . Floor to ceiling memorabilia makes Keens as much a museum as a great eatery, and if you can try just one classic NYC restaurant or steakhouse, this should be it.”
“Forty years ago . . . in a federal courtroom in New York City, Melissa Ludtke . . . won the right for female reporters to have access to professional sports locker rooms . . . ‘It’s an odd answer, but it feels both like a long time and a short time ago,” the lifelong Massachusetts resident (Cambridge by way of Amherst) said from New York, where she was in town to host New York Sports Tours.”
“. . . Madison Square Garden . . . is seen towards the end of the tour, blocks away from Keens Steakhouse, the final stop.”
“Keens . . . has long catered to sports figures.”
“New York City’s classic midtown steakhouse — still perfect after all these years.”
“If you’d like, your tour will cap off with a meal at Keens Steakhouse, a Midtown legend founded in 1885. Keens . . . serves a delicious New York strip steak. As a bonus, you’ll dine with a . . . guest who played a part in American sports history . . .”
“After the tour concludes guests can enjoy a dinner at Keens Steakhouse, which itself possesses a ton of sports memorabilia while chatting with a sports celebrity such as former Yankees outfielder Mickey Rivers, sportscaster and Douglaston native Mary Carillo, and former New York Cosmos goalie Shep Messing..”
“No restaurant in New York City pays the kind of lavish, often kooky, sometimes even touching tribute to the past than Keens does.”
“Keens is easy to recommend . . . serves a steak that is in the same league as the best in the city, if not at its top. And you won’t find a more civilized steakhouse.”
“The list of dignitaries who’ve dined here is long enough that it might be simpler to name the ones who haven’t.”
“Our meal was being hosted by . . . Richard Sandomir, who had recently written the book The Pride of the Yankees. At the meal we were all handed a copy . . . Keens Steakhouse . . . has a lot of sports history in itself and makes it the perfect place to end the tour. A specially made menu exists for tour participants from which you can choose a non-alcoholic beverage and a meal option. The meal was intimate and relaxed so that the dinner host and the members of the tour share stories and information, which made it an enjoyable experience with never a dull moment.”
“. . . so extraordinary . . . it is easy to imagine stepping back in time . . .”
“No chophouse in the city (and therefore the country) has a stronger pedigree, and none exudes a more pleasingly funky sense of old-fashioned charm.”
“. . . astonishing that a 120-something-year-old restaurant has managed to stay both relevant and wildly popular in the middle of Manhattan.”
“‘It’s my favorite steakhouse,’ says chef Daniel Boulud, whose New York restaurants include Daniel . . . ‘There’s so much history there,’ says Will Guidara, co-owner of Eleven Madison Park and NoMad . . . ‘It feels as New York as any restaurant in the city.’”
“I attended a luncheon in Manhattan, hosted by New York Sports Tours, which commemorated the 40th anniversary of Ludtke vs. Kuhn . . . It was great to meet Melissa Ludtke and learn more about her courageous battle as well as the support she received from her employers at Sports Illustrated and contemporaries like Henry Hecht, who wrote for The Post at the time.”
“. . . at the iconic Keens Steakhouse . . . our charming dinner host was New York Times’ Richard Sandomir, the author of The Pride of the Yankees.”
“Keens… Perfectly charred steaks and chops are served in this shrine to old New York, one of the only remaining truly old-school steakhouses in the city. Before you’re even served… have a look around. There’s memorabilia from more than 100 years of New York history… as well as a collection of more than 50,000 pipes from back when regulars, including Babe Ruth and Teddy Roosevelt, would store theirs there.”
— The Daily Meal
“For steakhouses, bragging rights are about the best beef, and it is virtually impossible to top Keens.”
“Beveled-glass doors, two working fireplaces and a forest’s worth of dark wood suggest a time when ‘Diamond Jim’ Brady piled his table with bushels of oysters, slabs of seared beef and troughs of ale.”
“. . . an amazing place to eat — there really is something for everyone . . . It is vibrant and fun, but not loud . . .”
“When people picture a steakhouse, they picture Manhattan’s Keens, whether they’ve been there before or not . . . Keens owns the largest collection of clay churchwarden pipes in the world — tens of thousands, hung upside-down on the low ceilings—and some of them belonged to famous Keens regulars such as Teddy Roosevelt, Babe Ruth, Albert Einstein, General Douglas MacArthur and ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody.”
“There’s an option to finish your New York Sports Tour with a dinner at the iconic Keens Steakhouse, a restaurant with a sports history all its own. While you enjoy delicious fare, you will also have the opportunity to dine and chat with one of the Tour’s celebrated hosts. ”
“Beloved New York steakhouse Keens . . . well-loved for its no frills feel . . .”
“As Melissa Ludtke looked into the crowd, 40 years to the day that she won the legal fight that opened the doors of MLB clubhouses to her and female sportswriters everywhere, overwhelming nostalgia and evidence of her trailblazing legacy stared back at her. The crowd, assembled at an intimate gathering in midtown Manhattan . . . laughs when Ludtke tells the story of a 10-year-old Lesley Visser, who would become the first woman on an NFL beat, asking her mother for shoulder pads at Christmas. It hums with approval when she describes Lawrie Mifflin, a female sportswriting pioneer at the New York Daily News in the 1970s, starting a varsity field hockey team at Yale then covering it for the school newspaper when no one else would. It nods in support when she thanks former New York Post baseball reporter Henry Hecht for sending players unsolicited outside the clubhouse doors, where Ludtke would be standing, so she could interview them and do her job for Sports Illustrated.”
“Keens was founded in 1885… The rooms look so cozy, you might wish you’d gotten a group together and thrown a party… Keens has its famous mutton chop. Indeed, the name of the place used to be Keens Chophouse… and recalls a bygone era when the mere mention of chops was enough to get people salivating… The best part of Keens, besides the chop, is the noise level. You can actually carry on a conversation as you eat your way across the menu.”
— Village Voice