By Beth Landman

In a struggling economy, steak continues to be a safe bet.

It’s a Thursday evening at Midtown Manhattan’s Benjamin Steak House not long ago, but it almost feels like early last year, before the economic crisis hit with full force. Tables are full and waiters are hustling to deliver mammoth grilled chops and oversized lobsters. “We are doing better than last year,” maintains owner Ben Prelvukaj. “Our customers are 75% regulars.”

Blocks away at Sparks there’s a wait for tables, and at Del Frisco’s, it’s a struggle to get close to the bar. You’d think that in these iffy financial times, meals at costly meat meccas would be among the first luxuries to be cut. But while many steakhouses are no doubt hurting, plenty of diners – and restaurateurs – remain bullish on the genre.

“Steakhouses are the gold of the restaurant business – a safe place to park your money,” says food and restaurant consultant Clark Wolf. “In this economy, people want to know that they are getting something real and restaurateurs want security.”

“You don’t want to open a molecular cuisine place now, but I would open a steakhouse again in another city, even in this climate,” says chef Alfred Portale of NYC’s Gotham Bar & Grill, who opened his first steer palace, Gotham Steak, at the Fontainebleau in Miami late last year. “It’s a much simpler concept than what I do in New York, and you can’t mess with it too much,” he observes.

Indeed, the steakhouse formula is something of a sacred cow, and it can be risky to toy with it – as Jean-Georges Vongerichten learned when he opened V in NYC’s Time Warner Center back in 2004. Its deconstructed dishes and playful variations on the classics failed to wow and Vongerichten closed it after a brief run. “I live and learn,” says the über-chef, who notes that “two things you can’t retouch are steakhouses and Chinese food” (he closed 66, his modern take on Chinese, in 2007).

Jean-Georges Vongerichten

But the V experience hardly soured Vongerichten on steakhouses. His classic-style Prime in Las Vegas has fared much better; business there, he says, has declined only 1% this year. He also recently launched J&G, a new line of traditional steakhouses. The first opened in Scottsdale’s The Phoenician Hotel last year; another is slated for Washington, DC, this summer, with more to follow. “Nobody wants to test somebody’s genius at this point. We are trying to survive, and steakhouses are the way to go.”

The formula has several advantages for restaurateurs. The menu is sure to be a crowd-pleaser and labor costs are low. “There is no pressure to find a name chef, and if the chef leaves, customers aren’t concerned,” says Stephen Starr, who owns Barclay Prime in Philadelphia and added Butcher & Singer last year.

“We were already far along with Butcher & Singer when the bottom fell out, so we had no choice but to open, and luckily, right now it’s the hottest thing in Philly,” he boasts. Though Barclay Prime has dropped off a bit, Starr says he would open another steakhouse now, in New York, Miami or Washington, DC. “Everyone is hurting, but you aren’t taking much of a risk putting a New York strip into the broiler.”

Nor are customers taking much of a risk that they’ll look out of touch with the economy – or at least that’s how restaurateur Myles Chefetz sees it. “If you were dining on foie gras and caviar, it might be considered bad taste right now, but emotionally, steakhouses don’t feel like excess, even though you might be spending $60 to $80 on one piece of meat,” says Chefetz, whose Prime One Twelve in Miami did $19 million in sales last year.

Still, while volume at some chophouses may be steady, “are customers spending the same? No,” observes Tony Fortuna, an owner of trendy Manhattan steak spot T-Bar. And Fortuna, like others, is finding ways to adapt.

“We used to serve an 8-oz. burger only at the bar; now we’ve added it to the regular menu and broadened the concept to include lamb and turkey burgers,” he says. “There is a lot more sharing, and we are featuring 15 wines by the glass.”

In March, the Morton’s steakhouse chain introduced “power hours” (4:30–6:30 and 9 PM on) at most locations, featuring $6 plates including mini prime cheeseburgers. William Jack Degel, owner of three Uncle Jack's steakhouses in NYC (with two more in the works for Roslyn, Long Island, and Atlantic City), is offering enticements such as wine tastings and prix fixe deals. “Now you can’t wait for customers to walk in; you really have to drive the business,” he explains.

Slashing wine prices is another tactic. “People still want the great cuts of meat, but they are trying to scale down the size of their checks, so we reduced our high-end wines tremendously, which has resulted in a real uptick,” says Stephen Hanson, whose B.R. Guest Restaurants owns Primehouse in Manhattan.

Diners are also going for smaller steaks, like the half-cut options on the menu at Miami hot spot Meat Market, which opened last fall. “It’s not just about devouring massive pieces of meat,” says chef Sean Brasel. “In fact there are some nights we sell more fish.”

And other restaurants have simply reduced the size of their standard portions. “In some places the classic 16-oz. cut of beef has shrunk to 12-oz.; they just serve it on a smaller plate,” says Andrew Silverman, whose Flatiron Restaurant Group owns Steak Frites and the recently opened Union Prime in NYC. But, he adds, “the key is the wine and the sides. Diners may be ordering less expensive wines, but they are still ordering them, and they love all those side dishes. Steakhouses will never go out of style.”

Check out the list of NYC's Top Steakhouses.