Texas legends are filled with tales of cowboys, cattle and campfires. RJ “Bob” Lee built a legend of his own when he cooked steaks over an open flame until a bragging cowboy couldn’t eat another bite. The result was the steak that made Amarillo famous.

In the early ‘60s when Bob Lee first opened the Big Texan Steak Ranch the cowboys still came into town at the end of the week. One night a lanky cowboy came through the front door of the restaurant declaring he was so hungry he could “eat the whole darned cow.”

Bob, always ready to have some fun, gave him a big grin and started cooking steaks. When the cowboy finally yelled, “calf rope,” he had consumed 4 ½ pounds of meat. Bob declared from that day forward, the meal would be free to anyone who could eat it all in 1 hour.