The lights dim, the music fades and every waiter in the restaurant suddenly vanishes.
Moments later, a heavy bassline thunders from the speakers and the waitstaff re-emerge under a single spotlight wearing white gloves and bearing a golden briefcase.
Welcome to Papi Steak, where patrons ordering ‘The Beef Case’ are treated to dinner and a show.
The dish costs an eye-watering $1,000 and arrives with full choreography: staff sing along to a Top 40 track while presenting a piece of meat with a retail price as much as some people’s rent.
And now the spectacle is soon to be back at Papi Steak’s flagship Miami Beach restaurant where around 25 Beef Cases were sold each night before a two-month renovation shutdown, with the Las Vegas location pushing up to another 60.
The steakhouses shot to internet stardom in recent years after diners began posting videos of the tableside performance.
From a customer’s point of view, the ritual is irresistible social media content. Waiters crowd around while lights flash and music blasts, before the piece de resistance – the golden briefcase is opened to reveal a raw 55oz tomahawk of purebred Australian Wagyu on a cushion of glittering ice. A puff of smoke then rises as the Papi Steak logo is branded on with a hot iron and the meat is whisked away to the kitchen for cooking.
The Beef Case has been a viral hit since it was conceived in late 2021. Yet, according to the man who invented it, the idea was just a happy coincidence.
Papi Steak, located in Miami Beach and Las Vegas, is known for a menu item called The Beef Case – which costs $1,000
‘Someone gave me a gift, a briefcase with the Papi Steak logo, and the side of it was gold,’ David ‘Papi’ Einhorn told the Daily Mail in a phone interview. ‘It was a nice gift, but I didn’t know what to do with it.’
Einhorn launched the original Papi Steak in Miami with hospitality mogul David Grutman in 2019. One day, inspiration arrived in the shape of a giant ribeye.
‘At the same time as I was given the briefcase, my beef steak vendor came and gave me a special steak that was Australian Wagyu, 55 ounces and very expensive,’ he said.
The premium beef – a crossbreed of Japanese Wagyu cattle with primarily Australian Angus – is highly prized for its buttery texture and intense marbling.
The vendor wanted the restaurant to sell it exclusively but Einhorn was initially uncertain about how to turn a profit due to the exorbitant wholesale price.
‘It could cost me between $250 to $350 per steak,’ he said. ‘So you need to add on at least two times the cost to turn a profit on it.’
He eventually landed on a round figure: a cool thousand bucks. Musing over the steak and the golden briefcase, Einhorn’s mind turned to the 1994 crime thriller Pulp Fiction by Quentin Tarantino.
The film is driven forward by a briefcase used as a plot device but only one character – Vincent Vega played by John Travolta – ever finds out what is inside. Fans have long speculated about the mysterious contents but the script intentionally leaves it unanswered.
The meat is branded with the Papi Steak logo and whisked away to the kitchen to be cooked after the spectacle
David ‘Papi’ Einhorn came up with the idea after not being sure what to do with a golden briefcase he was given as a gift
Customers are treated to a show when The Beef Case is ordered, with waiters bringing out the 55oz tomahawk of Wagyu while singing a Top 40 track
The golden briefcase full of glittering ice has the restaurants’ name emblazoned on the lid
‘It dawned on me that, you know what, it was always a Papi Steak in the briefcase,’ Einhorn said. ‘If I put that steak in the briefcase and bring it out with a show to the table, who knows, maybe people would like that, it might catch on, and that could be an interesting dish.’
During a visit to the Miami site in March, Travolta re-enacted the glowing golden briefcase moment when his hitman character finally discovers the secret, gives a satisfied smile and nods.
Vincent, who is shocked in an earlier scene that anyone would pay $5 for a milkshake, might have had something choice to say about the $33,000 Papi Steak Birkin Cocktail – let alone dropping a G for a piece of meat.
Einhorn admitted to the Daily Mail that the price tag unnerved even him at first.
‘It was just like a shock number to me,’ he said. ‘But, really, it’s not that expensive once you break down the quality, the quantity, the actual price and how many people could eat it.’
When the tomahawk is delivered back to the table with the rest of the main course, it is large enough to feed five or six people.
This economy, the taste and everything that happens before the first bite are what make it such a hit.
‘I thought, let’s just see what happens. Then I put it in the briefcase, opened it up, and we did a little dance around it – some energy, some vibes – and it just went viral,’ he said.
‘People love it, and everybody wants a steak in the case. Now it’s world-renowned.’
Renderings of the Miami location, due to reopen on November 14, show what the restaurant will look like after two months of renovations
The interior of the Papi Steak Miami Beach, which opened in 2019, before the revamp began
Einhorn said that there were around eight songs always ready to perform for the 20 to 25 Beef Cases sold each night in the flagship Miami Beach restaurant alone.
After its ‘face lift’, the location is set to reopen on Friday when Einhorn expects the steaks to continue flowing forth from the kitchen.
Demand is even higher in the Las Vegas venue, where 50 to 60 Beef Cases are sold a night. All up in both locations, tens of thousands have sold since the item debuted on the menu four years ago.
‘The most I sold in one night was Super Bowl Vegas in 2024, and that was 86. A Beef Case was sold every couple of minutes. It was nuts,’ he recalled.
Papi Steak is a firm favorite with celebrities. Einhorn rattles off names with the casual air of someone accustomed to VIPs. Among them rank the President’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, and rappers Shaboozey and Bad Bunny – the latter went ‘crazy’ when the steak was presented to the tune of his own track.
‘If we have a performer or a singer, we’ll bring it out with their song,’ Einhorn said.
Part of the magic is the precision behind the dinner theater, mostly provided by the restaurants’ special programming system that directs the lights and music toward the table ordering The Beef Case.
‘I push all the staff to go. It can’t always happen but the majority go,’ he said.
Some customers skip a bottle service and instead request what Papi’s calls a ‘steak service’, often ordering four or five Beef Cases at a time.
‘I’ve known people order it 50 times already, and they still love it. They still come back because, you know, it’s not just the show,’ Einhorn said. ‘The show is just something to make it a little bit more fun.’
History doesn’t record whether Travolta, like his Pulp Fiction character, uttered the words ‘Yeah, we happy’ after seeing the contents of Papi’s golden briefcase – but perhaps his nod of approval said it all.
