Hilltop Steak House

RIP. Frank, the mockery that Hilltop became after you passed has now joined you in the afterlife.
Looks like I nailed it on the head with my prediction.

I remember this being just «meh» when I went there, it is so sad to see an icon gone, Does anyone know what to do with a gift card to Hilltop Steak House? HYELP!

Goodbye Hilltop. Sad to see you go but you kind of did it to yourself.
The food isn’t even close to being decent. My wife and I came here the night we got married so it means something to us. We’ve put up with the mediocre food and questionable service. But the final time we visited this place we knew exactly why this place is closing.
The only time this place ever had a wait was when they announced they were closing. We waiting for a good hour. I didn’t mind the wait itself but I kind of wondered why everyone now cares about this place when they find out they are closing.
I ordered the steak tip dinner and I was extremely disappointed. I ordered my steak tips medium well but they were burnt to a crisp on the outside and bloody rare in his middle. They were so bad they were I inedible. My baked potato was really old and yellow inside and mushy. The server also forgot my salad and didn’t bring it to me until after I already got my dinner. To be fair the server was more than nice and even took my steak tips off the bill after I complained.
The food has never been good since I’ve been coming here. There are far better steakhouses in the area. It’s a shame because I actually like the atmosphere and the setup. It reminds me of some of the steakhouses I went to growing up out west. Too bad the food wasn’t so good. I think the writing has been on the wall for quite some time.

After hearing that this restaurant is closing. I decided to visit one last time for nostalgia’s sake. You see, like other Unilocalers, back in the day, coming here was the culinary equivalent to going to Disneyland. But that was then, and this is now. I ordered a bowl of chicken rice soup and a burger topped with cheddar cooked medium with a baked potato as a side. .
The waitress, while nice. was obviously distraught of losing her job, and that I can understand completely. So when she got fries instead of the baked potato, she got a mulligan on that. The rice was cooked to mush in the soup. Predictably, the burger was cooked well done. I think that over the last 5 years, that they have cooked it as requested maybe 25% of the time at best.
Hilltop is not dying on October 20^th, because it died a long time ago. Thanks, for the memories at your former greatness.

A relic of a bygone time, when the kitschy, giant-​sign-​bedecked restaurants on Route 1 north of Boston mattered.
As they say on Unilocal,I so wanted to like this place… Wait, I did like this place, back when I was a teenager. It seemed like a Wild West theme park, with its giant cactus sign, plastic cows, the ancient hostess with the B-​52 bouffant and cats-​eye glasses right out of The Far Side, and the long waits to hear your table summoned to «Sioux City». It was raucous, it was fun, and while maybe it was a budget-​stretcher, my family could afford it.
In those days, I was mightily impressed by the big prime rib, the sizzling steaks, the steel dish of picked lobster meat topped with bread crumbs, the whopping baked potato (I fancied myself a gourmand by ordering butter *and* sour cream), the overdressed salads of iceberg lettuce and cherry tomatoes hard as ping-​pong balls, the little lonely sprig of curly parsley on the plate that no one ever ate. I wasn’t alone: at its peak in 1989, it grossed $ 60M in annual receipts.
How the mighty have fallen. The owner died, and his successors let the quality slide dramatically. Chain steakhouses like Outback offering similar choice-​grade steaks at blue-​collar prices have multiplied like mushrooms. Our tastes have changed, too: it takes more to wow us than gigantic portions and a line out the door.
So long, The Hilltop Steak House. I haven’t been by for a good 15 years, and I’m glad that Boston restaurants have evolved past the days when you were considered an It Place. I’ll keep a memory of you in my scrapbook, alongside Anthony’s Pier 4 and Weylu’s. RIP.

An American classic. Product of a vision and hard work. An icon of what this country WAS all about

First time here in 20+ years. Unlike other reviewers, I don’t think the food here has slipped, but time has certainly passed this place by.
Given that the Valle’s chain disappered 20 years ago, it’s really amazing that the Hilltop, using the same business model and straight line architecture popularized by Valles, has managed to survive. The truth is restaurants with 300 seat dining rooms and 500 seat banquet room (s) are simply no longer viable.
The food was actually a great value. The prices seem to be as much of a throwback to the 70s and 80s as the kitschy western theme. The chowder, salads, 11 ounce NY strip and the steak tips were very good and more than reasonably priced.
Unfortunately, the dining room was nearly empty as was the bar. Almost as bad, the Hilltop’s web site no longer works and their famous butcher shop has been «closed for renovations» for about a year, i.e., the dark clouds appear to be forming on the horizon.
I suggest that if you have not been to the Hilltop lately you make a run for it because I would be very much surprised if it’s still with us 12 months from now.

Like many other reviewers I ate here with my grandparents and this place used to be packed. It was a ghost town when we went last night. The waitress was lovely. The host was nice. Bathrooms were clean. It is sad to see this place in decline. Even the catus says it all.
We had a steak tip dinner for $ 12.00.The steak was nice, but the pearl onions and mashed potato were really low, nursing home quality of food. Literally the mashed potato was beyond bland, weird and watered down. I think the pearl onions were from a tin or something. The coloring of the both of them were really dingy.
Restaurant was clean.
They shrunk the menu drastically from what I remember.
Desert menu really did not offer anything exciting.
Would have liked to see chocolate mouse or crème brûlée.
It was all ice cream, chocolate cake and apple pie. Cheap things.
I don’t think we will be going back.
We could have a better experience for the same money elsewhere with better selections.

The first time I went here this place would’ve been a 5 star lock. The second time however was more so a 2 – 3 which is why this review is being written as a 3 now.
I’m not from here, so I didn’t grow up going here. I don’t care about the décor on the inside. That’s not important to me.
The service was good both times for the most part. My girlfriend ordered a martini which was supposed to have orange juice in it and it came out clear. Other than that it was fine.
For food, my girlfriend had the baked haddock both times and enjoyed it a lot. I on the other hand being a steak lover had to go with the prime rib. The first time I got it, the steak was delicious. It was medium rare and very pink like any piece of prime rib should be. It was a large piece and was amazing. The most recent trip however didn’t go so well. I asked for a medium rare piece of meat and was given something that looked like well done. Prime rib in my opinion is not meant to be dark colored. I want this meat practically mooing at me. But the meat was overcooked and very fatty. Overall it was just very disappointing. We may give it one more shot but not entirely sure.
On a side note if anyone at Hilltop reads this, I’m VERY upset your butcher shop never re-​opened. Now I have to get my meat at Stop and Shop. Not impressed.

Like many North Shore residents, my family frequented this restaurant in my childhood, going about once a month, usually for Saturday dinner. I have a lot of memories of the giant and proud neon cactus, the mobbed parking lot, and of lining up in the long, angled entrance corridor, for what seemed like ages, just to get an index card with a number scrawled on it in blue magic marker. Yes, that’s how busy this place was. You had to wait in a long line just to ask for a table. We’d then head upstairs to the bar and my parents would get drinks as we sat around for what seemed another eternity until the bespectacled older woman, seated behind a mic with her dyed blonde hair, would call our family and couple of others to Sioux or Carson City. Those were just two of the separate, multiple dining rooms in the restaurant. This was at one time one of the top ten restaurants in the country, and needed multiple dining rooms to accommodate the endless crush of guests, which totaled in the area of three million a year in its heyday.
We’d be seated and the waitstaff, which for the most part were friendly and competent, would take our orders. I’d get some kind of steak, which I remember as always being very good, and their rich chocolate ice cream for dessert. Even as a very young kid, I liked this place and would always look forward to returning.
Just for the heck of it, my parents and I went there for dinner last night. And, oh, how the mighty have fallen.
The first thing I saw was the neon cactus, now seemingly neglected, standing embarrassingly weatherbeaten. We pulled into the parking lot, where there could not have been much more than a dozen other cars – and this was a Friday evening. Admittedly, we were a little early (it was just before 6) but I got a hunch it wasn’t going to be getting much busier.
The long entrance corridor, where I may have spent hours of my childhood, was empty to the point where it echoed. Entering the restaurant itself, the first thing I noticed was that the dining room to the right had been converted into a rather ordinary-​looking function room. A computer now stood in the place of the aforementioned number caller. We were attended to immediately in what seems to now be one of only two dining rooms. Seated by the hostess, we were presented with our menus which had a fraction of the selection and style of the past. Our waitress, who was attentive, friendly and professional throughout the meal, took our orders. My parents got chicken, I got steak tips, and we split an appetizer platter.
The platter was served quickly and was decent, but, to be fair, how remarkable can potato skins, Buffalo wings, and mozzarella sticks really be in a entrée-​based restaurant? My parents enjoyed their chicken, but I found my tips, both in cut and flavor, not to be exceptionally better than ones I have gotten at Stop & Shop and broiled myself. My salad was good, but the side of rice was not. We chose to pass on dessert but did see the menu: a decent selection, but the menus themselves were in terrible condition: they were smeared with grease and crud, and the lamination was peeling and splitting them apart.
Price wise, it seemed a little more than average, but the portions were actually pretty decent so we did get our money’s worth.
Given the history, both my own and that of the Hilltop itself, it was actually kind of unfortunate seeing how it has become a shell of what it once was. I’m not saying I’d never go back: it wasn’t a bad experience, just very different from the ones I had there as a kid. What was once unique and exceptional is now average.

Like many of the other reviewers, I too ate here as a child with my grandparents. And I fondly remember what sounded like an auctioneer bellowing over the microphone calling out people’s numbers and directing them to a specific dining area.
I was visiting family in MA recently and my hotel wasn’t far from Hilltop. Hadn’t been in 20 years, so I thought it would be nice to have dinner there. We pulled up at about 7:30 and the place was fairly dark. The neon sign was on and there were a dozen cars in the lot, but I didn’t see anyone inside or going in the front entrance.
We walked in and it was pretty dead. This enormous dining room with maybe 5 tables occupied. We sat down and ordered prime rib. The server was inexperienced, but very sweet. The meal itself was pretty bland. The meat quality seemed fine, but it had ZERO flavor.
I suspect that will be the last time I eat at Hilltop. Not so much because I had a mediocre meal, but because they’ll probably be closed the next time I’m in MA.
Sad.

If you’re a native, you can’t help but hear and old man calling out 54, 42, 67,36 for Sioux City… but that was a long time ago. The fiberglass cows have faded, and the cactus doesn’t light up quite as brightly as it did in the ‘80s.
But the other night, I hankered for a hunk of … beef. And hey, why give the money to some big chain, right? I seated myself at the bar (Dodge City), and ordered up a ribeye steak — medium rare. Add to that a lovely salad and a big baked potato.
The salad, with the requisite neon-​yellow Hilltop dressing, was half the size of yesteryear, but perfectly good. And the dressing (no longer served in teapots…) was just as tangy and technicolored as ever.
My steak and potato were both perfect. Good portion, cooked ideally, and all good.
It’s not Morton’s … or Ruth’s Chris … or whatever … but for a local joint with fake cattle out front, it’s damn good.
One piece of advice: stick to beef. I’ve heard bad things about the fish. But then, it’s a steakhouse … so this ought to be obvious to most.

My review is based solely on an event here and not on coming to the restaurant for regular menu dinner.
I came here for an event that is in their smaller upstairs room. The food was cooked perfect and the waitstaff were very good.
The steak tips — were melt in your mouth good — you could cut them with a fork. The rice and veggies were average. The chicken broccoli alfredo was good not great. The apple crisp they served for dessert was also really good.
If I lived closer I would definitely consider having an event here.

I been coming here for over 30 years, and it was once rated one of the Best Steak places in America, but the owner Frank G. passed away, and the place is living on its name.
The long lines, crowds, t-​shirts, lady yelling over the speakers are all gone. This place won’t be around much longer. Nice huge sign, and I have photos of my kids from 20 years ago, but its all just a memory now. Time to go to the Longhorn, and just look at the pics of Hilltop. Thanks for all the great steaks from the past.

The Hilltop is a iconic Boston area restaurant, I have been going there sporadically since I was a youngster.
The Good:
— This is the only restaurant I trust to order a steak since most places get it wrong every time.
— Will cook steaks on the rare side if requested. Many restaurants are afraid to due this because of the risks of eating rare meat.
— Plenty of seating
— Relaxed atmosphere
— Insane dinner rolls
— Very good baked potatoes
— The House Cut Filet Mignon is awesome, very thick cut and full of flavor. Melts in your mouth. It’s worth checking out over the other cuts of steak but I do recommend not over cooking it.
The Bad:
— A bit pricey

Since moving to Mass about six months ago, I’ve seen this restaurant featured on Travel Channel shows multiple times, so after an attempt at German food downtown failed to pan out, we stopped here to check it off our «must visit» list of places we’ve been compiling.
I really wish I had read the reviews before heading to this place, but c’mon — it was on the Travel Channel, that means it has to be good, right? Apparently not.
The bread and butter which came out prior to the meal was good, though unfortunately this was the best thing about our meal.
My husband got the steak tips and they tasted vaguely seasoned, but not really. The salad and french fries he got as sides were good, but as he commented, it takes a lot to screw up a salad and fries.
My first disappointment came in that I couldn’t get a NY strip at a steakhouse. Seriously?
Instead I got the ribeye and was beyond underwhelmed, I cook better steaks at home. I could see a smattering of seasoning across the meat, but it had absolutely no flavor and while cooked to medium as I requested, was extremely dry. For sides I ordered the chicken and rice soup which was condensed-​salty and the red bliss mashed potatoes which were inedible. Instant potatoes taste better and even asking for a side of gravy couldn’t save them.
The 12 year old got a hamburger, which was very tasty, but unimpressive as far as hamburgers go.
I will give them props on the kid’s meals, for $ 2.95 they did get a good amount of food and they all leftovers.
Granted, we did get there about a half an hour before closing, but we asked if it was too late before being seated and there were several other people dining while we were there, so I don’t think that’s a reasonable excuse for the poor experience. We will definitely NOT be going back.

In celebration of my father, my family and I dined at his most favorite restaurant of all time, Hilltop Steakhouse.
I grew up dining here once a while. But, I’m generally not the red-​meat kind of girl and I don’t often think of Hilltop for steak dinners. Honestly, I don’t want to sugarcoat my thoughts. The food is just mediocre. It’s definitely for the cowboy-​kind of crowd. The restaurant is stuck in the ‘60s frontier. If you want a medium-​cooked steak, ask for medium rare. 3 Stars for the food. And, if you’re in the mood, try the Hilltop Brew. $ 2 16 oz, $ 2.50 22 oz. Can’t go wrong there (on shhh!!! Coors Light)!
But, my experience with my family just last Sunday was nothing less than phenomenal. I had a party of 14, and our wonderful, absolutely amazing waitress, Harmony, (and, trainee Daniel) made my family and I 10,000% truly happy and satisfied. Bravo, a million stars for them. Harmony was hilarious, accommodating, VERY experienced, and udderly sweet! (Pun intended!) She’s a superstar! She’s the kind of chick you want to Friend on Facebook.
If you make your way to Hilltop steakhouse and you have Harmony as your server, prepared to be beyond a doubt, satisfied. I wished that she existed at every restaurant I go to.

I have seen this restaurant placed in a Top Ten list for great restaurants in America. Having dined there for lunch and supper, I have always enjoyed my steak dinner.
They have a dining room, and a separate bar dining area, as well as another large dining area for private parties (and perhaps overflow for Sunday afternoons).
Nice layout, well-​kept, the staff is always attentive and friendly.
I love this place!
Large parking lot to the side, with another huge parking area out back.

Like Katherine E… it pains me to write this 1 star review.
I grew up enjoying great steaks at the Hilltop. It used to be there was a 1 – 2 hr wait most nights and you easily waited… but that was before all the choices got added along Rt 1… and of course, the decline in the quality of the food at the Hilltop.
I want to mention, our server was AWESOME!
Ordered the sampler app. It came out cold.
Ordered the steak tips, medium, and they came out cold. Not sure what the cooks were doing at the Hilltop on Sat night, but they weren’t COOKING. The steak tips were sent back and then our server grabbed the manager and sent him over. Had a nice chat, and he said he’d get the steak cooked properly.
2^nd set of tips came out, they were a bit warmer, but still very much around room temp. SCARY. Off the bill that dinner came.
The baked potato was STEAMING and very tasty. The diet pepsi was ok too. Asking for a substitute Caesar salad caused a very BIG salad to be brought out, and it was good, what I had of it.
Now for the funny part. The power went out while we were there. That place gets REALLY dark with no lights on. Was only out for a few min.
The 1 star is all for the server. She earned it and the full 30% tip on the entire bill (as if they kept the sirloin tips on the bill).
I probably won’t be back until I hear otherwise.

Oh yeesh. I don’t think the plastic cows out front are just for show. My sirloin was so marbled (what?), overcooked and blandly stark, it wouldn’t surprise me if the cut came from Route 1 Rhoda’s roadside behind.
Saugus strikes me as a mini-​Orlando: chock full of flashing lights and larger-​than-​life signs. And like moths to a flame, we the people go and awww! the fixtures and marvel at the square footage and the tradition and the congenial, attentive staff and the attached butcher shop with monstrous deals, like N.Y. Sirloin for $ 2.60/lb and th…
Wait.
Your butcher shop charges $ 2.60/lb for boneless sirloin and you serve what I’m assuming is 14oz of the same cut in your restaurant for $ 18? Ay yi yi. To be fair, it came with an iceberg salad and neon yellow house dressing.
At least our table of four got to color on the place mats. We’re a simple folk. Folk who want to color and eat good meat. Hilltop Steak House, you got it half right.