There’s the beef Local meat cutter headed to national competition
One day when he was a backup meat cutter, and a neophyte at that, Ed Gordon sliced more than someone’s entree.
“I had a bag of sirloin and cut a finger. Seven stitches,” he said.
Gordon learned to be careful, among other things, and eight years and hundreds of tons of steak later, he hasn’t slipped with the knife a second time. “I don’t want to lose fingers,” he said, smiling.
In a couple of weeks, he will employ his surgical skills in an effort to be a cut above.
Now a head meat cutter, Gordon will convene with 106 of his peers for the Texas Roadhouse Meat Cutter of the Year competition March 8-9 in Kissimmee, Fla. They will vie for the top prize of $20,000, meaning there will be plenty at stake along with plenty of steaks.
“I don’t know many people with four kids who don’t need money like that,” said Gordon, 40, an Eighty Four resident with his wife, Tiffany, a private nurse, and those four offspring.
He works at Texas Roadhouse in the Strabane Square shopping center, off Washington Road in South Strabane Township. This will be his second appearance at nationals in four years, and the second time he will be the only cutter from Western Pennsylvania.
Texas Roadhouse, based in Louisville, Ky., has 26 locations in Pennsylvania, 11 in the tri-state market and about 450 nationally.
Gordon certainly has no beef with a free late-winter trip to Florida, but the Kissimmee competition promises to be keen. He said the company has “some of the best (cutters) in the industry.” Being a repeat qualifier means he is probably among that elite.
All 107 qualifiers will have their work cut out. They will have to complete four pieces – two sirloin butts, a tenderloin and a ribeye – in 80 minutes, and will have to be precise in their handiwork.
“(The judges) are pretty strict,” Gordon said. “You have to have a certain weight, a certain height, a certain amount of fat. They test you on it.”
Calculated cuts are paramount, but meat cutters are cold, calculated professionals – in a literal sense. “I work in a cooler that’s 34 degrees, sometimes colder,” Gordon said. “You wear a lot of clothing, a lot of socks. Layering is the key.”
Texas Roadhouse competitions thus take place in chilly venues. The March championships in the Sunshine State will be at the Ice Factory rink. Gordon qualified for them by winning the regional event at Morgantown (W.Va.) Ice Arena in October. His first appearance in nationals, in 2013, was at Ice Sports Forum in Tampa, practice facility for the National Hockey League’s Tampa Bay Lightning.
Gordon is a modest man, pleasant with a quick sense of humor. He is thin, has a light beard, is dedicated to his family and is loyal to his employer.
“I plan on staying here,” he said.
Texas Roadhouse, he said, is different from many so-called steakhouses because it uses only fresh meat – “not frozen. It’s also hard to find a place that hand cuts meat, cuts it to size for a customer.”
Gordon grew up less than two miles from where he now works, but his journey has been interesting. He was raised on Houston Street in Washington, graduated from Wash High and went through the electricians program at Penn Commercial.
Although he didn’t pursue a career in that vocation, Gordon does employ his electrical skills. “I do stuff for myself and friends. I do it on the side.”
For a while, he worked for his brother Rob, who runs a Servpro carpet-cleaning franchise in northern Virginia. Ed eventually returned to his roots and was hired full time at the local Texas Roadhouse in 2007, primarily as a line cook.
He became a backup meat cutter that first year, then moved up. Gordon sometimes starts his shift three or four hours before the restaurant opens. His duties require him to cut almost two tons of meat in a typical week.
“I’ve learned on the job,” he said. “I’m still learning every day. No two cuts of meat are the same.”
Though he is seeking a national title in his specialty, Gordon would like to make a change at some point – within the company. He helps with some management duties, handles grocery orders, and at some point would like to transition into management full time.
He wants that title, though. Accompanied by his kitchen manager, Allen Ferricks, Gordon will fly to the Orlando area for what promises to be two grueling days of knife wielding. There will be three rounds of competition March 8, whittling the field to 30 for the next day. The field then will be reduced to 10 finalists, who will face off in early April. Only one cutter will prevail.
“Someone’s going to be very happy,” Ed Gordon said. “I hope it’s me.”