D.C. restaurant Medium Rare joined the lineup of new concessions menu items available at Nationals Park last year, with a sandwich mash-up of its prix fixe restaurant mainstay Steak Frites. At $18.99, it turned out to be the park’s top-grossing concessions seller.
Medium Rare owner Mark Bucher estimated they sold about 350,000 steak sandwiches at Nats home games, including the playoffs and World Series.
You can’t watch the home opener Thursday against the New York Yankees at Nats Park in person, but you can watch it on TV, and get the sandwich to bring home.
The Medium Rare steak sandwich — culotte steak, fries and the restaurant’s secret sauce stuffed into a toasted bun — is available for takeout only on Thursday at its restaurants in Arlington, Bethesda and D.C.’s Cleveland Park from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. It’s $16.99 to go.
Bucher is protective of his secret sauce: He claims no one employee knows all of its ingredients. He trucked 70 quarts of the sauce from his restaurants to Nats Park for every home game.
He also claims MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred specifically requested the steak sandwiches be served in his booth during the World Series.
The original Medium Rare, which serves only steak frites, salad, bread and dessert (with a larger weekend brunch menu) opened at 3500 Connecticut Ave. in Northwest D.C. in 2011.
The Bethesda location opened in 2017; the Arlington location, in 2018.
