Big Texan Steak Ranch record-holder to try to beat her own record
If you’ve ever driven from DFW to Amarillo, you’re probably aware of the Big Texan Steak Ranch, which has big billboards en route advertising what’s already one of the most famous eating challenges in the United States: Finish the Big Texan’s 72-oz. steak, and everything that’s served with it, in an hour, and you get it free.
The person who holds the record is, according to reports about her competitive eating exploits, a 5-foot-7, 120 to 125 pound mother of four named Molly Schuyler. The Bellevue, Neb., woman did the job in 15 minutes. No, wait — she did the job in five minutes, then took an additional 10 minutes to do it again in the same sitting. And the challenge isn’t just eating the huge steak — eaters have to also eat a salad, a baked potato, a shrimp cocktail and a roll.
Now Amarillo.com, the Amarillo Globe-News’ website, reports that she’s going to try to beat her own record — by eating three of the steak dinners in under an hour.
Schuyler will return to the steakhouse April 19 to tackle the steak-plate trifecta, Amarillo.com reports, and while she’s playing against the house on the second two, she’ll have competition on the first one: two professional wrestlers, two West Texas A&M football players, a married competitive eating couple (each has successfully finished the steak challenge) and a team to be drawn at random. Note that these are teams of two who are taking on a solo Schuyler.
Since Big Texan owner-founder RJ “Bob” Lee concocted the challenge in 1960, Amarillo.com reports, about 11,000 people have successfully completed the dinner, while unsuccessful attempts are estimated at 140,000.
Schuyler is formidable competition. If you begin typing her name in a Google search, “Molly Schuyler competitive eater” comes up pretty quickly via autofill. According to the Molly Schuyler Competitive Eater Facebook page, Schuler has won more than 70 competitive-eating challenges. She has been covered by ESPN and CNN, and featured on Comedy Central’s Tosh.0.
But there’s plenty of her on YouTube. Here’s her record-breaking time at the Big Texan (video courtesy Molly Schuyler/ Jukin Media).
This story was originally published March 31, 2015 at 5:31 PM with the headline "Big Texan Steak Ranch record-holder to try to beat her own record."