11 Secrets Morton's Steakhouse Never Wanted You To Know

In 1978, Arnie Morton and Klaus Fritsch opened the first Morton's Steakhouse in Chicago. Nearly half a century later, it has grown into one of the largest steakhouse chains in the country, accounting for more than 50 locations and bringing in nearly $200 million in annual revenue (via Restaurant Business Online). 

But the company's transformation from a standalone chophouse to national steakhouse chain hasn't all been all smooth sailing. Make no mistake — while it may beat out competitors like Ruth's Chris — Morton's Steakhouse has seen more than its fair share of scandals and controversies, many of which have come in the past 20 years or so. Most of these troublesome issues have, by and large, remained behind closed doors, unknown to even the most frequent Morton's Steakhouse patrons. From a slew of wide-ranging lawsuits and multiple health code violations to its controversial treatment of a cancer patient and Supreme Court justice, here are 11 secrets Morton's Steakhouse never wanted you to know.

Many restaurant owners were forced to lay off employees during the COVID-19 pandemic as forced closures caused a nosedive in business. Few, if any, of those owners had the audacity to claim they were doing their workers a favor by letting them go. But Tilman Fertitta isn't your average restaurant owner.

Fertitta owns, among many other things, the restaurant and hospitality company Landry's. Included in Landry's vast portfolio is Morton's The Steakhouse, making Fertitta the man in charge of the upscale chain. According to Bloomberg, the billionaire businessman furloughed roughly 40,000 of his employees in March 2020, just as the pandemic began spreading across the country. This total included those who worked at his restaurants.

Some could argue that his hand was forced, but what made the move particularly hard to stomach was how he described it to the media. During an appearance on Fox News, Fertitta said that he was giving his employees a leg up by laying them off so quickly (via the Houston Chronicle). "You're doing the people a favor if you get them furloughed first because you have them first to unemployment line after the severance that you give them," said Fertitta, who has an estimated worth of approximately $8 billion. "It's a trick that I've learned many years ago."

In July 2022, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh ate dinner at the Morton's Washington, D.C. location, according to Politico. The night out came roughly two weeks after Kavanaugh and four other justices voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, a move that would allow states to prohibit abortion. When pro-choice activists found out about Kavanaugh's dinner plans, they headed to the restaurant and protested outside while the justice dined indoors. According to the advocacy organization Shut Down DC, Kavanaugh had to sneak out of the back of the restaurant to get away.

The incident may not have caused Morton's any significant publicity damage had it chosen to simply move on. Instead, the chain did the opposite via a questionably worded statement. "Honorable Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh and all of our other patrons at the restaurant were unduly harassed by unruly protestors while eating dinner at our Morton's restaurant," the statement read. "Politics, regardless of your side or views, should not trample the freedom at play of the right to congregate and eat dinner."

The chain's decision to defend the justice's right to eat dinner peacefully after he helped strip rights away from others did not sit well with many. The steakhouse chain was lambasted by news outlets and politicians (via Politico). The worst of it came from the public, who flooded the company's social media and Yelp accounts with negative responses and even hampered operations by making fake reservations.

There's a public relations faux pas, and then there's removing a cancer patient from your establishment for breaking the dress code. In a blow to Morton's reputation, the latter is precisely what happened at one of its restaurants.

The incident took place at a Nashville Morton's Steakhouse in December 2013. According to Nashville Scene, a cancer patient named Robert Chambers was dining at the restaurant with some colleagues. Towards the end of the meal, Roberts, who was undergoing chemotherapy at the time, became cold and put on a hat. This is when the trouble started. "The chemo I had last gives me a cold sensitivity at the end of the day," Chambers told the Scene. "So I'm sitting there at the table, freezing and I put my toboggan on. We're two or three minutes away from walking out and the manager comes up behind me and says, 'Would you please take that off in the dining room.' I said, 'Sure.'"

His co-workers weren't as forgiving. After trying to explain the circumstances, an argument between the guests and staff ensued, with management even trying to get the police involved. News of the incident eventually made its way to social media where people were quick to criticize the steakhouse chain. Morton's did its best to right the wrong. According to the Huffington Post, the company apologized to Chambers and donated over $2,000.00 to the local St. Jude's Hospital in his name.

One of the most common secrets restaurants want to hide is the occurrence of any health code violations. Such infractions can lead to sub-standard food at best and food-borne illness at worst.

Unfortunately for Morton's The Steakhouse, one of its locations did commit such violations — repeatedly. In January of 2023, a Morton's restaurant in Charlotte was cited for multiple health code infractions, according to the Charlotte Observer. The long list of violations included having "clean" dishes with food fragments on them, storing food above required temperatures, storing food in the basement, dust build-up in storage areas, storing raw food alongside ready-to-eat items, and storing expired food in coolers. This resulted in the steakhouse receiving a "B" grade from the local health department.

As bad as that may sound, it gets worst. The most shocking aspect of the whole ordeal was the fact that this was the fifth "B" grade this particular Morton's location received in less than 12 months. But according to North Carolina state law, a restaurant is only required to maintain "C" grade in order to retain its operating permit. The Observer reported that the restaurant did correct some of its violations during the inspection. For the sake of all the steak-loving North Carolinians out there, let's hope they finally get around to addressing the others.

It's one thing to try to pull in half the population. It's another to try to pull in half the population while simultaneously pushing away the other. Morton's Steakhouse managed to kill both those birds with one stone in the summer of 2022 thanks to a controversial advertisement.

In the lead up to Father's Day, the chain put up a billboard with the headline, "We Call It A Menu For A Reason" with the "Men" of "Menu" written in a different color. The implication? Steak is for men only. Presidential historian and television personality Michael Beschloss posted an image of the billboard on Twitter along with the caption, "Morton's should re-think its billboards." Some responded to Beschloss in defense of the chain. Many, however, were firmly entrenched in the opposite camp, going as far as saying they wouldn't eat at Morton's anymore. "Well, one more place to put on the 'won't go list," one user commented. "Morton's Steakhouse: WOMEN aren't interested. Good luck staying in business," another chimed in.

One party that certainly doesn't seem to have any issue with the billboard is the company that came up with the idea. Michael Walter Advertising, a Chicago-based creative agency, is happy to show off its work with an image of the billboard on its website. The company claims that its holiday-specific publicity outreach for Morton's (which also included New Year's Eve marketing) helped the steakhouse chain record single-day sales records.

Morton's Steakhouse opened its first restaurant in Chicago in 1978. Over the next several decades, it would span out from the Windy City to establish locations across the country and even internationally. Its website states that Morton's footprint grew to include more than 65 restaurants. But recently, that number has been dropping.

According to Restaurant Business Online, Morton's Steakhouse boasted 63 United States restaurants to its name in 2019. That total shrunk to 59 the following year and 55 in 2021. It appears that the drop has, at least temporarily, leveled off. As of March of 2023, the chain lists 55 American locations on its website (excluding one outpost in Puerto Rico).

The recent closures shouldn't be too much of a surprise when factoring in the toll the COVID-19 pandemic took on the restaurant industry. Indeed, that was the main force behind Morton's decision to shut down its original location in Chicago, which occurred in November 2020. "Due to COVID-19 and the city's repetitive elimination of dine-in services, we are deeply saddened to announce the closing of the original Morton's The Steakhouse on State Street," the company's COO Tim Whitlock said in a statement. "We are grateful for the support of our community over the last 42 years." The Chicago restaurant was far from alone. Other Morton's closings in 2020 included locations in Denver, Rochester, and Buffalo.

An upscale steakhouse chain such as Morton's is bound to attract some powerful diners. But as we're all painfully aware of at this point, powerful people don't always behave well. Chief among them are politicians. 

Such poor behavior was on full display at a Florida Morton's in early 2022. According to the New York Times, a Miami city commissioner was having lunch at the restaurant when a lobbyist (who happened to be the son of a Miami politician) approached his table. Exactly what happened next is a little murky. Depending on whose version of the story you believe, the lobbyist either hit or grazed a Miami city commissioner. The ensuing melee caused other Morton's diners to call the police, whose arrival caused an even larger scene at the restaurant.

This wasn't the first time Morton's had its name linked to some alleged political wrongdoing. In March 2021, the New York Post reported that Federal Election Committee records showed New Jersey senator Bob Menendez had spent an eye-popping $298,000 at the steakhouse chain since 2003. How people spend their money is their business. The problem with Menendez's habitual steak dinners, however, was that he wasn't footing the bill. Instead, the meals were paid for by his campaign donors. "He spent enough money on steak and cigars to buy a new house in New Jersey," a political consultant told the Post. "It's the best lobbyist-funded lifestyle money can buy."

At least two separate disability discrimination lawsuits have been filed against Morton's Steakhouse in recent years. The first came from a former employee who claimed the company unjustly fired him due to a medical condition. In 2012, Richard Pelz was working as an assistant manager at a San Francisco Morton's location when he suffered a traumatic brain injury that forced him to take a leave of absence, according to the Legal Aid Society. Pelz presented management with notes from his doctor confirming the need to miss work and was purportedly told by Morton's to take as much time as he needed. A few months after sustaining the injury, however, he received a letter stating that he had been terminated. "Extended leaves of absence constitute one type of reasonable accommodation afforded under the disability provisions of state and federal law," said Pelz's lawyer Jinny Kim.

A few years later, Morton's was again sued for disability discrimination, this time by someone outside the company. In 2017, a New York man filed a lawsuit against the steakhouse chain for allegedly not making its website accessible to the blind (via ClassAction.org). The man claimed to have tried using his screen reader to access the site but was prevented from doing so due to various accessibility barriers. The suit claims that blind customers are discriminated against as they are not able to use Morton's website to find the location of the restaurants or purchase certain products online.

In the early 2000s, Morton's Steakhouse was hit with several wage lawsuits, according to Nation's Restaurant News. The most notable of these was filed in 2005 by one former Massachusetts-based Morton's employee before expanding to a class-action suit representing workers across the country. The group claimed that Morton's prohibited waitstaff from keeping all of their tips. Instead, workers were required to share their tips with other employees, including managers who typically wouldn't be categorized as tipped employees. This resulted in waitstaff being paid less than the federal minimum wage. The lawsuit also claimed that Morton's had previously been investigated for wage violations but never changed its policy.

The legal battles came to an end in 2009 when Morton's Steakhouse agreed to settle all the pending wage lawsuits. The deal stipulated that the chain would pay an undisclosed amount and issue stock to all the plaintiffs. Morton's, however, did not admit any wrongdoing and said the settlement was simply the company's best option. "We believe resolving the wage-and-hour litigation that has been ongoing for several years is in the best interest of our company, our shareholders and our employees," said Scott Levin, the chain's senior vice president and general counsel. "Eliminating the distraction and expense of this litigation will allow our management team and employees to focus on what we do best: Offering our guests warm, genuine hospitality and 'the best steak anywhere.'"

In the fall of 2011, a former Morton's Steakhouse sous chef named Reggie Williams filed a lawsuit against the chain (via NBC Miami). Williams claimed that he was sexually assaulted by fellow employees while working at a Florida Morton's location. Even worse, he alleges the criminal behavior was rampant and that management knew about it but did nothing. "The climate in the restaurant is that employees better have a thick skin or they don't belong," Williams's lawyer Jorge Silva told Forbes. "Some workers who complained were fired."

The lawsuit didn't just present legal trouble for Morton's. It also included some stomach-churning food-safety allegations. Williams claimed that one of the chefs, who was in charge of preparing vegetables, would "place stalks of asparagus inside his underwear, next to his anal/genital area." The asparagus was then served to customers. "This was unquestionably unhygienic and reprehensible behavior," Silva said. "Reggie and other kitchen staffers called attention to the food handling practice, but management did nothing." In the lawsuit, Williams described the chef's behavior as "utterly revolting stomach-turning act reminiscent of the worst fast food B movie" (via Food Safety News).

Morton's didn't publicly address the lawsuit specifically but did defend its food safety practices. In a statement, the chain alleged that it maintains a zero-tolerance policy for food safety violations and that all of its employees "receive certifications and training for food safety and exceed federal, state, and local guidelines."

Nothing will clear a room, or a restaurant, faster than an act of violence. Unfortunately, that's precisely what happened recently at a Florida Morton's Steakhouse.

In September 2021, two teenagers were shot at the chain's restaurant located inside the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront Hotel, according to the Florida Times-Union. Police reported that the incident took place during a private party being held at Morton's. At some point during the festivities, an altercation broke out in a nearby bathroom, which ultimately led to the shooting. One of the victims, who was just 19 years old, later succumbed to their injuries.

Some initial reports indicated that the shooting occurred inside the restaurant. However, a Morton's public relations representative later clarified to the Times-Union that the incident took place in a bathroom just outside the steakhouse. Technicalities aside, the commotion caused a major scare for everyone. "I heard something that sounded like gunshots," one witness told the newspaper. "I don't know where it was coming from, but I definitely heard it. It was one, two, maybe one, two, three shots." Another hotel guest described the ensuing mayhem. "Instantly there were ambulances, fire trucks, police cars," they recalled. "I mean it was crazy. And then they locked us in the room. They came over the intercom and told us to stay where we were," Bock told First Coast News. "Literally the whole lobby was crime scene tape."