Medium Rare brings steak frites to Columbia (somebody’s getting steak for life)

Medium Rare's signature dish is steak frites with secret sauce. (Courtesy Medium Rare)

Medium Rare, whose signature dish is steak frites with secret sauce, opens its newest restaurant April 15 in Columbia, Maryland, across from Merriweather Post Pavilion.

One of the first 100 diners on grand opening day will get a gift card that is good for unlimited steak meals for life.

The original Medium Rare opened in D.C.’s Cleveland Park in 2011. It has other locations in Arlington, Bethesda and Baltimore, and recently expanded with its first restaurant outside of the region in New Orleans.

Co-owner Mark Bucher is eyeing other cities for Medium Rare locations, including New York City, Houston and San Francisco.

Expansion to other cities will also mean expanding Bucher’s food insecurity nonprofit Feed the Fridge to other metro areas. Feed the Fridge, supported by donations, has no-questions-asked free meals stocked in refrigerators at community centers around D.C. and Maryland.

In 2021, Bucher and Medium Rare were awarded the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Community Support and Leadership Award for the Feed the Fridge program.

There aren’t many choices to make when ordering dinner at Medium Rare. The menu includes a three-course, $29 meal of steak frites, a salad, rustic bread and a choice of dessert. There’s a grilled portobello option for vegetarians. The restaurant also serves weekend brunch with steak and eggs, as well as French toast.

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Jeff Clabaugh

Jeff Clabaugh has spent 20 years covering the Washington region's economy and financial markets for WTOP as part of a partnership with the Washington Business Journal, and officially joined the WTOP newsroom staff in January 2016.

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