David “Papi” Einhorn on Why Papi Steak Is More Than a Steakhouse
In two cities full of dining & entertainment, Papi Steak built something more difficult to replicate: a restaurant people genuinely want to spend the night in.
- By: Julianne Elise Beffa
Just when Miami and Las Vegas thought they had exhausted every possible way to dine, drink and party, co-founder David “Papi” Einhorn entered the chat. His answer? Papi Steak: part old-school steakhouse, part Brooklyn, part Miami nightlife, with DJs, celebrities, champagne and a rhinestone-covered Beefcase thrown in because apparently a steak arriving on a plate wasn’t dramatic enough. It’s the kind of place where a dinner reservation can turn into an entire evening, and where the question isn’t what you’re ordering for dinner, but how late you’re planning to stay.
How does a New Yorker know what’s worth it in Miami and Las Vegas you may ask? Easy. I know because I’ve actually been there. I celebrated my birthday at Papi Steak last year with six friends, and what I remember most isn’t a particular dish, cocktail or even the $1,000 tab we racked up. It’s the fact that the night just kept going. We ate, we drank, we danced, took an objectively ridiculous number of pictures and, somewhere along the way, completely forgot that we had technically gone out to dinner. That, more than anything, is the Papi Steak experience.
People rarely go out simply to eat anymore. They want somewhere worth getting dressed for, somewhere they can celebrate, somewhere they might run into someone interesting and, ideally, somewhere that gives the group chat something to discuss the next morning. In my case, I chose Papi for my birthday res because I was hoping to lock eyes with an NFL player at a nearby booth (not the Daejon Love kind, of course). For everyone else, the motivation may be slightly more wholesome, but the underlying appeal is probably the same. Great food gets you through the door, but the experience surrounding it is what makes a place worth remembering.
Einhorn understood that distinction from the beginning. His approach to hospitality is deeply personal, shaped by his Brooklyn upbringing and his experience leaving the Hasidic community in which he was raised. Rather than leaving that history behind, he folded it into the identity of Papi Steak, bringing elements of his background into a distinctly Miami environment through dishes like pastrami and latkes alongside kosher cuts of meat.
“My roots are a huge part of who I am and I brought that Brooklyn flair and my own history into Papi Steak,” Einhorn tells LOOP Mag. “You see it throughout the restaurant, from the pastrami and latkes to the kosher cuts of meat. Those elements are part of my identity. I think reinvention is about taking where you come from and using it to create something that feels completely your own.”
It is a fitting philosophy for a restaurant built around reinvention. Papi Steak takes one of the most established formats in American dining—the steakhouse—and refuses to treat it like a museum piece. There is still an emphasis on premium cuts, polished service and the ritual of a luxury dinner, but the atmosphere belongs to contemporary Miami: glamorous, social, celebrity-driven and deliberately excessive. The result is something that sits somewhere between a steakhouse and a nightlife destination without needing to fully become either one.
People are looking for experiences that feel social and exciting, and we bring all of that together under one roof.
“People want dinner and a show, but they don’t necessarily want the traditional nightclub experience. Papi Steak gives you that nightlife energy in one place. You can have an incredible dinner while experiencing a DJ, entertainment and VIP-level service. It’s nightlife-adjacent, but it still feels like a restaurant. People are looking for experiences that feel social and exciting, and we bring all of that together under one roof.”
And honestly, that is the trick. Nobody wants to spend hundreds of dollars on dinner just to spend the next three hours sitting politely at a table. People want a little action with their ribeye. They want the DJ, the champagne, the celebrity two tables over and, ideally, something ridiculous enough to text their friends about before the check even arrives. Enter the Beefcase.
The rhinestone-covered briefcase carrying a massive cut of Wagyu is peak Papi: excessive, completely unnecessary and exactly the kind of thing that makes an entire dining room suddenly reach for their phones. The same goes for the Birkin Bag Cocktail, which takes one of the world’s most recognizable symbols of luxury and turns it into something you can actually order with dinner. Is it extra? Obviously. Is that the point? Duh.
But here is where Papi Steak gets smarter than the average “Instagrammable” restaurant. These moments don’t feel like content assignments. Nobody is pulling out their phone because they have been instructed to capture the restaurant’s latest social-media stunt; they are doing it because a rhinestone briefcase full of steak just walked past their table. There is a difference between a restaurant desperately trying to manufacture a viral moment and one that creates moments people naturally want to capture.
“Today, people want more than just a great meal, they want a moment. The basics of great food, service and hospitality are non-negotiable, but we take it a step further by creating experiences people want to pull out their phones and capture. Whether it’s the Beefcase, the Birkin Bag Cocktail or a Louis XIII moment, those experiences create excitement and give people something to talk about. That combination of hospitality, entertainment and memorable moments is what turns a restaurant into a destination.”
And yes, shareability has become its own form of social currency.
Whether it’s the Beefcase, the Birkin Bag Cocktail or a Louis XIII moment, those experiences create excitement and give people something to talk about.
“People want to create FOMO for their friends and share experiences that feel exciting, lavish and worth talking about. At Papi Steak, dinner is a celebration from the moment you walk in until the moment you leave. We create experiences that naturally make people want to take out their phones and share what they’re experiencing. People want to show off where they are and what they’re doing, and we give them a reason to do that.”
The formula becomes even more obvious when you look around the room. Papi Steak has become a celebrity-driven restaurant, attracting major athletes and A-list stars, and that unpredictability has become part of the fun. You never quite know who is going to walk through the door, which means the possibility of seeing someone famous becomes part of the experience without ever needing to be formally advertised as the attraction.
“Papi Steak has become a very celebrity-driven restaurant, from major athletes to A-list stars, and we’ve built a real reputation around that. Part of the excitement is that you never know who you might see when you walk through the door. That creates an energy and sense of spontaneity that people want to be part of. We want our guests to feel like anything can happen when they’re at Papi Steak.”
That idea of spontaneity feels particularly at home in Miami, a city that has evolved dramatically from its old reputation as a seasonal playground. According to Einhorn, the shift became especially noticeable after COVID, when Miami’s culinary scene began attracting a year-round audience rather than simply serving as a winter escape.
“After COVID, Miami really evolved into a culinary-driven city. For years, Miami was primarily a winter getaway destination. People would come for the season and then leave. Today, it has grown into a true year-round city with some of the best culinary and hospitality experiences in the country. There’s an incredible energy here and people are coming to Miami specifically for the restaurants, nightlife and experiences, not just for a vacation.”
Papi Steak is very much a product of that evolution. You go out to eat, sure, but you also want the room to be fun, the music to be good, the cocktails to keep coming and, if you’re lucky, a celebrity sighting or two. Papi Steak simply puts all of it under one roof. Nobody is sitting there wondering whether they are at a steakhouse or a nightlife spot. They are too busy having a good time. The restaurant also isn’t content to simply chase whatever happens to be trending. That may be part of why its most recognizable moments have stuck around. Rather than copying what is already popular, Einhorn says the goal is to take cultural trends and translate them into something that feels distinctly Papi.
Papi Steak has become a very celebrity-driven restaurant, from major athletes to A-list stars, and we’ve built a real reputation around that.
“You have to pay attention to what’s happening culturally, but you also have to be willing to start trends rather than just follow them. We’re always looking at what’s hot and thinking about how we can translate that into something authentic for Papi Steak. The Birkin Bag Cocktail is a great example. The idea was to take something people associate with luxury and fashion and turn it into an experience you could actually have at dinner. The goal is to stay ahead of the trends and make them our own.”
That authenticity is probably why the restaurant doesn’t feel like another luxury dining room assembled from the same Pinterest board. The Brooklyn influence shows up in the food, Miami is all over the room and the entire experience has enough personality to keep the luxury from becoming too serious. It is flashy, yes, but there is an unmistakable sense that everyone involved is having fun with it. After all, if you are going to put a steak in a rhinestone briefcase, you might as well.
For me, that was the appeal the night I celebrated my birthday there. I wasn’t looking for a quiet steak dinner where everyone politely eats their filet and calls it a night. I wanted somewhere we could dress up, eat well, drink too much, dance between courses and inevitably take approximately 400 photos before leaving. Papi Steak delivered. The night felt less like a reservation and more like an event, which is probably why I still remember it.
And maybe that is the real Papi Steak formula: give people a reason to get excited before they even sit down, and then keep the energy going once they do. The food is indulgent, the room is theatrical, the music is part of the experience and the crowd is half the fun. You never quite know who might walk through the door, what table might turn into a party or how late you will actually end up staying. Einhorn’s advice for anyone hoping to create something similar is surprisingly straightforward.
“It’s very hard, so you have to be prepared to work extremely hard and, most importantly, love what you’re doing. Stay true to the fundamentals of hospitality and never compromise on the quality of the food or service. At the same time, you can’t be afraid to evolve. Pay attention to what people want, understand the trends and don’t be afraid to take risks and make them your own.”
Pay attention to what people want, understand the trends and don’t be afraid to take risks and make them your own.
It is a deceptively simple philosophy, but it gets to the heart of why Papi Steak works. The restaurant isn’t asking guests to choose between dinner and nightlife, luxury and fun, food and entertainment, or exclusivity and spontaneity. It has created a world where all of those things can exist at the same table.
“The future of luxury hospitality belongs to brands that stay ahead of the trends while remaining authentic and deeply in tune with the customer experience.”
Two years later- I still remember my night at Papi Steak. I remember the food, but I remember the energy more. I remember six friends around a table, the music, the pictures, the dancing and the feeling that we had ended up somewhere that was far more fun than simply going out to dinner. Because when a restaurant can make you remember how a night felt, rather than simply what you ordered, it has stopped selling dinner. It is selling the night itself.
Read More
