By Scottie Brown

The Selma Times-Journal

Restaurants across the state are competing for the title “King of the Ribeye.”

This will be the third year the Alabama Cattlemen’s Association will host their best steak in Alabama contest, but this year the contest is limited to just to the rib-eye steak.

“We change it up a little bit every year,” said Erin Beasley, director of consumer marketing for the Alabama Cattlemen’s Association.

By judging just the rib-eye steaks a restaurant has to offer, Beasley said it added consistency to the contest.

“We felt like it would be good for the judges to only judge rib-eye steak that way they were only judging each restaurant against another restaurant based on one product.”

The nomination process for the contest will go from Tuesday, July 1 until Friday, August 1. Customers can nominate a restaurant for having the best rib-eye in the state by going to alabamasbeststeak.com. Customers are not limited to one vote, so if they are passionate about their favorite restaurant, Beasley said they can help their restaurant break through to the “Sizzling 16.”

“You can go on everyday if you want to,” Beasley said. “When we tally the votes, it’s going to be based on how many votes that restaurant has, so if someone is very passionate about a restaurant they could go on there every day and vote for their favorite to try to get them through and to the bracket challenge.”

The ‘Sizzling 16’ will be sectioned off by region, with four restaurants per region. Beasley said she had been asked if the restaurants were chains, but she said that was not usually the case.

“The top 16 will mostly be comprised of independently-owned, family-owned operations, which is really neat because it gives them a chance to show off the great products that they serve to their customers,” Beasley said. “It also shows how passionate their customer base is about their restaurant.”

Sandra Glover, owner of Steak Pit on Highland Avenue, said she hoped the restaurant’s 14-ounce rib eye would get some nominations for the contest.

“It’s the best steak around,” Glover said. “Hopefully, we might get some. We get a lot of people from out of town and they’ll say ‘This is the best steak I’ve ever had.’ We get a lot of good reports on our steaks.”

Glover said the secret for the rib-eye was the preparation and how long it is cooked.

“A steak is in the way you cook it,” Glover said. “The way it’s prepared, makes it a successful steak, and it’s got to be cooked [well]. The longer you cook it, that’s going to make it tough because you’ve cooked the fat out of it.”

Glover said she was confident in Steak Pit’s 14-ounce rib-eye.

“If anybody asks me I’m telling them the best steak in this house is the 14-ounce rib-eye,” Glover said.