Try It: Wilder's Steakhouse

When you dine at Wilder’s Steakhouse for the first time, the experience begins before you even walk in the door. First, you spot the huge, retro, glowing neon sign from about a mile away, and the excitement begins to build because even though you’ve never been to Wilder’s, with a sign like that you know it’s going to be something special. As you get closer, said sign informs you to “park in rear.” Pulling around back, you see an old-school canvas canopy that leads into the building. Walking in you imagine that this is what it must have felt like to walk into a speak-easy during Prohibition, and considering Wilder’s used to be a speak-easy, you won’t be far off. Once you’re inside, the tin-stamped ceiling, vintage Art Deco bar and dim lighting add to the feeling that you’ve stepped back in time. You slide into a booth and know you’re in for an evening outside of the ordinary.

Founded in the 1920s, Wilder’s is the oldest restaurant in Joplin and has been reinvented several times throughout its storied history. It’s been a gambling hall, buffet restaurant, burger joint and most recently as a fine-dining steakhouse. When I visited, I was immediately charmed by the decor, which added modern design elements to the original Art Deco bones of the restaurant, and the atmosphere, which managed to be both cozy and sophisticated. My mood shifted from worried about the long drive home to being ready to linger over a leisurely meal. 

The menu, which offers classic, well executed and flavorful dishes, is exactly what you want out of a steakhouse. When it comes to a chophouse, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. There is, however, a mandate to cook a steak to temperature—something that has proven a challenge for other 417-land restaurants. I held my breath as I sliced into a $36 Kansas City strip and exhaled a tiny sigh of relief as my knife revealed a perfect medium-rare red. As I was eating my strip, I didn’t even pick up the salt. The meat had been well-seasoned and charbroiled until a delightful crust covered the steak. The other items my dining partner and I tried were equally successful. For appetizers, we ordered the crab cakes and a grilled Caesar salad. The crab cakes were lightly breaded, served with a rémoulade sauce and packed full of chunks of crab. 

The grilled Caesar salad was simple but delicious. It was so good I was inspired to make the dish for a dinner party I held a couple of weeks later. I think I would have pulled off the feat had I not accidentally made the Caesar dressing with sardines instead of the prescribed anchovies. Needless to say, I threw out quite a bit of salad that night. For our other entree, we decided on the king crab legs. Crab legs have been a favorite of mine ever since my dad and I took a white-water rafting trip to upstate New York for my 21st birthday. For my birthday dinner, we both ordered crab legs and went to town. I’ve ordered crab legs since then, but they’ve never lived up to the ones from my birthday trip. At Wilder’s they did. The crab legs had been split twice, and part of the shell had been removed so the meat was easy to eat. They had also been basted with butter, topped with paprika and lightly broiled. I was sad when I pulled the last bit of flesh out of the shell.