There is something wonderfully unfashionable about walking into a steakhouse that still believes dinner should have a little ceremony to it. Not stiff.
Not fussy. Just enough polish to make you sit up straighter, order something from the raw bar, and maybe reconsider the sneakers.
At Roots Steakhouse in Summit, the mood starts before the first plate lands. The room has that dark, clubby confidence of an old-school chophouse, the kind where wood, leather, and a good martini do half the talking.
This is not a restaurant trying to reinvent the steakhouse for the algorithm. It knows the assignment: prime beef, seafood, big sides, strong service, and a dining room that makes a Tuesday night feel like it wandered into Saturday.
In a town with plenty of polished places to eat, Roots still carries the rare feeling that a proper night out is alive and well.
The Summit Steakhouse That Still Feels Like a Classic Night Out
Roots sits at 401 Springfield Avenue, right in the middle of Summit’s walkable downtown, but the second you step inside, it feels less like a quick stop and more like a commitment to the evening.
This is the kind of place where people arrive for anniversaries, client dinners, birthdays, date nights, and those “we deserve a real dinner” Fridays that somehow become the best meals of the year.
Summit helps set the stage. The town already has that polished Union County rhythm, with the train station nearby, tidy storefronts, and enough dinner traffic to make a restaurant feel lively without turning it into a scene.
Roots fits that landscape perfectly because it is upscale without acting like it needs to explain itself. Lunch starts at 11:30 a.m.
Monday through Saturday and noon on Sunday, while dinner runs nightly, stretching until 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and 9 p.m. on Sunday.
That gives it a broad personality. It can be a power lunch with a steak sandwich and a glass of iced tea, or it can be the full white-tablecloth evening with a porterhouse, wine, and dessert you pretend you are sharing.
The restaurant also keeps attire standards, noting that hats, tank tops, flip-flops, and team athletic wear are too casual for the room. Honestly, that little bit of formality is part of the fun.
New Jersey has plenty of places where you can eat dinner in whatever you wore to run errands. Roots is where the night asks for just a little more.
How Roots Steakhouse Keeps the Old School Chophouse Spirit Alive
The steakhouse opened in 2006 inside the former Roots clothing store, which gives the name more local weight than most diners probably realize when they first hear it. Even better, the old vault that once held mink coats is still part of the location, a detail so perfectly steakhouse-adjacent it almost sounds invented.
It is not. That history gives the Summit restaurant a built-in sense of permanence, as if the building had been waiting for a second life that involved prime beef, cocktails, and people lingering over dinner.
Roots is part of Harvest Restaurants, the New Jersey group that began in 1996 with Trap Rock Restaurant & Brewery and has grown into a collection of restaurants across northern and central New Jersey. But the Summit Roots still feels like the origin point.
The brand has expanded to places like Morristown, Ridgewood, Princeton, and beyond, yet this location carries the particular charm of being first. The old-school chophouse spirit shows up in the pacing as much as the menu.
You do not come here to rush through a plate and bolt. You start with French onion soup under a blanket of gruyère, maybe split applewood smoked slab bacon with maple glaze, then settle into the kind of steak decision that feels pleasantly serious.
New York strip or ribeye. Filet or cowboy steak. Béarnaise or au poivre. Creamed spinach or potatoes au gratin.
Roots understands that the steakhouse formula became a classic for a reason. The trick is not to modernize it into something unrecognizable. The trick is to execute it well enough that nobody misses the trendier version.
Dark Wood Leather Booths and the Comfort of a Room That Knows Itself
Some restaurants chase redesigns every few years, swapping out chairs, colors, lighting, and personality until the place barely remembers its own name. Roots has gone in the opposite direction.
The room leans into a traditional steakhouse look, with dark wood, deep booths, warm lighting, and the steady hum of a dining room built for conversation. It feels grown-up in a way that is becoming harder to find, but not in the stern, whisper-only sense.
More like a place where a table can laugh over a seafood platter while another table negotiates the last onion ring. That balance matters.
A good steakhouse should feel important, but it should not make dinner feel like a museum visit. Roots pulls that off by keeping the atmosphere polished and comfortable at the same time.
The leather booths do a lot of work here. They make the meal feel tucked away, even when the room is busy, and they give the restaurant that old chophouse rhythm where the table becomes its own little world for two hours.
The lighting flatters the steaks, the cocktails, and probably everyone at the table, which is not nothing. Then there are the small details that reinforce the mood: the dress guidelines, the long bar hours, the private-event polish, the kind of service that knows when to check in and when to let a table enjoy itself.
Even the menu design feels familiar in the best way, moving from appetizers to raw bar to steaks to sides without trying to be clever about it. Roots is not casual pretending to be fancy, and it is not fancy pretending to be casual.
It is a steakhouse that knows the room it wants to be.
Dry Aged Steaks Seafood Towers and the Cuts Regulars Come Back For
A good steakhouse menu has to know when to flex and when to stay classic. Roots does both.
The steak lineup covers the cuts people expect when they are planning a proper chophouse night, including a 12-ounce petite prime New York strip, a 16-ounce prime New York strip, an 8-ounce petit filet mignon, a 12-ounce filet mignon, a 16-ounce prime ribeye, and a 20-ounce dry aged cowboy steak.
The 42-ounce prime porterhouse for two is listed at market price, which is steakhouse language for “bring someone who shares well.” There are also American Wagyu options from Snake River Farms, including a New York strip, ribeye, and petite filet, for the table that came ready to go big.
The extras keep things interesting without turning the plate into a circus. You can add a classic peppercorn crust, a blue cheese hat, jumbo shrimp, lobster with cherry peppers, or Oscar style with colossal crab, asparagus, and hollandaise.
The sauces cover the steakhouse bases too, from au poivre and Béarnaise to horseradish cream, truffle aioli, and Roots cowboy butter. But Roots is not only a beef parade.
The raw bar includes local East Coast oysters by the half dozen, chilled jumbo shrimp, snow crab claws, lobster cocktail, colossal lump crab cocktail, and chilled seafood platters sized for two, four, six, or eight.
Seafood entrées range from pan-seared scallops with creamy roasted tomato risotto to East Coast halibut and horseradish-crusted Faroe Island salmon.
Then come the sides, which are exactly as important as they should be: famous mac and cheese, lobster mac and cheese, pomme frites, creamed spinach, onion rings, roasted mushrooms, Brussels sprouts with honey sambal, and a loaded baked potato that knows it is not there to be subtle.
Why the Bar Deserves Its Own Early Arrival
Getting there early is not just a scheduling trick at Roots. It is part of the experience.
The bar and lounge open at 11:30 a.m. Monday through Saturday and run until 12:30 a.m., which gives the Summit location a life beyond the dining room.
On Sunday, the bar follows the dinner rhythm from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. That long window matters because the bar has its own old-school steakhouse appeal.
It is the place to ease into the evening before the table is ready, or to turn a full dinner into something a little more spontaneous. A drink at the bar before a steak dinner feels almost mandatory here, in the way warm bread feels mandatory even when nobody admits they are hungry yet.
The menu supports that kind of arrival. You could start with French onion soup, lobster bisque, yellowfin tuna tartare with avocado and crispy wontons, or Rhode Island crispy calamari with cherry peppers and roasted red pepper marinara.
If the mood is more “let’s split a few things and see what happens,” the Kobe sliders with cheddar and caramelized onions, cheesesteak sliders with shaved filet mignon, crispy wagyu dumplings with honey sambal, and Maine lobster bites make a strong case. Lunch gives the bar another personality altogether.
The Roots Express Lunch pairs choices like a filet slider or half lobster roll with soup and a Homestead salad, while the Ultimate Roots Trio brings together a filet slider, half lobster roll, and soup. That is not a sad desk lunch.
That is the sort of midday meal that makes the rest of the afternoon feel optional. At night, the bar becomes the warm-up act, and sometimes the main event.
How This Union County Favorite Turned Consistency Into Its Calling Card
Longevity in New Jersey dining is not luck. This state has too many sharp regulars, too many strong opinions, and too many people willing to drive twenty minutes for the better version of anything.
Roots has lasted because it offers something customers can recognize each time they return. The steaks are still the headline. The sides still matter. The room still feels like an occasion.
The service still understands that a steakhouse dinner should move with confidence, not chaos. That consistency is especially valuable in Summit, where diners have options and expectations.
People do not keep coming back to a restaurant simply because it looks classic. They come back because the place delivers the feeling it promises.
Roots does that with the steady reliability of a chophouse that has decided not to chase every passing restaurant mood. It can handle the celebration dinner with the seafood platter and porterhouse, but it can also handle the quieter night with a wedge salad, a filet, creamed spinach, and warm butter cake.
It can be lunch, bar stop, business meal, family dinner, or the place where someone finally orders the Dover sole because it is available Thursday through Saturday and the night feels special enough. The best part is that Roots does not treat classic style like a costume.
The history of the old clothing store, the mink-coat vault, the dark room, the prime cuts, the long bar hours, and the polished pacing all add up to something that feels lived-in. In a dining world that keeps trying to look brand-new, this Union County favorite has built its reputation by staying comfortably, confidently itself.