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Man Tweets For Steak At Newark Airport, Morton's Delivers
By
Ben Yakas
Published Aug 19, 2011
Modified Aug 19, 2011
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Aug 19, 2011
Modified Aug 19, 2011
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Tweet and ye shall (sometimes) receive: a hungry man who jokingly Tweeted Morton's Steakhouse asking for a porterhouse when he arrived in Newark Airport was shocked when he was greeted by just that when he landed. And Peter Shankman, a social media entrepreneur, swears on his "entire professional reputation and all I hold dear to me that the story below was in no way staged, planned in advance, or in any way faked."
Shankman, a self-described steak connoisseur, was flying back to Newark after meetings in Tampa on Wednesday; realizing he wouldn't get home till late, he sent out the jokey tweet asking for the steak from Morton's Steakhouse, which he frequents. He turned his phone off, got on the flight, and forgot about it till he landed two-and-a-half hours later:
Looking for my driver, I saw my name, waved to him, and started walking to the door of EWR, like I’d done hundreds of times before.
“Um, Mr. Shankman,” he said.
I turned around.
“There’s a surprise for you here.”
I turned to see that the driver was standing next to someone else, who I just assumed was another driver he was talking to. Then I noticed the “someone else” was in a tuxedo.
And he was carrying a Morton’s bag.
Now understand… I’m a born-and-raised New York City kid. It takes a lot to surprise me. A LOT. I see celebrities on the Subway. I see movies being shot outside my apartment, and fake gunfire from any given CSI show, five days a week. I’m immune to surprises.
Except when they’re like this.
Afterwards, he Tweeted the above photo and wrote, "Oh. My. God. I don't believe it. @mortons showed up at EWR WITH A PORTERHOUSE!" As Shankman notes in his post about the incident, he was joking when he made the first Tweet, and he calculated that the closest Morton's Steakhouse was 23.5 miles away from Newark Airport, which meant they were able to cook the meal and send it out there in under three hours. It's important to note that Shankman does have over 100K followers on Twitter, and has written books about "outrageous P.R. stunts that work," but Shankman swears the story is true, and instead points to Morton's as an example of a company who take social media seriously:
I think it’s about Morton’s knowing I’m a good customer, who frequents their establishments regularly. If you look at their Twitter stream, Morton’s is known for always being on the ball, thanking those who mention they’re eating there.
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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