The bison on the menu at Ted’s Montana Grill are not a gimmick. Ted Turner — yes, that Ted Turner, the CNN founder and land baron — owns more bison than any other private individual in the United States, which is roughly the most American sentence you can write. He opened this chain to find somewhere to put the meat. The Hartford location, sitting on Asylum Street near the Marriott, has been quietly doing business since the mid-2000s, and most people who walk past it assume it’s a standard steakhouse chain and keep moving. They are, in a narrow sense, correct. But narrowness is the enemy of lunch.
I arrived on a Tuesday around noon, which is either the worst time to judge a restaurant or the best, depending on your tolerance for quiet. The room is big and wood-heavy — booths upholstered in dark leather, exposed brick, vintage signage that leans into the Old West without quite tipping over into kitsch. The bar takes up one long wall and looks genuinely inviting even at midday, which is a design trick most places don’t pull off. The server materialized fast, handed over a menu that is longer than you expect, and did not upsell me on anything. That’s always a good sign.
Bison is the obvious starting point, and you should let it be. The bison burger — you can get it with a brioche bun or, more interestingly, a house-made English muffin — arrives pink in the middle by default, because bison runs leaner than beef and dries out if you push it past medium. The patty has a clean, slightly mineral flavor that tastes like beef’s more focused cousin. I ordered it with sharp cheddar and a side of onion rings that were thick-cut and not greasy, which put them in the top tier of onion rings I’ve eaten in Hartford. That tier is admittedly not enormous, but the distinction still stands.
The rest of the menu is classic American steakhouse material: burgers, steaks, a few salads that seem designed for people who came in with someone who ordered a bison ribeye. Prices run moderate for downtown Hartford — a bison burger with a side lands around $18 to $22, a full steak entrée somewhere in the $30s. There’s a happy hour that draws the Asylum Street office crowd in the late afternoon, and the bar list is competent without being adventurous.
What makes Ted’s worth flagging isn’t revolution. It’s consistency, which is its own rare quality on a block that has seen restaurants come and go with some frequency. The staff knows what they’re doing. The kitchen doesn’t overcomplicate things. The bison is always there, always good, and it gives the place an actual identity rather than the generic steak-and-salad drift you find at most of its competitors.
If you go — and a weekday lunch or an early dinner before something at the Bushnell are both solid windows — sit at a booth rather than the bar if you want to linger, and order the bison. Skip the temptation to play it safe with a chicken sandwich. You came for the American megafauna, and that’s a reasonable life choice.
Ted’s Montana Grill is at 300 Columbus Blvd, Hartford. Lunch and dinner daily. Parking is easier than you’d expect for downtown; there’s a garage across the street.
