Hungry? Hope you like beef, because that’s the main course at Columbine Steak House and Lounge.

Gazing at the Columbine Steak House and Lounge’s glowing yellow sign, one might expect a meal there to unfold like the delicate state flower that shares its name.

Instead, it’s all about hunks of steak and jaunty martinis.

The Columbine Steak House takes its food seriously. Diners come here to eat meat and eat it quickly. There are no fancy appetizers, no elaborate garnishes, and good luck if you’re a vegetarian.

The Columbine has occupied a low-slung hut on Federal Boulevard since 1961. Over its long decades of serving customers, the place has devised a streamlined system for dispensing sizzling steaks: Step up to the counter, order with the cook, pay the man at the register, and select a table.

Within moments of your sitting down, they call you back to pick up your meal, hot off the grill.

Unless you’re in the lounge area, with its old-school jukebox. There, you can order from a friendly waitress and snag a cheap beer ($2.50 for a Bud) in a spacious booth.

The menu over the counter is concise. There’s fried chicken, fried fish, shrimp and sandwiches, but various cuts of steak take up the most space.

At lunch one recent afternoon, the porterhouse ($15.95) seemed to be the most popular item. The word was barely out of customers’ mouths when the cook deftly snagged a giant steak out of the refrigerator and threw it on the grill.

Each slab comes with Texas toast, a baked potato and a small salad, making the porterhouse meal all the more astounding as a lunch. There are some mighty hungry people on Federal.

I had the steak sandwich with fries ($5). A large helping of chopped steak nestled between two warm, soft slices of Texas toast. The butter mingled with the meat and mixed with the tomato and onion — bliss.

Dinner at the Columbine means the main room is filled with neighborhood locals: Families, older couples, packs of voracious young men, grizzled biker types. The line to order often extends out the front door. The menu’s exactly the same as lunch.

Eating a fried chicken dinner ($6.50) in the subdued lounge, under the old Miller Lite logo and listening to Cat Stevens on the jukebox, was transporting. I felt like I was 10 years old old again, enjoying a Saturday night “chicken basket” with my family at the cozy Crescent Lounge in Crescent, Iowa.

My companions felt the same way: at home. I sampled their steaks (flavorful and juicy) and tried a hamburger (a toasted, buttered bun can do anything). We tottered outside full and dazed.

Pulling out of the parking lot, I wanted to clink together the hovering steak and martini on the restaurant’s sign — a loopy cheers to the Columbine.

– COLUMBINE STEAK HOUSE AND LOUNGE –

300 Federal Blvd. 303-936-9110. 10 a.m. to midnight Sunday through Thursday; 10 a.m. to 1 a.m. Friday and Saturday. Complete dinners $6.50-$15.95.

Front burner: Meaty comfort food at excellent prices.

Back burner: The threat of a grease overdose is clear and present.

– Kathleen St. John

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