A cut of meat could be worth $20,000, if a Rock Hill man is holding the knife

When Roman Vasquez walks into the 28-degree cooler, he flips his hoodie over his head and goes into competition mode.

That’s when the magic begins.

Guests sitting in Rock Hill Texas Roadhouse booths, just feet from the meat cooler, don’t know their dinner is prepared by a champion meat cutter. They don’t know the meat on their plates is like a chunk of gold to Vasquez.

Vasquez, of Rock Hill, is one of the top three Texas Roadhouse meat cutters in the Carolinas and Georgia and is headed to a national meat cutting competition in Orlando, Fla., this week. The grand prize: $20,000.

The competition “shows these meat cutters how valuable they are to our company and how much of an asset they are to us,” said Chad Hatmaker, the Rock Hill Texas Roadhouse kitchen manager.

Vasquez, a seventh-level meat cutter, chuckles when he thinks back on his life and says he never imagined becoming a meat cutter.

“I’m used to frying things,” Vasquez said.

A manager asked Vasquez if he wanted a coveted role as meat cutter, he said.

“Meat? I don’t know anything about it,” Vasquez said. “But then he showed me what I can accomplish and what I can get.”

What the 27-year-old gets is cash. The bonuses start at $100 and level 10 will fetch him $2,500.

About 450 meat cutters companywide compete locally and regionally. The goal is to get the highest yield of steak within a cut, Vasquez said. Managers keep track of the yield percentages and when the meat cutters reach a milestone, they move up a level, he said.

The meat cutters get bonuses each time they move to the next level, he added, and the top three meat cutters -- that includes Vasquez -- in their region will travel to Orlando, Fla., to compete with more than 100 finalists.

The competitors have one hour to cut one sirloin, one filet and one ribeye, Hatmaker said.

The process of getting that much-anticipated chunk of beef onto the grill is an art. Vasquez works quickly, like an artist carving his sculpture into perfect form.

His favorite cut is “bone-in, because the steak looks so good,” Vasquez said.

He said he doesn’t mind staying in the cooler for hours a day. Meat cutters can stay in the cooler up to 11 hours on a busy weekend night where they cut hundreds of pieces of steak and pork, he said.

Vasquez said he moved to the United States from Mexico when he was in elementary school. He attended Sullivan Middle School and graduated from Northwestern High School.

“Rock Hill is a nice city,” he said. “It’s quiet.”

Tracy Kimball: 803-329-4072

This story was originally published March 7, 2017 at 9:01 PM with the headline "A cut of meat could be worth $20,000, if a Rock Hill man is holding the knife."