NewBridge Cafe opened at 650 Washington Ave in Chelsea on January 20, 1975, when founder Charles “Charlie” Mandracchia decided to serve open-pit barbecue the neighborhood hadn't tasted before. Fifty-one years later, it's still the place regulars point to when the conversation turns to steak tips.

Charlie ran the restaurant for 46 years before retiring; he passed away in 2021, but not before handing the business to the next generation. Today his son John Mandracchia runs NewBridge alongside his brother Mark — what the Everett Independent has called “the Mandracchia brothers” — a partnership now several decades deep. The volume alone says something about their staying power: John told Boston Magazine in 2023 that NewBridge goes through more than 1,000 pounds of steak tips every week.

The marinade behind those tips remains the restaurant's best-kept secret — the recipe NewBridge, according to its own website, “wouldn't even share with Phantom.” When Boston Magazine spent months investigating the mysterious origins of the New England steak tip for a 2023 feature, tracing the dish through Hilltop Steakhouse, the Ninety Nine, and decades of old menus, NewBridge earned its own stop on the trail. Even there, John stayed humble about the restaurant's place in steak tip history: “I don't think we originated it, but we're pretty close to the beginning.”

NewBridge has also become a go-to for large-scale local catering — in 2017, the Mandracchias fed 1,300 construction workers at a Wynn Boston Harbor casino-project celebration, on top of years of Boston Magazine “Best of Boston” recognition for its tips.

Half a century in, the marinade is still a secret. The tradition isn't.