Keens Steakhouse Reservations (NYC): Resy, 119 Days Out, Walk-In Bar

Keens Steakhouse has served dinner at 72 West 36th Street, a block south of Herald Square, since 1885, when Albert Keen opened it as a chophouse in what was then the city’s theatre district. The restaurant calls itself “the only survivor of the Herald Square Theatre District,” and the room backs it up: a dark, wood-panelled warren with the clay churchwarden pipes of its old Pipe Club strung across the ceilings, from a roster the restaurant says included Teddy Roosevelt, Babe Ruth and Albert Einstein. This is not a new opening with a midnight scramble. Getting a Keens Steakhouse reservation is mostly a matter of knowing where the slack sits in a four-month calendar, and this guide sets out where that is as of October 2026, along with the dress code and credit card answers people keep searching for.

Is Keens Steakhouse on Resy or OpenTable?

Resy, plus the phone. The restaurant’s Instagram account, @keenssteakhouse, links from its bio to Keens’ own Resy page, and its homepage sets the Make a Reservation button beside one plain line: “To make reservations or for general inquiries, please call 212-947-3636 or email info@keens.com.” The Infatuation’s review points its Reserve button at the same Resy page. Those are the two official routes into the dining rooms.

The confusion comes from the rest of the internet. A “Keen’s Steakhouse” page on OpenTable still ranks in search, and the line tracker damnlines.com says Keens is “listed on OpenTable and other reservation platforms.” I could not confirm that the OpenTable listing takes bookings, and nothing Keens publishes points to it. Treat Resy as the book, and if it shows nothing for your night, the phone is the only other channel the restaurant names.

When do Keens Steakhouse reservations open?

Keens does not publish a booking window or a release hour, so the trackers do the talking, and they agree on the length but not on the clock. itsadate.nyc, which last verified its page on July 11, 2026, says the Resy calendar shows 120 dates counting today, so the newest date is 119 days out, and that it opens at 12:00am Eastern, while noting that neither Keens nor Resy publishes midnight as a standing rule. Reservation Booker lists the same 119 days with a 10:00am release. Quenelle’s guide from October 25, 2026 says about 119 days and declines to name an hour. Call it four months, a far longer runway than the 30-day windows at Peter Luger and COTE.

The long window changes the arithmetic. On Saturday, October 31, 2026, 119 days out is Saturday, February 27, 2027, so every date from now to late February is already on the calendar. For a December dinner there is no release left to wait for: what Resy shows today is what is left, and returned tables are the way in. For a date that has not opened, take Saturday, March 13, 2027. Count back 119 days, exactly seventeen weeks, and you land on Saturday, November 14, 2026. If itsadate is right, March 13 appears as Friday, November 13 turns into Saturday the 14th. If Reservation Booker is right, it appears at 10am that Saturday. Settle it once: on the Friday evening note the last selectable date, look again just after midnight and, if March 13 is still missing, again at 10am. That tells you the hour for every booking after.

How to get a reservation at Keens Steakhouse when the calendar looks full

Keens is a big, multi-room restaurant, and it does not sell out in a minute the way a twelve-table room does. DinnerElite, which tracks Resy activity, said on October 30, 2026 that tables at Keens are claimed an average of 15 days before the reservation date. Read alongside a four-month window, that means most nights fill gradually and the pressure sits on particular slots: Friday and Saturday at prime dinner hours, the December holiday weeks, and large groups.

So work the edges. Keens serves straight through on weekdays, 11:45am to 10:30pm Monday to Friday, which makes a weekday lunch, a 2pm table or a 5pm early dinner a different competition from 7:30pm on a Saturday; damnlines.com also points to weekday lunch and early weekday dinners as the quieter times. Weekends are dinner only, from 5pm. Then lean on the cancellation terms. itsadate says standard tables need no card, deposit or prepayment, and that Resy asks for 24 hours’ notice but does not charge for cancelling; Quenelle said the same in October. When letting a table go costs nothing, people hold reservations until their plans firm up, and the returns come back onto the same Resy calendar, often in the last day or two before the date, where they go to whoever confirms first.

Does Keens take walk-ins?

At the bar, yes. The Infatuation’s March 2025 review called it “the walk-in-only bar,” and itsadate puts the rule plainly: “Walk in at the bar for first-come seating and the pub menu. Seating is not guaranteed.” The pub menu is no consolation prize. As of October 2026 it lists prime rib of beef, English cut, at $51, a prime rib hash at $28 and two burgers at $27.50, and The Infatuation says the hash and the burger, though listed only on the pub menu, can be ordered anywhere in the restaurant. The mutton chop is not on the pub menu, so if that is the reason you came, ask before you settle in. Come as one or two, near the 11:45am opening on a weekday or right at 5pm, and expect a wait on Friday and Saturday nights, which Quenelle’s guide also warns about.

Big parties and the private rooms

Online, Resy takes parties of 1 to 12, per itsadate; above 12, the restaurant wants a call to 212-947-3636 or an email to info@keens.com. Groups should also know the line at the foot of the lunch, dinner and pub menus as of October 2026: “18% voluntary gratuity will be added for parties of 6 or more. The amount of gratuity may be changed and is at your discretion.”

For an event, the private rooms are a separate book run by the banquet office at (212) 268-5056 or banquets@keens.com, not Resy. Keens lists four: the Lillie Langtry Room for up to 25, the Bullmoose Room for 36, the Lincoln Room for 45 and the Lambs Room for 75, with lunch starting at $130 per person and dinner at $202 per person. The Langtry room carries the best story in the house. The restaurant says that in 1905 the actress took Keens to court for denying her entry to its gentlemen-only premises, won, then “swept into Keens in her feathered boa and proceeded to order one of our famous mutton chops.” For a holiday party, the banquet line is the call to make, and Resy’s window has nothing to do with those rooms.

What is the Keens Steakhouse dress code?

Keens does not publish one. Its homepage, menus, private events page and history page, all checked October 31, 2026, say nothing about what to wear. Third parties fill the gap differently. Dress Code Finder labels it business casual, and a Tripadvisor answer it quotes says: “There is no official dress code. It is modernly casual but keep in mind that it’s NYC and corporate chic still rules.” Keens sits in a Midtown office district and serves a weekday lunch, so expect plenty of work clothes at noon. A collared shirt is the safe middle, a jacket never looks wrong, gym clothes would stand out, and nothing the restaurant publishes asks for a tie.

Does Keens Steakhouse take credit cards?

Yes. The clearest evidence comes from Keens itself: the credit card authorization form linked from its website lists American Express, Visa, MasterCard, Diner’s Club and Discover. That form is for paying ahead rather than at the table. You email it to banquets@keens.com with a description of the authorized use, it notes that the total is “before applicable service fee (15%-20%) and before 8.875% sales tax,” and it also covers gift cards, which the restaurant says are processed within 48 hours and mailed. For an ordinary dinner you do not need a card to book at all, according to itsadate and Quenelle.

Hours, holidays and the mutton chop

Keens is open Monday to Friday from 11:45am to 10:30pm, Saturday from 5pm to 10:30pm and Sunday from 5pm to 9:30pm, and in its own words “Keens is open every day of the year except Christmas Day.” Thanksgiving is on: the restaurant has posted a prix fixe for Thursday, November 26, 2026 at $167 per person and $83 for children under 12. On a 119-day count that date opened around July 30, so if you are only looking now, you are looking for cancellations.

As for the reason most people book, the lunch and dinner menus list “Our Legendary Mutton Chop” at $73 as of October 2026. The homepage quotes The New York Times in 2006 calling it “a 26-ounce saddle of lamb, skirted with fat and nearly two inches tall.” The Infatuation is franker about the name (“Technically year-old lamb, not mutton”) and credits the crust to a quick broil at 1,000 degrees, and Resy’s blog noted the house-made mint jelly. Around it, the King’s Cut of prime rib is $89 and the porterhouse for two $143. If prime rib is the real target, compare the very different booking problem at 4 Charles Prime Rib, a tiny West Village room, and see where both sit in the hardest restaurants to book in NYC.

Watching Keens on Resy

Every route to a Keens dining-room table other than the phone comes down to its Resy page in the instant a table exists: the far edge of the calendar on the day a date opens, or the unscheduled moment someone gives back a Saturday in December. SeatSwiper watches Resy, SevenRooms and OpenTable, and Keens books on Resy, so one watch covers both the release and the cancellations after it, whichever hour the release turns out to be. Give it your dates and party size, set it once and walk away; it books the table the moment one opens or someone cancels. It books on your own Resy account, in your name, for your own dinner, and nothing is resold or transferred. It can’t get your account banned, because it books on your own account and checks every few minutes, never nonstop. The first booking is free. After that it is a flat $5, charged only when it actually books the table, with no subscription. A cancellation watch on a date that is already full costs $1 to start, charged when the watch begins even if no table ever opens; that $1 is not covered by the free first booking and is not refunded, and the same $5 applies if the watch wins you the table. The honest limits: it only works on those three platforms, it needs your Resy login to book in your name, it can lose a race for a single table, and it cannot hold a bar stool or book a private room. Those stay with you and the banquet office.