Son, I've got two words for you: "steak house."

What we have here is a 1995 picture of legendary Miami Dolphins head coach Don Shula (left) and his son, Dave Shula (right), who was then head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals. Two two faced off on October 1 of that year, and the Dolphins eked out a 26-23 victory.

That was then. Now they’re in the restaurant business.

The Shulas were in town Tuesday and Wednesday for the opening of the 30th restaurant in the franchise company of four steak-house concepts that bear their name. They invited me to join them for lunch.

Shula’s 347 Grill — so named for the number of Don Shula’s career victories — opened in the new Atlanta Marriott Buckhead Hotel & Conference Center, across from Lenox Square. It’s not as white-tablecloth fancy as Shula’s American Steak House, nor as sports-bar casual as Shula’s 2 Steak & Sports, but right in the middle.

The menu here offers a number of hearty burgers, sandwiches and salads, such as this Caesar topped with a generous serving of blackened tenderloin tips ($15). There are also some entrees priced in the teens and a few Black Angus steaks, none of which costs more than $29.

That hand you see behind the salad does indeed belong to the 79-year-old Coach Shula. It is not the one that wears his perfect-season Super Bowl ring, which is shaped like a stadium, inlaid with 16 small diamonds representing the games won and one huge diamond in the center. The insignias for both the Super Bowl and the Dolphins are inlaid on either side. He let me examine it closely.

The coach (left, shot in iPhone injustice) did not order any lunch as he had eaten steak and eggs for breakfast. The waiter kept him in Diet Coke the way I’d imagine Frank Sinatra was kept in Scotch — it just appeared, always fizzing and clinking. Dave Shula, a fit man of 50 who just finished a full Ironman triathlon, ate a baked potato.

I got a kick when Shula inquired after the AJC’s Furman Bisher and his wife.

“She’s a younger woman, right?” he asked, adding, “I guess it’s not too easy to find a 90-year-old chick.”

In the interest of full disclosure I should admit that I am not a big professional sports fan. In fact, I am less than a non-fan. I live in the theoretical world of sports-fan antimatter, that place where legendary coaches talk about legendary players and you just nod politely.

Luckily, my colleague Jeff Schultz came along and he’s got the answers to all the questions you would want to ask coach Shula about the current football season.