The term originated along the Atlantic coast of North America. Its earliest-known published use is in a 1967 advertisement in the Buffalo, New York Yellow Pages, placed by a restaurant called Michael's House of Steaks. Jane and Michael Stern claim that it was served under this name in the SkyCity restaurant (in Seattle's Space Needle) at the 1962 World's Fair. In the Sterns' Encyclopedia of Bad Taste, Surf 'n' Turf epitomizes culinary kitsch: "the point...is to maximize hedonistic extravagance" by ordering the two most expensive things on the menu; that is, the menu is guided not by aesthetic concerns, but for the sake of vulgar display.

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