My wife and I don't eat out a lot because of the rising prices and the general dodgy economy. However, we decided to go out on a Sunday evening to the Longhorn Steakhouse as a treat to ourselves.
First the good...
The restaurant looks like any other Longhorn in the US...clean, sporty, loud. When you enter you see the many choices of steak cuts in on display (which in reality are NOTHING like what you actually get) and you wait the twenty or so minutes to be seated in a booth or table and are immediately bombarded by loud TV's with various sports events or country music playing.
All fine and dandy and what you'd expect from a Longhorn.
My wife and I ordered, and I got a potato skin app. It was awesome! Lots of cheese and bacon topping...an exquisitely done potato skin. No issues. Thankfully, they were filling...
Now the bad...
Around (35) minutes later we received our meals. My wife ordered the Filet mid rare, with a sweet potato and broccoli and carrots and a glass of wine. I ordered a 12 ounce ribeye mid rare with a loaded baked potato and green beans. She said her steak was done perfectly, but her broccoli and carrots were a steamed tasteless disaster. Her potato was bland, but serviceable. My 12 ounce ribeye was, and i'm being generous here, properly an 8 ounce, and while I ordered mid rare, the steak was WAY past well done. It looked like a piece of charcoal. It actually clunked when I hit it with my knife. I didn't get the baked potato I ordered, but mashed instead. (And they were cold) We got the servers attention; she took one look at my steak and said, "Yup, that's way overdone. Would you like me to let the cook know?" I replied that we had already waited 35 minutes and I was starving so I would forgo the recook and just eat the mashed potatoes and left over potato skins. (again, the skins were delicious)
About a minute or so later, a floor manager came by and took a look at my steak, apologized for the doneness, and offered to get me a new one. I thanked her, but informed her I didn't want to wait. She replied, "Yeah, our cooks have been overcooking the steaks a lot lately, it's a problem."
Long story short, they took 20% off my bill. The right thing to do would have been to refund my entire entree as NOTHING was right, but oh well. I did end up tipping the waitress 20% anyway as it was not her fault, but we'll probably not go back to this establishment. The comment about the cooks burning a lot of steaks sunk it for me. In this economy, if you're shelling out $80 for a meal, it had better be up to par IMO, and if you know there's a problem with the cook staff, maybe fix it. Finally, the wait staff were attentive, but seemingly disinterested. It was almost like this kind of thing happens a lot... read more