Monday, July 18, 2011

Worst Restaurant Service EVER ?!

I've eaten at many a fine restaurant in my day.  Not on any regular basis, mind you, but often enough to know what is reasonable to expect.  Especially in terms of service and wait time and the like.

Tonight's experience at Texas Roadhouse was the worst overall experience (minus the company we had with us of course) that I have EVER HAD at ANY restaurant ... EVER !!!

Here's the short list of "things that went wrong" (if it doesn't seem short consider that we were at the restaurant for over 2 hours!):
 - Call ahead seating (what a joke!)  We asked for a time around 5:15pm and were told we had to wait until 6:15pm.  Fine.  Except that when my father-in-law called a little later to confirm the time they told him 6:00pm.  WTH ?!
 - Call ahead seating (what a joke! Part 2)  We arrived right at 6:00pm to check in ... and waited ... and waited ... and you get the idea.  At 6:30pm we were apologized to for the wait (after Karen asked what was going on).  At 6:45pm we were finally seated!
 - Seating Experience.  The table wasn't even cleared yet ... so we all stood, blocking the traffic at the front check-in are) for several minutes.  Then we stood, again, for several minutes right next to our table ... because it still wasn't set for our arrival!
 - Where is our waitress? #1.  After sitting for no less than 5 minutes, our waitress finally arrived to take drink and appetizer orders.  Then she disappeared ... for at least another 5 minutes.  The appetizers came ... without the waitress ... still no drinks.
 - Drink orders #1.  Even though she appeared to have written our orders down, the waitress brought two adult sized Cokes (no adult ordered Coke); three orange kid's sodas (only two kids ordered orange); zero Sprites (Brooklyn and I each ordered one); and only two waters (three adults had asked for water).
 - Where is our waitress AND Drink orders #2 (combined to save you time!)  After messing up the drinks the waitress disappeared again for at least another 5 minutes.  When she finally came back she brought ... wait for it ... an adult sized Sprite (correct), another adult-sized Coke (incorrect), a kid-sized Sprite (correct), and another kid-sized orange drink (incorrect).  She then took our food orders and (you guessed it) disappeared ... but for at least 10 minutes this time.
 - Where is our food? #1  A full 15 minutes after taking our orders, Karen finally got the salad that came with her meal.  And then we waited ... and waited ... and 10 more minutes later (that's right!  I timed it!) the waitress came back with some of our food.
 - Meal order mess-ups (Part 1).  Of the first group served, three orders were either incomplete or incorrect.  My mother-in-law had specifically asked for no gravy and her beef tips were swimming in the stuff.  My oldest daughter had ordered applesauce with her meal and got fries instead.  My father-in-law had ordered a medium cooked steak, but it was closer to well done than medium.
 - Drink orders #3.  About 5 minutes after the first group of food arrived, the waitress brought back refills ... and she brought two more adult-sized Cokes (again, no adults ordered Coke!) and two "extra" orange kid's sodas ... and she still had forgotten my father-in-law's water request (he had lemonade too but wanted water to cleanse his palette).  The waitress was so flustered by her own ineptitude that she spilled the two Cokes all over the floor (and a lady's purse, at the table next to us).
 - Where is our waitress? #3 AND Where is our food? #2.  At least 8 minutes after the first group ordered their food, I finally received my burger (how does a burger take longer to make than a steak?!) ... but not from the waitress because she was still no where to be found (undoubtedly hiding out of embarrasment about spilling the un-wanted and un-ordered Cokes).
 - Meal order mess-ups (Part 2).  I guess my burger took longer to cook because they had to add tomatoes (not supposed to be on the burger according to the menu) and put onions on my burger.  I was very clear in my basic order that I did not want onions!  My ordering went exactly like this: I'll have the smokehouse burger with No onions.  And yes, steak fries with that will be fine.  How hard is that to get right?!
 - Bill calculation errors.  Kids eat free and we honor your Texas Roadhouse coupons.  Yeah right!  We had four adults and four kid's meals ordered.  Only two were initially taken off the bill.  Both appetizers we ordered were supposed to be free (based on coupons we had), but neither were taken off the initial bill.  And don't get me started on the whole "two Cokes" situation!

Add to all of the above that the restaurant was crowded, the air conditioning did not appear to be turned on or working, and the tables all around us received "free appetizers" for the delays they experienced.
Worst eating out experience ever!

Mark my words here and now ... I will NEVER be going back to Texas Roadhouse again!
I think the only situation when I will change my mind on this would be if
A: I had a gift card there ... or
B: If someone else is paying and it is NOT the one on Powers Boulevard!

...

2 comments:

  1. You missed Catalina's comment... "I am so hungery I am going to dye! I don't want to dye!"

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  2. Oh man! I'm sorry you had such a horrible experience. Worst. Restaurant. Service. Ever! Indeed!! I, myself, am so over Texas Roadhouse - I'd recommend Outback Steakhouse, because I have never had any issues with crappy service, and the rare times my order has been wrong it has been corrected immediately and usually comped!

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