Lone Star Texas Grill — Restaurant in Ottawa

Our family has been a fan of Lonestar for years! We go at least 3-4 times a year. We have always ordered the Chicken Fajitas and they never disappoint. Fresh, hot and tasty. However, this last experience left us all with such a sour taste that we are now thinking we won't be coming back nearly as often, or at all sadly. Atmosphere: We made reservations for this past Thursday evening. We thought with having reservations they would put some care into where they would seat us as oppose to those who just drop in for dinner. They sat us at the first booth closest to the bar with a cold draft from the front door. We were seated in a very high traffic area as it was right by the door. This was not a fun way to start the evening- but we sucked it up and made the best of it.

Service/ Food: The food itself tastes really good so good on the cooks! It is fresh and the meat is cooked nicely. The hostess was very pleasant and was very personable! The boats of toppings is presented nicely as well. They use to have Texas size drinks- in large beer mugs- they now put the " Texas" drinks in a smaller cup and are still calling it Texas size and still charging the Texas size price. ( almost $16 for a strawberry daiquiri in a very average size glass! ) ( I appreciate these decisions are made by head office and not the individual restaurants so I understand that this is out of the hands of the employees at the restaurant level to decide ). At the end of our visit, we asked our waitress about this because we thought " there is no way" . The waitress was trying to tell us these smaller cups actually "hold more than the other Texas size mugs and they put an extra shot of alcohol in it." We didn't buy that for a second so we poured our glass of water into these " new" size Texas size cups. Not. a. chance. these hold more. We don't care in the final analysis... it is just a drink, and we just won't order them anymore...but let's not lie about it.

Service: Manager: Our waitress needs some training/ reminders . Server: Boots 358. She did not check on us once during our meal. There was a young man who brought us our food , she was with him said " you guys good?" and walked off not to be seen again until we got our bill. We had empty trays/dishes pilling up she wasn't coming by- so we were scrapping them onto one plate, putting the used cutlery together and stacking them at the end of the table so we had some room. It sat there until we paid the bill . Unfortunately, she never came to ask us if we needed anything during our meal i.e.: top up our drinks, ask if there was any extras we needed, offer desserts etc. Overall, very disappointing evening out...

Have been to this location several times with family and friends and have always enjoyed the food, drinks and atmosphere overall.

My last visit (first patio experience of the season) left a lot to be desired in terms of quality of service. We felt pressured to hurry with our food order despite my initial explanation that our intention was to enjoy drinks first and that we would follow-up with a food order once our drinks were done. This slight annoyance would have been easily overlooked but unfortunately, our experience ended with more disappointment. Upon receiving my bill, one entry for a Gin & Tonic was entered under the name of a different cocktail which also came with a 40%+ mark-up in price. Upon asking my server about the error, she proceeded to tell me that the 'button' for a G&T in their point of sale system was not working, so she substituted it with a different item. Upon questioning the difference in price, she made every effort to convince me that it wasn't an issue, that it was perfectly normal, and as though I should just absorb the cost. It took several rebuttals and questioning why I, as the customer, should be penalized for their 'system issue' before she agreed to correct the bill. Not only was there no apology for the inconvenience, our server walked away in frustration, crumpled the receipt and threw it to the side as she walked back into the restaurant from the patio. Our bill came out to almost $60/pp so the discrepancy of a few dollars was not a matter of money but a matter of principle. A 40% mark-up on an item due to a "system issue" and expecting the customer to shoulder the cost comes across as dishonest and lacks integrity. Upon her return to the table, still no apology, she was very short and visibly flustered, told us it was fixed, left the bill and payment machine on our table, and rapidly walked away to another table. Not once was I disrespectful or even irate; I very respectfully and calmly asked for an explanation re: the discrepancy. I also had every intention of leaving a 20-25% tip as I do in most places, but reduced it to 15% and only because I hope tips are shared amongst all staff who contributed to serving our table throughout our visit...otherwise, I would have left no tip at all. I'm still struggling to process how poorly our server handled the situation (truly baffling) and will be hard pressed to return to...

My wife and I wanted to go somewhere close by. We knew what we were in for, nothing fancy just a place to talk and enjoy the patio. When we first walked in we saw 3 hostesses at the front, it didn’t look very busy but apparently we had to wait 20 minutes to have a spot on the patio, No problem! We figured we would just go for a walk. When we left and walked by the patio there were 7 empty tables, 5 of which had not been cleaned. It seemed strange. We returned 15 minutes later and were seated quickly. We were medium hungry and ordered fajitas. Our server was nice and polite. We were delivered some chips and salsa 10 minutes later (the chips are so crunchy and leave you reaching for more after every bite). We decided to not fill ourselves up on them and slowed down so we could enjoy our real meal. I went to the bathroom quickly (it was quite clean except for your average kid who leaves the seat down and lets it fly). Returning to the table I noticed that the inside of the restaurant wasn’t very busy at all. Then we waited for our food, and then we waited some more, and then we ate the rest of our chips, and waited some more. I really don’t think this was a ‘we forgot to punch in your order’ as we only ordered 1 thing. Just under 40 minutes later (and by that time quite hungry and getting cranky) our fajitas arrived. They were really really good. It is their flagship dish. I was still left wondering why it took so long with no explanation. We tried our best to eat them gracefully in the ravenous state we were in and had a good laugh at what sounded like a playlist curated around what the the black eyed peas (when fergy joined) sound like, country hell doused in cheese, and songs that top 40’s radio stations would cringe at. In other words, the music was absolutely horrible.

To sum it up: The support staff need to figure it out, the food was great, the wait was long, and I don’t even want to mention the music again.

Ps. Nice...