Lone Star Texas Grill — Restaurant in Ottawa

EDIT: We recently returned to this Lonestar and I have to admit that they've made some great changes to the restaurant. They've gone back to giving chips and salsa for free, our toppings were replenished before we were even out. a MUCH better experience. Thank you. I've revisited my rating on this place.

Lone Star used to be really great. I promise it did. We've been going to Lonestar since we moved to Ottawa about 8 years ago and the Gloucester location has always been the best one in the city. They have the best tortillas! They're made fresh and they're so soft and delicious. The staff has always been pretty great as well. The positives outweigh the negatives for sure, but there have been a few things in the past couple years that have made us visit far less frequently. The prices. I get that prices need to be raised, especially in this economy! But for relatively "cheap-to-make" food, it has become pretty expensive. That, paired with how they've become pretty stingy on their fixings (sour cream, pico de gallo, lettuce etc...) and their tortillas make for an experience that feels like it's not worth it. They do offer unlimited fixings and tortillas, but the problem is that they give you a very small quantity to start out with and the waitstaff don't come around fast enough to replenish and often don't see that you're out. They recently started charging to chips and salsa, which I also understand the need to raise prices, but that always used to be one of our favourite parts of going to Lonestar. The place needs an update. It's starting to look old and dingy inside. They recently repainted the outside and it looks great, but the inside could use a little love.

All that being said, we will definitely be back. Their fajitas are great and we probably...

We dropped in after a funeral event, mid-afternoon on a Tuesday, and they rallied and took in our extremely large group (about 30 with kids). Considering the massive size of our group, and the split bills, they were amazing. Food was good. Took longer to get out the drinks and meals, but that is understandable since we had 1 server dedicated to 30+ people. After the evening shift came in (after 4), things started coming a little faster since they had more staff available. I had the veggie fajitas. Single portion comes with a large plate of hot sizzling vegetables and 4 delicious (looks house made) flour tortillas. Very tasty. My uncle had the 14 oz steak. He barely finished the steak and could not even consider finishing the sides. (didn't see what anyone else ate, there were a lot of people) My kids enjoyed their meals of quesadilla, and chicken fingers and fries. Highly recommend this place. Just if you're a large group, PLEASE CALL AHEAD. Yes the staff here rallied and helped us have a wonderful time. But try not to drop 15 people on them without notice. It's just the nice thing to do.

Also, when it came time to get the bill, We had advised them ahead of time that it would be split. This meant it took our server about 30 seconds to get us our bill when it came time for my bit of the group to leave. Which was amazing. They had a great system to pair the kids with their adults, so it was extremely quick and painless to finalize...

Honestly...

I don't like writing bad reviews, but I have nothing to do today. When the marketing done says it's Texas Grill, you can have expectations to eat like in Texas but...surprise, I laughed with tears...Canadian Texas bar and grill...:)))with Mexican influence. Don't get me wrong, Mexican food is amazing but I don't even dare to try it after I had this experience.

I ordered a brisket sandwich...it has nothing to do with Texas brisket plus it was chopped like chicken food. Juicy? you can forget about this characteristic, dry, very dry. Everyone knows that if you add spices, you give the food a taste, but in no case can it be called brisket. Preparing brisket is a skill and not everyone knows it.

The waiter was nice, he knows what he's doing, but I waited a while to receive the food, I had the feeling that they went to buy the food from another restaurant...I don't even want to think what would have happened if I ordered something complicated.

I ate because I was hungry...I hadn't eaten for more than 20 hours and time didn't allow me to make any other comments or refuse the food...at least the french fries and coleslaw tasted good like at Costco:)))

The interior is nicely decorated, nothing to say...I laughed with the waiters and showed them what brisket means in Texas,

It's embarrassing to pretend to be a Texan restaurant/bar grill, to be located in Canada and to offer only marketing......