Lone Star Botany — Restaurant in Howick

I'm from Texas, but I lived in Auckland for more than a decade before dragging myself to Lone Star. I had always wanted to try it, but also know how texmex and other american food usually goes in NZ lol. But I was feeling homesick and so I gave it a try a few days ago, mostly for the atmosphere. I had looked in the window and felt melancholy at the sight. The atmosphere and decor are a nostalgic mix of 80s El Chico and 80s Western Sizzlin' (at least the Texas locations). It was fun to be there. The waitstaff were wonderful and friendly and couldn't have been nicer. I really appreciated the workers. The food left a lot to be desired, but wasn't completely bad. We ordered three items from the Texmex menu, which is my go-to cuisine of choice at home most days. I had an open mind and I tried each of the three items, jalapeno poppers, pork tacos, and midnight nachos with beef. The jalapeno poppers were good, the cheese tasted like they do in the states, it was lovely. The breading was too blond, but still okay. I tried the dip, but it was just mayo. It should be ranch dip, but I know a lot of people in nz prefer mayo/aioli, so I get it. But ranch is what makes it really nice. The nachos came with beef mince in a tomato sauce, some chunky tomato salsa, a dollop of sour cream, a heavy/thick melted cheese (not nacho cheese or queso type cheese sauce) and a few jalapeno slices on top. It was entirely missing the spices that make it taste texmex. The mince/tomato mix tasted like spaghetti sauce because of this, so the nachos tasted like spaghetti sauce on chips. The corn chips (tortilla chips) they used were very thin like most nz nachos, so they break when you try to scoop up any toppings. A common problem, I've found. The chips were too weak to pick up the hardening melted cheese or mince, so a moderate amount of toppings were left on the plate after all the chips had been eaten; we ate most of the chips with minimal toppings because the chips kept breaking when we tried to scoop it up, so... But other than that, it wasn't BAD and we ate it the best we could. The tacos, however, were very strange. I thought the pork tacos would have shredded pork because that's how I always used to have them having grown up in the southern usa. I've never had them any other way. The pork um, well it was what seemed like very small pieces of diced pork belly, with thick pieces of fat on them, but they were sweet like sweet and sour pork, they weren't breaded, but they were cooked in some sort of sweet sauce. The tacos came with sour cream and guacamole on them which is normal, but what really took me off guard is that they're served with a side of hoisin sauce. So strange. I have never seen or heard of hoisin sauce on tacos. Ever. I didn't use the hoisin sauce. The outside of the tacos were not hard corn shells, but rather what seems to be baked white flour tortillas, which I've never seen. Usually tacos are either hard or soft, corn or flour, respectively. So this was unusual to see a hardened/baked flour tortilla. I ordered peach iced tea because they didn't have plain iced tea, and it was okay but the glass wasn't big like they said it would be, and the peach flavour was overpowering and it didn't taste like tea, but I'm used to plain black tea with maybe a little sweetener. Adding plain iced tea to the menu would be really great if they would do that, but I wouldn't mind ordering peach again if that's all they have. Probably not a lot of nzers order plain/sweet iced tea. Overall, it was a fun experience, but I won't order the tacos or nachos again. I will go back and try more things in the future. But just so you all know, I have yet to find any real texmex tasting texmex food in nz. Texmex really doesn't taste like that but rather this is probably the strangest interpretation of it that I've seen so far. I don't expect it to be just like it is in Texas and I don't think they ever claimed that it is, but there you go. That's my take on it. It was $80 for three dishes and...

AVOID:

Service was abysmal, we were told there was a 10 minute wait and were immediately seated which was a nice surprise, our drinks order was taken almost immediately which - while convenient was a touch discombobulating as some of us were yet to decide, after awkwardly placing a drinks order we were treated with a (I’m embarrassed to say I measured it) 28 minute wait for said drinks - while they were cocktails, the place couldn’t of been more than half full, during this wait period we weren’t approached once to check on us or take our food order. And when our drinks did arrive the waitress thought it would be funny to ask if we were ready to order, which we obviously were by then. We ordered starters and mains, one of the starters arrived within 10 minutes, whereas the other starter came with the main. During our 45 minute wait for our food, we managed to flag down our waitress who was avoiding eye contact like the plague, and one of our party asked for a refill on his coke. She said yes and tried to run away, but more of us wanted drinks, we were met by a half eye roll followed with her cathartically removing her pad from her pocket and quickly jotting down the drinks we ordered. By this time we’d gotten pretty fed up with the service and after another 20 minute wait a member of our party went up and inquired about the drinks, which quickly followed after this.

The food, was a 50/50 mix of fine, and absolutely terrible. They somehow got fries wrong, they were soggy on the outside and solid on the inside, one of our party ordered the $49 rib eye with the kiwi joker upgrade, the egg was overcooked. And was given what was most certainly not a cut of eye fillet, that was cooked differently to what he ordered. Another member of our party received their starter alongside their main.

Management was apologetic for the experience, blamed the place being “insanely busy” (not more than half full, I counted 8 wait staff)

The other waitresses looked equally sluggish, were generally rude or indifferent to customers and did their absolute best to avoid eye contact. The only members of the staff who were somewhat pleasant to interact with was the management and the trainee who obviously hasn’t had her spirits crushed by whatever eldritch creature lurks in the kitchen.

Another major complaint I’ve had with this particular lone star has to do with the acoustics inside the restaurant. It’s like sitting inside a tin can, the sound bounces all over the massive windows and completely barren walls, which makes the place nearly unbearable to have a conversation in. You can tell the management are aware of this as they only drive the front set of speakers, and leave the rest of the ambience drivers off so customers actually have a shot at talking to each other.

Overall, quite a terrible experience, and without a wake up call and either a new set of wait staff or a stern talking to and beating of the current employee base, I don’t see the place turning a profit in the future.

UPDATE POST MANAGEMENT RESPONSE:

We were given one free meal, although others were promised we didn’t actually care anymore and just wanted to leave, so we accepted the charges for the food we eventually enjoyed and went on our way.

The wait times were never communicated, don’t know why they’re lying in this review other than to save face.

The reason we turned down any sort of reparations is because sometimes terrible service and quality isn’t excusable and deserves to be addressed.

Baiting sympathy with mentioning the staff are students doesn’t really fly, considering we were perfectly pleasant to them and tolerated their issues, sadly I expected more experienced wait staff for the price point, considering they seemed to spend more time at their muster station around the kitchen than actually looking after the customers speaks to that.

All in all, rather unprofessional response from a once renowned Botany establishment, very...

First time in this lonestar and what a huge let down for the lone star franchise. We went for our anniversary dinner last week and after requesting a nice quiet area, we were seated amongst all the families out on the deck (no one was even sitting inside). Not wanting to ruin the mood, we ordered a drink and sat amongst the noise.

Young girl came and took our meal order and I asked for a pitcher of frozen margarita. Our loaf entree arrived along with a Glass of margarita, not a pitcher like I had ordered. Then we saw the "garlic butter" with our loaf. This loaf is a staple of lone star and we were both hugely dissapointed to see this "butter" tasted just like margarine with a hint of garlic. We know butter is expensive at the moment in nz, but come on! Very very dissapointing!

After nearly 35 mins waiting for our meals, they arrived. My husbands ribs were tough and cold. My lamb shank was the worst! Cold and Boiled with no flavour, to the point I took one bite and ended up just eating the cold potato mash. It didn't fall off the bone as lamb shanks are meant to do, very chewy and chewing it with a spoonful of potatoes didn't make it any better. (Oh and we had to go and ask the waitress where my husbands spuds were after nearly 10mins of waiting)

During this time we had another couple seated beside us and lets just say the seating in this place is so close, you can hear EVERY bit of the other tables conversation and touch them if you put your arm out sideways!

I tried my hardest not to let this ruin our night, as we haven't been out alone from our kids in 3yrs, but we decided to leave. Over $100 for meals that were below par, Very very dissapointing.

This lonestar is great for its location, but it REALLY needs work on its food preparation and serving times. The frozen margarita was my highlight of the night though and tasted amazing! So I highly recommend that.

We will ever...