Outback Steakhouse — Restaurant in Aiken County

I honestly rarely write bad reviews about restaurants but my visit with my boyfriend on 1/6 was just disappointing and quite frankly .. horrible. We arrived there at 8:30 PM, I’m a bartender at a pretty clean restaurant so right upon sitting down, I noticed that it was dirty in there and not busy at all.

Our server greeted us and took our drink orders, I ordered three drinks that they couldn’t make because they were out of the things for them. I get it, things happen. But then, our server disappeared for 10 minutes after taking our drink order and we couldn’t put in our appetizers. When she finally did return, we gave her our order, but we were still looking at options for our meals. We ordered our food at around 8:50pm.

We’re waiting and Waiting and realize that our appetizers are taking a very long time and then we finally realize that it’s been 45 minutes and we have a movie to get to at 10:15 PM. I ask our waitress when she finally comes back around if she ever put our appetizers in and she apologizes and tells us she’s going to go check on them.

Then, about five minutes later, our salads come out that we ordered 20 minutes after our appetizers. About five minutes later she comes out with the actual appetizers and they are burnt. I am not sure if you can see them, but they are to the right of this picture, it’s supposed to be golden fried shrimp and mac & cheese bites, but the mac & cheese bites were rubbery, and my appetite was barely there anymore because the food had taken so long and our server was missing. We asked the people by us how long they had been there and they said they had been waiting on their fries and salad for about 40 minutes now , even though they were there before us. We are hoping that our food tastes good and our meals will make this whole experience better, but my food comes out and is missing things, I don’t have any cheese or bacon on my loaded baked potato. The chicken is very dry and sad and not creamy at all like the picture, my boyfriend’s Caesar salad tasted sour, which made me lose my appetite and I couldn’t even eat my salad because whenever they did bring it out, they didn’t bring my dressing with it.

At this point we had barely ate anything and had wasted over evening there, and had no time to go anywhere else because we had a movie to get to. We expressed to our server we were very unhappy and we weren’t usually ones to complain but it was quite unacceptable as there were only a total of 8 tables in the restaurant.

she suggested the manager would probably stop by the table and discount our check. Well he did come out, but he was wearing an apron, so he was either the kitchen manager or a cook . He said that he took half off the bill but I wanted him to take my meal off because I did not want any of the food in front of me. we let them take all of our food off the table, and as we were looking around and examining, we noticed many many unhappy guests. I definitely wouldn’t recommend going here to anyone. They should close and revamp...

Some family members and I visited Outback Steakhouse in Aiken, SC on a recent Saturday night. We called ahead and they told us they didn't take reservations but we did say we were on our way and they took our name. When we got to the restaurant, the parking lot was crammed and so was the lobby, with people waiting for a table. We waited a few minutes and gave our name at the hostess station and within minutes we were seated. Once seated, we noticed a very large section of the restaurant was vacant, there were no diners there and we wondered why with all the people waiting in the lobby. The answer became clear when our waitperson, Joy, came to our table to take our drink order. We asked her about all the empty tables. She said that the restaurant was very short staffed that night and that management should have posted a sign on the door saying the wait would be 2 hours or more due to staffing issues. However, Outback chose not to do that. Needless to say, we were very happy to have been seated so quickly and we told Joy we understood about the delay in everything, that we weren't in any hurry and she could take her time with us. Joy was appreciative of our understanding. We ordered drinks and appetizers and our dinners, all at a relaxed pace and Joy did an outstanding job keeping everything going. Even though understaffed, the kitchen sent out fabulous food, we had prime rib and a NY sirloin and all of us were pleased with how our prime cuts were cooked and the side dishes were excellent. The Caesar salad was OUTSTANDING. The restaurant staff, from chefs to servers, absolutely pulled a rabbit out of their hats and we had the most delicious dinner in spite of the huge crowd waiting to be fed. I cannot say enough wonderful words about how fabulously we were treated by our server, Joy, and the top quality of our food preparation. I hadn't been to an Outback Restaurant in a while, but this most recent visit absolutely makes me want to go back again and go back again quickly. Outback needs to recognize these unsung hero's in their staff members who kept their business afloat while so drastically short staffed yet they pulled it off. I recommend calling ahead to find out what the wait time is but do not let that deter you from visiting Outback in Aiken, SC, and enjoying a fabulous meal served by conscientious employees. Kudo's to Joy. She never lost her sense of humor, no matter how many guests she was...

Long week at work and decided to get curbside on a Friday night. Put in order for a ribeye for hubby, Joey sirloin for my daughter, and sirloin/alice springs chicken combo for me. We all got salads as well. Arrive to get food and curbside waitress was not friendly at all. Said, “you picking up for Nick” I said yes ma’am. She came back out about 5 minutes later. She only brought 1 bag and it had nothing but salad. I went through the bag as she made her way inside. The salads were supposed to not have onions and all of them had onions and cheese and that was it!! No cucumbers or tomatoes or croutons. Salad was wilted and just looked awful! Called the restaurant to let them know I was missing the rest of my order, took 6 minutes for someone to answer the phone. Whoever answered the phone said she would send someone out and hung up. Didn’t apologize nor was she friendly. 5 minutes later, another person comes outside and said, you called about missing food…. I said yes, all I got was my salads. I didn’t even want to say anything about how pitiful they looked because I was already annoyed. The lady that brought out our food initially came out with the other bag and apologized that she didn’t know it was 2 bags…I waited tables all through high school and college and we always checked the tickets before giving out Togo food so I’m like why not look at the ticket to make sure all the food is there. But I didnt...

Got home and dispersed food. I went to cut my daughter’s steak up and it was so rubbery, it was sliding out of the Togo tray. She wouldn’t eat it and said it was too spicy. My husband and I said the same about our steaks. They were so peppery, my mouth was on fire. That’s all we tasted was salt and pepper. The salads were pitiful like I said before and my Alice springs was moist but it was full of salt and pepper as well. I enjoyed my broccoli the most…

I will never return to outback! I don’t go often but every time I good, the food the service is always lousy for the amount of money they charge. $75 later on a Friday night after a long week at work and barely any food was touched by my family. We are too tired to even call and complain! Wouldn’t do any good anyway, they won’t...