Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen — Restaurant in Alafaya

Cheddar’s, sometimes I just don’t understand. Where do I begin?

Let’s start with the good.

Food The flavor of the food has always been good, no doubt about that. I’ve tried several items on the menu but I typically do go with the salmon. This time I did pick the salmon, with sweet baby carrots and mashed potatoes. The salmon was cooked well, and seasoned well, in fact it was the best part of the meal. The mashed potatoes were good, not great, but nothing to complain about. They tasted fine and were consistent with how mashed potatoes are suppose to taste. The baby carrots tasted great as well, but the look of them…well more on that later.

Croissants are always good as well as the teas. Not much to be said here other than that they are delicious!

Server Our server did a great job, he seems like maybe he was new and a little nervous? But that is fine, he handle himself well and was very kind and courteous. We had an issue with one of our dishes we ordered (5 people in total at our table) and he took care of it without hesitation.

The Bad

Food

The food portions are small, but you are paying slightly less compared to something like a Bahama Breeze. So that is in some way fair I guess? With that being said, my wife ordered a 6 oz salmon while I ordered a 8 oz salmon. When the dishes arrived, I honestly could not tell the difference in size. I am not sure if there was a problem with the scale in the back or something else? Sorry I’m a little snarky.

My carrots seemed a little old and shriveled, compared to my wife’s. (See photos). Thinking back I am not sure why I ate them. Again the honey glazed flavor was delicious! But again, I have no idea how old they were.

My father ordered a T-bone steak and ordered it well-done with a loaded baked potatoes and green beans. What came back was a medium-well T-bone steak with mashed potatoes and fries. It seems like there was a miscommunication somewhere either with the kitchen or server? Maybe they put the wrong ticket with the plate? In any case the server and kitchen remedied the situation by taking back the food, my dad only ate some of steak, ate all the mashed potatoes, and left the fries. He ordered the salmon instead and was happy with that. Just to be clear we paid for the salmon, not just trying to get free food. With all that being said I am surprised a manager did not come to apologize for the mix up. As this was not the first time having a semi bad experience at Cheddar’s, probably my 5th time, I do know that floor managers usually do come and apologize and was actually expecting that.

Now onto the other things like ambiance:

Lighting inside is okay, in the booths it was somewhat dim. Lighting in what looks and feels like a sun room with all the windows was well lit. Music was not too loud and at an appropriate volume, good to hold a conversation. Table was clean and the booth seats were clean and surprisingly comfy. Staff was kind and accommodating. There was a rather large puddle of water in the front near the host podium, not sure what to call that. I am not sure if it was a spill, or if something was leaking?

Women’s bathroom needed to be clean based on the reports from the clean freak in my family, my mom. :-) Not sure about the mens.

All in all it was a mediocre experience and is the reason why I have given it a three star experience this time around. I don’t plan on going to Cheddar’s anytime soon, though the only other time in recent years I have had cheddars was during the pandemic in 2021 when most places were doing take out only and we were trying out the different salmon dishes from the various Darden restaurants.

I’m hoping to see Darden improve on the Cheddar’s brand, though it has been over 5 years since the acquisition. I say all this with the current state of our economy and the staff shortages in mind and know that will more than likely...

My family and I have been to the cheddars near the Airport on Semoran and enjoyed our experience and loved the food. So fast forward 2 months later we were looking for a restaurant near UCF waterford area and see Cheddars. So we decided to go there based off of our experience at the last one. the 1st 10 minutes we waited and waited for our server to come to our table after getting tired of waiting we find another server who is walking around we asked him politely to get our server for us and he said ok he will take care of it....... nothing. So about 5 more minutes go by we spot another server and ask him the same thing and he says he will get them right away. as we are waiting for a server to show up (going on 15 minutes) we notice all the trash and paper on the ground and started to question if we even want to eat here. finally the manager shows up (thanks to the 2nd guy we ask) and apologized for the wait and gave us some free chips and queso as well as a waiter. so we put in our order and when we get our chips and queso the chips looked a little skimpy as i have had the chips and queso before at other sit down restaurants (Chillis) and got wayyyy more than this. it was even so bad that about a minute after we got them our waiter checks on us and immediately asked if we wanted more chips. Now you might be asking whats the issue if we got more chips... well when we got the actual meal we noticed that our sides were skimpy as well less fries as usually and etc. and I'm comparing to the other Cheddars I've went to.

so all in all after waiting 15 minutes for a waiter, Being lied to by the 1st guy and then the manager giving us a half assed appetizer (because i know of a few restaurants free chips and salsa with the meal) and then getting half assed food along with a dirty restaurant we came to the conclusion that they must employ a bunch of UCF kids who just don't really care about there jobs so they just BS until they clock out. So there for if I'm ever in that area against i will just eat at the wawa across the street. save me time money...

I wanted to love this place, but my experience went downhill really fast. It started off great with one of the best croissants I’ve ever had. Flakey and soft with a honey butter glaze 😍 Then we had the buffalo shrimp appetizer and it was very good as well. It was hot and fresh and the shrimp was not over cooked.

Then comes our main entrees. My boyfriend and I both ordered steaks cooked medium. His came out a perfect medium, whereas mines was well done. So we brought it up to our waitress, who was very kind and understanding, and she went to get a new steak redone. When the second one came out it was cooked perfectly.

When we cut open our steaks our utensils were noticeably dirty, there was food still stuck on it 🤢 it seemed like whoever washed it did not do a good job so we asked for another set of utensils and those were still dirty with some sort of sticky sauce. When I unraveled the napkin, the napkin was actually stuck to the residue sauce that was on my knife. I’ve never experienced anything like that before. We told our waitress and she apologized and personally washed and wrapped another set of utensils for us.

The complimentary croissants and our appetizer tasted amazing. However, the steaks were not good, the quality was really bad and tasted like meat you could buy from Walmart. I think when it comes to steaks I’ll stick to Longhorn’s, their steaks are fantastic and seasoned perfectly. Also, I had a similar issue at Longhorn where they overcooked my steak and brought out a new one for me. And they comped my meal 100% without me having to ask. Here at Cheddar’s they only gave me $9 off my $17 meal when I couldn’t even enjoy it with my boyfriend because I had to wait for another steak to be redone. I was trying to eat the sides in the meantime and it was too salty. So it definitely wasn’t worth it.

Our waitress was great and understanding but the entrees and the uncleanliness ruined the whole experience. I wouldn’t come back here, and maybe their other entrees are better than the steaks but I’m not taking...