Texas Roadhouse — Restaurant in Ames

We decided that we were going to have a nice date night out. We waited for almost 15 mins for someone to come and take our order. The what I am going to assume is the shift manager came by and asked if we would like anything else with our rolls or more drinks and I kindly said we would just like our server to come and take our order.

She came out a minute or two later and took our order. Another server brought my husbands salad to him and he went to put his dressing on and there was a lump of something in the dressing about the size of a quarter once he took this out of the little cup there was barely any dressing in the cup. We tried to figure out what it was and it appeared to be an old, slimy piece of lettuce. The person that brought this out walked by and I explained to her that there was something in his dressing and she said "its just lettuce and was going to turn and walk away and I said can he please have a new cup of dressing and she gave me an attitude like I was asking for a lot.

My husband and I both ordered the NY Strip and he ordered his medium and I ordered mine well done. (I am a fussy steak person, I do not like any pink) He ordered a loaded bake potato and I ordered a loaded sweet potato. When they brought the food out, I cut into my steak and blood came out of the steak and on to the plate. Right then and there I pushed my plate away as I was just frustrated with the entire experience from the start. My husband asked for a supervisor and she finally came to our table and I very politely explained that I was not going to eat my meal and I did not want it.

She piped up and said well you were not sitting here very long before your server came to take your order I confirmed it on the ticket that you were only here about 12 minutes waiting to order and we allow them 10 minutes to get an order in so it wasn't even that far past their allowed time. She then proceeded to grab my plate and said she would take off my meal and come back with an updated ticket. She never came back, never apologized nothing. The server came out and asked my husband if he wanted a box and she brought him one. The server then gave us the ticket and we paid it and left.

When you run a business, manager or owner you have to treat complaints as just that. You have to offer apologies and NOT make excuses about why your service / food fell short. An apology from the manager would have been great but she did not give anything other than excuses and attitude.

We had not been there in awhile because a few years ago we had ordered rattlesnake bites and they came out almost completely frozen and we just haven't ventured back. However, we had received a gift card for some work my husband did as a favor for someone and decided to give it a try. We did not end up using the gift card, we just paid for it and we plan on giving the gift card away.

Just remember kindness to customers and understanding, even though you might not think they are in the right goes a long way with having...

Went in with the family tonight for the wife's birthday! They were extremely packed for being 10 minutes after 5pm when we arrived! But, I wasn't worried about them being busy. Not the first time we had to wait 20-30 minutes for a table. Surprisingly our wait was a little shorter than expected!

We were seated at a table in the corner of the bar area for 5 of us. We were given 2 baskets of buns and butter, but no silverware. We had to wait what felt like 5 minutes for the waitress to come to the table to take our drink order. One of the plates that we were given for the dinner rolls was dirty, so I set it aside, but surprisingly the waitress did not notice. She took our drink order, and about 5 minutes later returned with our drinks and started taking our order. I can't believe, but I had to ask again for silverware so we could enjoy the dinner rolls and butter. I mean, we had absolutely nothing to put butter onto the dinner rolls, or to even cut the dinner rolls in half.

We ordered cheesey fries for the appetizer... What we got was fries with bacon, and the cheese wasn't hardly noticeable... The plate sat there for another 3-4 minutes when I had to flag down the waitress to point out to here that the cheese fries had next to nothing for cheese on them (see picture).

I ordered a sirloin cooked medium-well (she said little pink), well, it wasn't little pink, lots of pink, but I still ate it because it was pretty good. I ordered sauteed mushrooms and onions, but those never showed when the dinner was delivered to the table. I mentioned it to the server, and he said he would go grab them, but he never came back. I started to eat, and our waitress came by to check on the us, and asked if everything came out alright... I told her we were still waiting on my onions and mushrooms... By time they got to the table, I was down to less than a quarter of the steak left, if not less... I was kind of disappointed, because it's nice putting them on the steak at times! However, she redeemed herself by discounting the receipt for the sauteed mushrooms and onions. We actually had to ask for drinks to get refilled more than just once.

I think the biggest nuisance of the evening, was a group of 10 or so people standing in the aisle next to our table drinking and talking loudly as we were trying to converse and eat. To the point that each time the waitress came to the table, she had to ask them to move, then when I went to get up, I had to ask them to move more than once.

I understand that some people like to wait by the bar while waiting for their table, but the bar area does not provide any standing room for people to stand and converse without bothering the tables.

Hailey, our waitress tried to do a good job and I commend her, the rest of the service/experience was very poor. If it wasn't for Hailey trying to do a good job, I would give this a 1-star, but she is the one that gave the restaurant...

Let me premise by saying that this review is based solely on my experience at the Ames Texas Roadhouse and not Texas Roadhouse in general. For example, see my Johnston review. I went to Texas Roadhouse on Saturday March 20 2021. Although I'm extremely conflicted about this rating, I believe that under the circumstances it's warranted. We arrived on time, got in promptly, the waitress was fantastic, drinks and appetizers were served quickly and promptly. And as always, it was good food. We placed our order, and we I ordered the Porterhouse medium rare (as always). Although, the steaks took longer than expected, I understood (Saturday night).. When the main course arrived, my wife's ribeye was a perfect medium (she doesn't like her steak mooing like I do). But my Porterhouse was extremely well done and incredibly dry and brown with zero pink. I showed the waitress and she even saw it and apologized several times and reiterated that she put it in as medium rare and it must have been mistaken for another order. She returned it to the kitchen and said that the manager (whose name is Jalen) would be bringing it out to me. I'm never a person to send back food, I never do it. But it was so dry, I had to.. Meanwhile, I waited probably 20-30 minutes for my steak and still nothing. Luckily my wife shared her delicious ribeye with me. But before they brought anything out, we were already full. We asked the waitress about the steak and she said it was ready, we were just waiting for the manager to serve it. So finally Jalen brought the steak, set it down and just said "check it"... Not apologizing, not caring how long we'll waited, nothing... But I checked it and it looked good, but we told him we would just like it to go (since we were full). He appeared to really not care about our experience and had the waitress bring the check and boxes. I'm not one to ask for freebies, but he made sure we received nothing off. The waitress was completely understanding and was also surprised that he did nothing with the bill. She said that they normally do and again apologized because she completely understood. Overall, she was fantastic and tipped very well. My problem is with the manager Jalen. I'm not sure if he was just having a bad day, or if he just has attitude with people sending back an item... But this experience has definitely soured me on the Ames location. As of right now, I don't recommend...