Texas Roadhouse — Restaurant in Ammon

Texas Roadhouse is my mom’s favorite restaurant, so we’ve been here quite a lot over the last 18+ years we’ve lived in Idaho Falls. It’s always been good and we’ve always been happy with it. However, this last visit was bad enough to prompt this review. We came at about 2pm on a Saturday, which was our first mistake. It was very busy, but not too many people waiting, so we decided to stay. The hostess at the front desk asked how many were in our party. She didn’t ask a name for our group, or anything, then made us go stand in front of the meat counter right in the road of everyone leaving and coming in. There were three groups ahead of us, so that was a lot of people coming in and the waiters had to ask to get behind us several times to get bread baskets for the other diners. The waiting room area was almost completely empty, so there was no reason at all to place our group in the way. When we were seated, two of the small plates they give you for your bread were dirty so the waitress took them back. She didn’t bring us any replacements until our food arrived so our party of four only had two plates on which to eat our bread, but she did bring us our drinks and we ordered then. We waited nearly half an hour for the food. We’d ordered two meals to split as single meals per person are just too much for us. One of the extra plates for this meal was absolutely filthy, covered in something like salt. The server (who was not our waitress) took it away and brought back a replacement very quickly. But then when we cut into the chicken two people ordered, it was underdone in the middle. About this time our waitress reappeared with those two little plates and we showed her the chicken. She apologized, and took it back to the kitchen, leaving us the two sides that come with the meal. We ate those while we waited for replacement chicken. And waited, and waited, and waited some more. Another twenty minutes or so must’ve passed. Somewhere in there the waitress came back and was surprised we hadn’t received our replacement chicken, so she went to check on it. We waited another five or so minutes and she came back and said they were working on it. She asked if we wanted it to be “to go” at that point and I just said yes. Then she asked if we wanted to have the manager come over and say something, so I said sure. They did bring the replacement chicken with extras of our chosen sides, but to be honest I expected the manager to do something more to make it right. He just smiled and said sorry and he hoped we would come again sometime and give them another chance. We remained polite, but frankly I was pretty disgusted. I can’t believe that was all they did. We were there for at least an hour, only saw our waitress about four times for a few seconds each time and didn’t even get to eat. When it came to the meal we took to go, it just went into the fridge. Probably get to it sometime later, but I’m frankly not even convinced that the chicken will be cooked all the way through. I expect I’ll think twice when eating here is...

So we decided to try this awesome restaurant and since it was our first time there we were kind of skeptical but would see if the name actually lived up to the hype. As soon as we walked in the door we could see that the place was pretty busy and we were greeted immediately and taken to a nice booth that was extremely comfortable for our family of five. Our server showed up and introduced himself and said he would be taking care of us, his name was Brandon. Brandon took our drink order and since it was our first time there we wanted appetizers they had a great selection to choose from and we asked if they had a combination platter which they did Brandon asked us which three items we wanted and we decided to leave that up to him as kind of a surprise. Brandon showed back up with our drinks and a little sample tray of some of their sides which consisted of little Samplers of the green beans the amazing chili they're deliciously seasoned corn and their signature mashed potatoes. At that point we had all decided what we were going to have so I ordered a half rack of the ribs for my wife with the sweet potato side with fresh vegetables are oldest had the cheeseburger kids meal and our daughter and 2 1/2 year old had the steak bites. I ordered the SmokeHouse burger and added a few things to it because what is a delicious Burger without bacon? Our appetizers showed up and Brandon decided on the fried pickle chips potato skins and the buffalo chicken tenders along with the cactus blossom and talk about amazing all those appetizers were completely top shelf. Brandon came back at just the right times to make sure that our drinks were full and that we didn't need anything else while waiting for our food to show up. Once our food arrived it did not disappoint it was hot made perfectly to order and just so absolutely delicious but I could use every descriptive word out there and it still wouldn't come close to how this food was prepared. My burger was probably one of the best that I've tasted in many years the ribs were perfect to fall right off the bone the kids meals were absolutely delicious and our service from Brandon as well as other staff made us feel like we were VIP. When the manager came over and spoke to us about our experience that was literally the cherry on top of an outstanding dining experience. The overall atmosphere the perfectly cooked delicious food and the amazing service that we received from our server Brandon is why I'm giving Texas Roadhouse in Ammon...

I ordered a to go order. I order fairly often and think the best thing that came out of Covid was the new walk up window for to go orders. I was texted my food was ready as I pulled into a parking space. When I went inside, (because they got rid of the window) I was the first customer in the designated area, I was ignored by the wait staff who proceeded to help the next person in line, who came in after me. When she reappeared, I finally interrupted her to inquire about my meal, after several more minutes she produced a paper bag with food. She reluctantly offered to confirm my meal and after she showed it to me from a distance, I asked her where the baked potato was. She said it's in there. I asked where is the sweet potato then. She double looked and realized there was only a sweet potato. She waited on the gentleman next to me then finally reappeared again. I told her I just wanted a refund as I had ordered online and paid when doing so. She left I'm assuming to get a manager to give me my refund. A manager? She said my payment would be cancelled when they closed out the books for the night, that I needed to give it 3-5 days for my refund to be processed. I assured her it didn't take them 3-5 days to take my money. In the meantime, the charge for a meal I didn't receive was paid for with my debit card and the funds came out instantly from my account. It's been 3 days and I haven't seen a credit. The noise, the crowd, the inconvenience of going inside, a unmotivated waitress, the disorganization, an incomplete meal, 20 minutes after I had been texted my food was ready was enough to ruin any enjoyment I had anticipated for this meal. I'm sure I'll have to make another trip to the restaurant to request my refund. What has usually been enjoyable with good food and service has left a bad taste and I'll definitely remember this experience when considering my choices for a...