Santa Fe Cattle Company — Restaurant in Ardmore

This is by far the worst restaurant my brother and I have ever been to — and we will NEVER go back.

We were seated fairly quickly, and the waitress brought out bread that was clearly a copycat of Texas Roadhouse, right down to the cinnamon butter. I went to the bathroom to change my nephew while the waitress came to take drink orders. My brother told her he didn’t know what I wanted, and that I’d order when she came back. She left to get silverware, and then we didn’t see her again for a good 30 minutes — not even napkins for the greasy rolls.

By the time we finally got to place our order, we had been sitting there for an entire hour. When I ordered salmon, the waitress asked what two sides I wanted. I said rice and green beans. Normally, a decent waitress would have mentioned that the salmon already comes with rice so I could choose another side. Nope. She brought out the salmon on rice, plus an extra bowl of rice and green beans that had bacon bits in them — even though the menu simply said “green beans.”

Then things got worse. We found a hair in the cinnamon butter and a lemon seed in my salad that I nearly broke my tooth on. My steak wasn’t medium rare like I ordered; it was completely well-done and had to be sent back. When we tried to get the waitress’s attention — she was right next to us sweeping the floor — she didn’t even stop sweeping. She finished sweeping first, then finally turned around and said, “Yeah?” when we said “ma’am.”

Meanwhile, I was killing gnat after gnat flying around and landing on our food. It was honestly just too much to even explain. By the time we were done, we didn’t even bother taking leftovers, and we had been there for TWO HOURS.

To top it off, I realized she never even took my drink order — two hours with no drink at all.

When we were getting ready to leave, the “manager” (and I use that term loosely, because as someone who’s been in management and higher positions my entire life, a real manager takes accountability and makes things right — she did neither) came over to ask if everything was okay. My brother told her about the issues, and I explained how we waited over an hour just to order, the hair, and the lemon seed. Instead of listening, she made excuses, saying, “They’re just kids.” Our waitress wasn’t a kid — and she wouldn’t know that anyway, because she never even asked who our waitress was.

She then walked over to the hostess stand, clearly to complain about us, because after that, all we got were glares from the staff as we tried to leave. She didn’t care about the hair at all, and when I mentioned the lemon seed, she tried to claim it was a sunflower seed — then quickly threw it on the floor to get rid of it. No, it was a lemon seed. Hopefully not a regurgitated one from someone else’s meal.

Then she stormed off, visibly angry, without offering any apology or solution. Work isn't personal, it's business. Only in the food industry does it seem like we have to pay regardless if we get what we actually paid for.

This was our first and last visit to this place — we were just visiting for the day from Texas. We understand if you’re “new” and “training,” but if you had asked, you would have known our waitress wasn’t one of the trainees. Every complaint we mentioned was met with an excuse instead of accountability.

Your employees are a direct reflection of you, and if I ever had an employee with your attitude, they’d be fired on the spot. Now we understand why this company filed for...

We live hours away and I had a doctors appointment in Norman and we decided to stop in Ardmore on the way back for dinner. We found Santa Fe and had never been so we decided to stop and try it. Needless to say we should have just went to Chic Fil A at my kids original request but me and my husband wanted an actual meal being we were out all day and I’m 8.5 months pregnant and was starving! Worst mistake. The wait time for a table on a Friday night wasn’t bad, maybe 25 mins. However, we were there an additional TWO HOURS waiting on food and being able to actually eat. The atmosphere was ok, nothing fantastic. It was Freezing in there, and we got put right by a vent(it was about 38 degrees out) and it felt like it was blowing AC. The food wasn’t good at all, especially for the cost. My order was completely messed up, so I had them remake it and when they brought it back the cheese wasn’t melted, it literally looked like little pieces of white rice. The meat had the greasy grill taste and it was black as if it hadn’t been cleaned off in between. At this point I didn’t even send it back, that would have been 3 times, I just said to hell with it and ate my husband’s side salad. They had steak/ribs and I had chicken. It was if they cooked the steak then put the chicken on the grill after and it had a black greasy layer over it 🤢 Our waitress started out really great when asking for our drinks/appetizer/food. Once we got our food, she never checked back with us, didn’t even look our direction, I had to literally wave her down to get my food remade, and our drinks stayed empty. We literally got the one drink the whole time we were there, which was 2 hours!! All in all it was a horrible experience and not worth $96 for 2 adults and 2 children. Don’t waste your time with this place! I think I was expecting something close to a Texas Roadhouse with the menu/rolls/cinnamon butter etc but...

Another place we wanted to like but it fell short.

Let's start with the service. It was very obvious upon arrival that the restaurant was short staffed. There were people scurrying around everywhere but half of the tables were empty. We were told it would be a 30 minute wait. That wasn't a problem for us. We grabbed a drink from the bar and sat down in the front. There was live music coming from the outdoor patio and the guy was pretty good. Our table was ready in 10 minutes, which was much faster than expected. Once seated we did not see our waitress for at least 10 minutes. Again, we could tell they were short staffed so it was a little expected. Our waitress seemed sweet but completely clueless or untrained when it came to serving. We ordered a beer, an unsweetened tea, and an ice water. She came back to the table three times to ask what our drink order was. (She did not write it down.) We ended up with a coke, two waters, and after a trip back to the bar, a beer. Service continued this way throughout dinner.

The food itself was also a huge disappointment. We ordered a ribeye with salad and a loaded baked potato, a New York strip with mashed potatoes and broccoli, and another New York strip with fries and broccoli. All steaks were ordered medium rare. The ribeye was well done, one strip was super rare, and the other strip was a perfect medium rare. The steaks had potential, so if cooked right they would have been great. All of the sides were cold and it seemed like they were added to the plates before the steaks started cooking.

When we got the check, it was wrong. We had items added that no one ordered. We were charged for the beer that we paid for at the bar. It took another 20 minutes to straighten out the check.

This place has the potential to be a great restaurant. Maybe with more staff we would have had a...