Round the Bend Steakhouse — Restaurant in Ashland

Around the bend steakhouse has been a family favorite for many, many years. Unfortunately, their quality and service level have really declined. My husband and I’s favorite menu item is the Ritz. We almost always get this because it makes a perfect sharable. The last few times we’ve gone, the steak has been chewy, twice over cooked, and all three times came out cold. Most recent visit, 10/20/25, we went to celebrate my husband’s birthday with family. We were a party of 10 with a baby. A series of events happened that made this not only the worst birthday dinner we’ve experienced, but the absolute worst service and food we’ve ever had here. We were in shock at the clear disregard our server (Alyssa) had to wait on our party. After we were sat, it took her aprox 10 min to come and greet our table and ask for drinks. We were all ready to order by this time, so we attempted to order. However, she stated she gets drinks first then will take our food order. After another 10 min we got our drinks, however, after she put the last drink down, she just left. We waited 20 minutes from the time she dropped off our drinks, finally I got up and went and asked to speak with a manager. Note….during the time that we are waiting for her to come take our order, we can clearly see her walking around clearing a bowl here and a plate there, (almost appearing as if she was intentionally avoiding coming to our table), taking to go boxes to people, and even stopping by the computer to just stand and talk to another server, twice. She seemed to have absolutely no haste what so ever, just leisurely going about it. At one point she walked by our table, one of the people in our group let her know we were ready to order, which she responded with “ya I know, I’m trying”, only to run off again. When I did go speak with the “manager”, who was another server (Tess) she said she will let her know we were ready. Which she did because you could see Alyssa, get snippy with Tess for telling her out in the dining room in front of everyone. Alyssa finally came over to our table to take our order, and was sooo incredibly rude. Short, snippy and would not even look at the individual ordering. Finally we got our food order in - 40 minutes after being sat. Im not sure how long goes by, but awhile again, she comes up to the table, stand aprox a foot fr my husbands face and says “you fine? what do you want, anything” it was such odd behavior. His mother however asked if the food was almost ready, which she responded with “it takes 30 min”. She made the entire table uncomfortable and just really ruined the evening and dinner for us. I did attempt to talk to Tess again, asking if I could speak with the manager, manager. I asked this because Tess was a server as well, so I thought there would be like an actual head manager. She implied she was it for the evening. So again I expressed my frustrations. This time, Tess made excuses for Alyssa saying she’s having a rough night and to give her some grace. That we are a large party. I understand everyone has bad days, and that 10 is a large party, but we are paying customers and I believe we did showed grace by waiting and waiting. We were not rude or belligerent , yet expressed our frustrations to the appropriate person(manager). I want to acknowledge that eventually Tess did come over to our table, apologized and gave us a $20 gift card. She did make an attempt to rectify the situations, which is appreciated, but in the large scheme of things I don’t feel like the appropriate level of management will know of this and just how awful of an experience...

If you live in NE/IA area, there's a good chance you've heard of this place - I have known about it for a long time but never stopped to eat until now. When we pulled in it was in between lunch and dinner on a Saturday. The parking lot looked pretty full but the place is huge inside, so didn't seem packed at all which was a nice relief. The interior is minimally decorated with a rustic/country vibe - has wooden booths or tables & padded leather chairs with wheels for seating options. We had a booth and it was comfy - I will forewarn this place is very chilly, so bring a jacket! There was a little box of Conversation Topic cards on the table which is such a great idea to get people to actually talk to each other instead of sucked into their phones. The hostess here didn't have the mostest - so was concerned with how our waitress would be. She was FABULOUS! Very kind, friendly, & checked on us the perfect number of times. I went outside my usual choices and ordered a Sweet & Spicy Meatloaf Sandwich with mixed veggies as my side. THIS SANDWICH IS NO JOKE! Absolutely enormous in all the right ways!!! Extremely flavorful and juicy with the perfect amount of jalapeño level spice (so nothing too intense you'll regret it). The mixed veggies were slathered in sweet butter and roasted to perfection. Seriously some of the best mixed veggies I've had in awhile! The husband ordered steak & shrimp - he inhaled his steak & said the shrimp was very good as well. For sides he had sweet potato fries - delicious & thick cut - and mac n cheese. The mac n cheese was also a winner, very cheesy spiral noodles with some fried onions crumbled on top. The only downfall here would be the bathrooms are a bit less than fantastic. I used them on my way out and was turned off by the intense urine smell when I walked in. Really strange since it seemed fairly clean...but this isn't worth knocking off a star. People should choose a restaurant based on service & food - not based on their bathrooms....ha! If you haven't tried this place, definitely add it to your list soon. It truly lives up to the hype!! And the food will not disappoint at all. If we are in the area again we will definitely...

We got there just before 5 on a Friday night, and there was already a good crowd there. We were seated after only a minute's wait. The servers were fairly busy and it took maybe five minutes before someone came by with menus and to get our drink order. A few minutes later we had our drinks and gave our server our dinner order.

I ordered the 16oz Ribeye topped with mushrooms and onions. My partner ordered their filet. My two sides were asparagus and a side salad. My partner also ordered asparagus, along with a baked potato. We also ordered corn nuggets as an appetizer.

The appetizer only took five minutes to arrive, it was more than large enough for the two of us. My salad showed up about then as well, it was a generous portion with a cup of dressing.

Maybe ten minutes later our meals arrived. My steak had a nicely seared outside and was cooked medium rare like I had ordered. My partner's filet was fine similarly.

I can't speak for her steak, but mine was excellent, although it might have been spiced a bit more. Good flavor, easy to cut, about the right amount of fat for this cut of steak. The asparagus was grilled and was also very good.

The steak was much better than what I have become accustomed to getting at Texas Roadhouse as well as Longhorn Steakhouse.

While we're there the restaurant filled up and customers were waiting to be seated, so we managed to hit the sweet spot for time. Prices were higher than the chain houses, but the quality of the steak was better. The dining room didn't try and pack as many customers in as possible, we didn't get that crowded feeling like we do at Texas Roadhouse. Even though the restaurant was crowded, we didn't feel like they were trying to rush us out the door so that they could get the next group seated.

A little more expensive than I'd feel comfortable doing regularly, but definitely worth it for any sort of dinner where a bit of a splurge is appropriate. We'll be going back when we feel like having done...