Outback Steakhouse — Restaurant in Athens-Clarke County Unified Government

My excitement was palpable when I found that outback gift card jammed in the depths of my wallet. As I entered the card number and peeled back the film to reveal the pin, I sat and thought to myself “Man, what a delicious and nutritious meal awaits me.” Oh how arrogant I once was. How the hungry body fools the starved mind still amazes me. My excitement began to waver upon viewing the price of my meal. 19 dollars for my meal which consisted of a grilled chicken breast and 2 sides of buttered mashed potatoes. Oh boy if I knew then what I know now. My food was delivered to my car hastily and in a friendly manner. The excitement I felt upon finding that godforsaken gift card slowly began to return as the delightful aroma of freshly baked (or warmed who knows) bread filled my car. Without wasting a single second, I set out to find a nice spot to enjoy my meal. The bread was fantastic, warm and crispy. The butter paired excellently with the loaf. I am saddened to say that this was the best portion of my meal. After finishing the bread, I reached for my main dish, a seasoned grilled chicken breast. I cracked open the steam laden lid and let first gaze upon the spice covered soggy piece of meat parading as a chicken breast. With my utensil, that was graciously provided by the restaurant I must say, I lifted the breast out of the sea of juice it had drowned in and placed it onto the lid of the container. While not an optimal place for eating, anywhere was better than that ocean of a to-go tray. After recollecting my thoughts and regaining my composure, with a heavy sigh I cut into the chicken. Juices seeped out rapidly as the knife slowly sawed through the meat. It was like opening the gates of a dam. Let me just say, it was quite something. I proceeded to cut free a bite size piece of chicken before delicately inserting it into my mouth. Any swift movement could lead to disaster as I was balancing a tray full of water and chicken juice on my lap. I bit into the chicken and was immediately appalled by the taste and texture. The breast was not only overly seasoned, but it was soaking wet. I quickly removed the chicken from my mouth before discarding the entire breast, not before snapping the picture you will see below. Disappointed with my main course, I reached for the mashed potatoes. I popped open the clear plastic lid and laid eyes on them. While dry and not visually pleasing, the potatoes were of acceptable quality. If only the chicken was of similar conduct.

I do not think I will be returning to Outback in the foreseeable future. The Aussie way has let me down and I am truly disappointed. May God watch over that chicken whose death was done no justice as it was butchered and transformed into my heinous lunch. I would provide a description of the chicken breast but a picture is worth a thousand words. In peace,...

So I usually don't have bad experiences when I eat out and when I do I usually don't complain, however this Outback needs some work. I haven't been since my son's birthday last year, my wife loves the French onion soup and I love prime rib. When I went to order the prime rib I was told they were out, this was 730 pm on a Saturday night. This is the second time I have wanted prime rib and was told they were out. After telling my waitress to give us some more time to figure out what I wanted and to cool down we ordered. My wife ordered French onion soup with no crouton and a prime rib sandwich, I ordered the rib eye medium rare. After getting the our food my wife had a crouton in her soup and my steak was very rare. I'm usually not one to complain but I asked to speak to a manager. When I asked the manager why they seem to run out of prime rib she explained to me they go off of last years sales to figure how much they need to prepare, this makes no sense to me considering last year was COVID. I mentioned they should probably do it monthly not yearly, I told her about the soup and that was replaced, when I asked about the steak she again apologized. I did not want to send it back because of horror stories about what reasturants do to your food so I told her we were just ready to go. The manager came back and comped our meal which was completely awesome even though I was not asking for this. The managers name was Amy and she handled the situation wonderfully I really appreciate what she did for us. Our waitress Phily was awesome as well, when I asked to speak to the manager I assured her it was nothing she had done, overall the situation was handled and hopefully some of this can be corrected. I do enjoy outback and I told Amy that we would come back because of her, however if we run into this problem again I highly doubt I will ever eat there again. I want to thank Amy and Phily for handling the situation and I hope the tip I left showed my...

If I could give this experience zero stars across the board I would.This happened during lunch. We were greeted properly and seated immediately which was great. Out waitress introduced herself although she mumbled her name and took our drink order. Everything started out ok but quickly went terrible. As soon as we needed refills it took 20 min for any of our party of 4 to get one. Our meals consisted of the bloomin burger with fries, their chimichuri steak with fries and veggies, the prime rib sandwich with bacon cheese fries and then the steak salad. None of our meals were good. All 4 meals were cold. Yes we had a salad but the steak on it was cold... like ice cold. Both sandwiches were cold and both order of fries were cold. The bacon cheese fries were so cold that the cheese was no longer melted. Both order of steaks were ordered medium rare and both were not cooked properly. Both steaks came out medium with zero seasoning on them and when taken back to be recorded they came out rare. The salad had so much dressing on it that the actual salad became inedible. No one finished any of their food and we took nothing home. And on top of all this our waitress was extremely rude and not attentive at all after she first took our drink orders. She argued with us over how to steaks were cooked and then anytime we brought anything up she was acted like she didn't care. I love Outback but after this experience idk if I would ever want to come back to this location. Poor service from the waitress, terrible food and clearly someone who doesn't know how to cook or season steaks properly. Again based on this experience if I could give zero stars I would. Never even had a manager come up to us to see how our meals were. Beyond subpar. Again would give zero...