Saltgrass Steak House — Restaurant in Austin

Our waiter was Shawn, and he was incredibly attentive. He visited us often enough to ensure our satisfaction with all facets of our meal.

Our party of five was seated upon arrival and greeted by Shawn within the first 20 seconds. I ordered two drinks from the bar, an Aviation and tonic and a midnight rider. The g&t was properly balanced. The midnight rider was a treat: Templeton midnight whiskey, bitters, apple infused simple syrup and garnished with a freeze dried, cinnamon sugar topper apple slice. Highly recommended as a nice accompaniment to sip while enjoying a rare steak.

Appetizers were onion straws and loaded cheese fries. Light and crispy, the onion straws are exactly what you would expect, nothing more or less. The cheesy potato concoction was constructed of home fries, a departure from the crinkle or shoestring options normally in the starters realm. Jack and Cheddar, bacon, sour cream, the normal fare. I will note that it was served VERY hot, so it actually did not coalesce into a cheesy monstrosity after 10 minutes like in some instances. Also, the Shiner bread loaves are delicious.

For the main, my wife chose the t bone, cooked perfectly mooing rare. lightly over seasoned on the plate but otherwise top notch. It also reheated even better the next day and the seasoning was no longer over the top. Her baked potato was excellent, fully dressed, skin lightly crispy and properly seasoned.

My children, as usual, came to a steakhouse and ordered burgers. My youngest was thrilled with his patty melt. It was a massive sandwich from my vantage point. The elder son went with a grilled chicken sandwich, and he really enjoyed it; but he filled up on apps so the equally sizable sandwich traveled home with us. The young lady of the family had a completely not carnivorous dinner salad, rocking balsamic vinaigrette that was both filling and satisfying. The kid set was very pleased with their food, but even more happy with Shawn's service, hitting the mark on refills and engaging them in conversation throughout our meal

A departure from the usual, i opted for a rare 9oz filet mignon, smothered with Bleu cheese bacon butter. I'm normally queueing up a ribeye, but i pivoted to part from predictability. I was quite thrilled with the result, i think my choice of topping was probably a bit heavy for the filet, but it was not a detriment, rather a slightly uneven balance to the otherwise very tender, and well prepared. Live and learn. I don't often venture on to the filet lines of the menu, and when i do, i need to recall that the tenderloin cut packs a lot of punch and adding a heavy flavor like bleu cheese might detract. I think my adventures to the tenderloin should rely instead on the chef to prepare it in the most suitable manner and leave my meddling aside. I chose asparagus as my side, and was gifted 8 or 10 stalks of deliciously smoky charred buttery goodness.

We did not stray into dessert land, but left more than satisfied with the meal. This location has been the consistently superior of the several we've visited around Austin. We have made a note that when we're not dressed for or interested in dropping 5 bills on a fine dinner at Perry's that the kids won't thoroughly enjoy anyway, Saltgrass consistently exceeds our expectations and everyone leaves thrilled with...

I had a bad experience yesterday at this location (10614 Research Blvd in Austin). We ordered takeout ($110 was the bill) and we were missing 1/2 of the order when we got home (all toppings, sides, salads, dressings/gravies, bread, butter, 2 - 11 dollar toppings for steaks). We called. They said come back and “we will recook everything for you, and we will make it right.” When we got back to pick up the corrected order they only had recooked the missing items, so what was at home (the partial entrées including meat and fish) was an hour old and cold by the time we got back with the supposedly “fixed order.” They clearly should have recooked EVERYTHING because it wasn’t safe to eat the meat and fish an hour later. So what was this manager thinking exactly? Not thinking about our dinner CLEARLY! Manager comped the cheap meal ($17.99). Also, the manager tried to “make it right,” without asking us if his idea worked for us, and gave us 2 free huge deserts. Told him, we don’t eat desert, and the manager then looked distraught like he couldn’t figure out what else to do. Didn’t ask but came back without the deserts and said he comped our bill 20 more dollars. So in the end we had 2 partial entrees that were an hour old/cold meat and fish meals (no longer safe to eat-went in the trash) and a bunch of sides, salads, dressings, toppings (all the missing items -but manager still forgot the bread and butter). So we paid $50 for tiny side salads, sides, toppings (that should have been on the entrees), sides, fried asparagus and tiny container of Oscar topping. So, you tell me it that sounds like we got our moneys worth. We had to get different food for dinner costing us more time and money. And what about our Friday night-time we spent on all of this. Ruined a special night for us! Time is money! You made money but all we did was run around giving you $50 that resulted in almost nothing. Thanks but no thanks to this Saltgrass!! We really just should have asked for a full refund and left with nothing, when the entire order hadn’t been recooked for us, in hindsight.

Edit: I’ve been in Customer Service for over 10 years. I just read through all of the reviews for this place and Saltgrass’ responses for the negative reviews are a display of horrible customer service! Very unhelpful, asking people to click a link to provide even more info, like we’re on your payroll or something? Telling angry customers to do something for you, is insane!! You’re supposed to be doing something for us, to correct what you did!! This just shows more of the problem with Saltgrass! We just spent our personal time writing a review. Now you want more of our time, without offering direct assistance or money for our time? I’m disgusted! They clearly care more about making money than keeping customers but they won’t be getting any more from me! I...

I dined at this location tonight, 1/7/2021. I dine at this location frequently, as well as at the riverwalk location in San Antonio and Galveston and have never had an issue. However, my experience tonight was the possibly the worst dining experience I’ve ever had, anywhere. Upon arriving, another couple came into the restaurant behind us without wearing masks. We were sat first and I got back up to ask the manager who seated us if they do not require guests to wear masks. She said they do require. I asked about the couple that came in behind us and she assured me that she would not seat them unless they put their masks on. This made me feel much better. Unfortunately, she went to the front and I overheard the couple telling her that they were “regulars”, as if that makes a difference. She proceeded to seat them, walking through the dining room without masks and were sat, though she told me directly that they wouldn’t be. The couple got up several times to go to the restroom maskless and when they left, walked again through the dining room without masks. Had she told me yo front that she had to seat them, we would have left without issue, but she wasn’t honest with me. I asked before we left to speak to the manager and she came over. I told her my issue and how concerning it was to me. She agreed and said that they told her that they were tested and they just wanted to be seated. She said if they come back in she will not seat them and she apologized... ok, I left it there. We then went to pay, their system went down. The server came back over and said that they couldn’t run any cards as their system was down. I asked how long it’d take, but she wasn’t sure, so I asked what were we to do? She said we’d have to wait for the systems to come back up, though unsure the timeline. After this experience we were ready to leave! I asked for the GM, Eric Hudson to visit our table. After several minutes of him messing with the systems and trying to run our card, he finally came to our table. He also said they require masks and said that he would talk to the staff. That was all he had to say. I will not return to this Saltgrass. I can understand the difficult time this is and how much stress is put on our service workers right now, but do not tell customers one thing and then turn your back and do the complete opposite. The fact that the GM offered no resolution and was quite unfriendly and not understanding of my concern, they FINALLY got my credit card back to me after running it for the full dining amount. Which, I’m fine with, I ate the food and do not expect free food. I do, however, expect good customer service after my table spent almost $100! The food was good, as...