LongHorn Steakhouse — Restaurant in Berwyn

I'm not even sure where to begin because this was probably the worst experience at a restaurant for me besides the actual food. First of all, we were supposed to be a party of 10: 6 adults, 3 children, 1 infant. Most of the party arrived before we did and asked if the restaurant could accommodate our party since we did not have a reservation. It was moderately busy but open tables were everywhere, including a large corner booth that our party could clearly see from the host desk. The people at the desk said they could accommodate us but that we could not be seated until the rest of the party (3 of us) arrived, even though we were already in the parking lot. Fine. But they also said that we could not be seated together and had to be split so we needed to decide how we wanted to be split. We were very reluctant about this and even inquired about the large corner booth where no one was, but they insisted no, that our party HAD to be split up into two tables. FINE. As long as we can be seated at tables next to each other. We get seated, two round tables in the center of the restaurant and it feels like our now two parties are pretty far from each other. We again, one more time, ask about the large corner booth and about the possibility of moving there. Our server, who was new, comes back with an answer from the manager about how pushing two round tables together is against a safety policy and that it's a hard no. We respond by saying that we weren't asking to push tables together, but to move to a table that can accommodate us. He offers to bring that message back to the manager, we say forget it. We'll deal with it. At this point, we realize that the rest of our party at the other round table is having their drink orders get taken by a completely different server... ok, fine, I guess you don't want a server getting double sat, but I don't see how this is different from handling a large group especially when we stated from the beginning that we were together. Whatever, it's fine, we keep telling ourselves. As long as the food is good and arrives at a reasonable time... Well, the rest of our party had bread, drinks, and their main course before our table even got bread. We try to be understanding because we know it's our server's 2nd day, but we saw entire parties get sat and order their food, eat, pay, then get up to leave before we even got our main course. Not just that, we saw the two large corner booths in the restaurant get filled with a group as big as ours.. and then a party of THREE people at the other one when there were 4 person booths all over the restaurant. Someone in our party who has strict dietary restrictions due to a stomach condition requested food to be prepared as plain as possible with no seasoning ended up getting her food with butter sauce spilled from the container in her plate and it was soaked up by the food, making most of it inedible (gastritis sucks). My steak came back pretty much well done when I asked for medium. Sides were forgotten or extremely late and we were not warned that some of those sides were premium sides that were an extra $4 each. Water refills came warm and very late. The rest of our party at the other table had a great experience besides the fact that we were split like that. Again, I really don't want to rag on the server because he is new and inexperienced and it could have been poor management's fault for giving him more than he could handle. But that unwise decision is reflected on your restaurant as a whole. When you force a large party to split like this, you want them to have a similar experience or at least feel like they're being compensated for the inconvenience of not being able to enjoy each other's company over a meal like they were hoping to. I worked in food service, so I know firsthand what it's like to deal with unreasonable customers, and my conscience is clear that we were being respectful and kind in our requests and in trying to be understanding, but what we saw and experience today was a lack of communication and care for customers....

This place use to have such great service, unfortunately the last couple of times they have just completely downgraded the staff!! One of the first few unpleasant times my family and I were there we were celebrating my mother’s birthday. Our waiter was great I wish I remembered his name, great personality had some twist in his hair I believe. Anyways he was great got all our orders correctly down but the kitchen was a mess all of steaks were cooked wrong! Forgot to bring out certain foods especially my mother’s food she didn’t even eat at the same time as us. Everyone at the table pretty much finished eating before her food was done correctly. Then to top it off we ordered a melted lava cake for dessert and it came completely frozen cold! Like the name says melted!!! And it was frozen! We told management and they all they said sorry and gave us a $25 gift card when our bill was over $200 what a joke! This last time we were there we went on a Tuesday right after July holiday thinking it wouldn’t be so busy or packed since the holiday just passed and it wasn’t but how they treated us you would’ve thought a million people came to that restaurant that day. The guy checking in people was so confused the guest in front of us had four people in their party and the guy told him oh it’s going to be about a 15 minute wait then we check in same amount of people in our party 4 and he tells us over an hour waiting! We didn’t mind the wait but we were just confused how we jump from 15 minutes to an hour and there was so many tables available! Anyways back to checking in the guy asked us for the name for a table and told us OK I will text you once your table is ready and he called the next guest up but he didn’t even take our phone number down I had to go back to him and say “wait do you want to know our phone number? so you can text us?” and he said oh yeah sure let me get your number like how are you going to text us to let us know our table was ready!? Not only did we wait over an hour for a table but he somehow completely forgot to text us we have to go back in and remind him that we were there it was honestly ridiculous on top of that they were short on servers which makes sense for the wait I guess but then one of the waitresses lost one of the guest debit card and caused a whole fiasco! The server Who lost her debit card was so unprofessional very unapologetic to the lady again the confused guy checking in same thing unprofessional unapologetic pretty much just saying oh well we can’t find the card we’re looking through the garbage but that’s all we can do kind of thing! I’m in management so the way everything was handled I know it was so unacceptable I know there was no upper management nowhere in the restaurant everyone is so unprofessional! I wanted to leave because I knew our meal wasn’t going to be good with all this mess going on but my family said since we waited this long we might as well eat. Once our server finally got to us to get drinks we told her we wanted to order right away because of course we were hungry waiting over an hour we all had simple orders again from our drinks to our plates orders were wrong. Again we had someone in our party literally eat after everyone else was done with their food since they cant get orders right. Our waitress was always missing we needed sauce we needed refills and we could never find her I literally had to go to another table and get my own sauce! We seen our old server from the first time the guy who was awesome and he was literally the only guy running back-and-forth trying to get everyone’s order and wish we had him again! They were also training a new girl this day and oh man was she horrible we didn’t even have no interaction with her but she just looked miserable, slow and just the whole atmosphere of chaos, messy and unattended restaurant. We will never come back here!! It’s sad because this is our closest longhorn in the area but the service sucks do not waste your money here...

Although the food was excellent, the service could have not possibly been any worse than it was tonight. After being seated we spent close to three hours in the restaurant and more than half of that was just waiting. To start off, our appetizer was completely forgotten. I brought it to the attention of our server, whom at that point seemed to make it a point to completely ignore us. When it was finally brought to the table our sides were also forgotten. In order to simply get a drink refill I had to flag down another waitress from another section. Waiting on a Saturday evening is completely understandable, however when the table immediately next to us seemed to get excellent service it was beyond ridiculous. That table received multiple visits. That table was asked if they needed anything. That table she seemed to have no issue with. In these multiple visits to the table immediately next to us, I repeatedly tried to waive her down. I would go ignored. Unseen. Or she simply would turn her back to us. Eventually to get our sides, I had no choice but to physically stand up and ask the same waitress who had assisted us in getting our drink refills. I cannot emphasize enough how embarrassing that is to do, but after being ignored for so long I had no choice. That waitress was apologetic and noticed we had essentially finished our mains at that point. At that point we agreed I would want the sides packed up in a to go box. I’m assuming at this point that waitress brought it to the attention of our waitress because she brought us a plate of a fries and offered us a dessert. Which great fine. But when the dessert takes over half an hour to make it to the table it’s lost its value. By the time we finally got the bill to the table after repeated requests for it I simply could not wait to get out the door and pay for my meal. However our waitress like she had like for the rest of the evening was nowhere to be found. I had to again stand up by the hostess stand and ask to be please be checked out. The same waitress from before had to go again, go and find our waitress so that we finally, after waiting an obnoxious amount of time, could finally pay the bill and go home. I quite frankly believe that if I did not wish to pay the bill she would have not noticed that my party and I had left. I could have made it home. Taken my dog out. Gone to bed. Before she remembered that we wanted to pay the bill. Truly, the second waitress did everything she could to help us. But our waitresses service was so abismal I don’t think anything could have salvaged...