Red Lobster — Restaurant in Bismarck

I am posting this again as the management has done nothing.

We went to this location about 2 weeks ago and had a great experience and amazing food. We said to each other, "why dont we come here more?" So this morning before work we decided we were going tonight. Both of us fasted all day looking forward to the shrimp. We arrived and were seated just before 7 pm. We asked for Kendra and Bryce said "she is not here". Nearly a minute later she walked over and said hello to us. When she asked him about it he said he doesn't know her name so he just said she wasn't here. We ended up having Serona for a server. We knew what we wanted right away so we placed our order. (7:05) Even verified everything because I felt like she didn't get it. I said at the end after she repeated our order.."Don't forget the Strawberry Coconut Lobsterita". She said "Yes I got it". She brought out a parfait glass with something that looked nothing like the drink we had 2 weeks prior or like on the menu. It tasted funny so I asked her if it was right and she said "It's the same thing just in a different glass". We each had one drink and didn't finish it because I am allergic to rum and didn't want to take my chances, and he didn't like it. We then waited until 8 pm before finally saying to the passers by who came in after us,and also ordered the AYCE shrimp and are now leaving "I think she forgot to put our order in" . Serona heard this and got super defensive and said it wasn't true and that the kitchen was so busy. At about 8:10, a manager came to our table and asked about our food and our service. We told her what was going on and she confirmed she indeed forgot to put our order in. She said we had been waiting 1 hour and 16 minutes but our order had only been in for 8 minutes. I told her about being the wrong drink as well. She said they just put it in a different glass (which I would then expect to pay half the price of the lobsterita since it only serves 1). We then got our food. Serona kept telling us that we had the right shrimp. My husband ordered Double Walts shrimp and she kept telling him that's what he had. It was really slimy and weird tasting. So he didn't want to eat it. He then ate his 2 sides and a small plate of Dragon shrimp. I ate my dragon shrimp and the 3 coconut shrimp I had been dreaming about all day. We got no refills as we were nearly the last person in the restaurant at this point and had been there 1.5 hours. It was way too late to eat that much food. The manager brought our check and had taken 1 meal off and informed us that indeed it was not the drink we ordered. However continued to charge us $15 for this drink neither of us drank. We also saw on our ticket that instead of double Walts shrimp, he got double crab Rangoon shrimp. Considering he hates crab, that makes total sense. Glad I did not touch mine as I too am not a fan.

Point is, we should not have had to pay for the $15 drink for sure, and to be honest, almost walked out when Serona said "should have went to McDonalds". But I still left her $5 to which she deserved none of. I always tip 25% of the full bill before any discounts.most times it's not the servers fault.

My husband said "I am okay with not going back for a long time"... Much different then what we said 10 days ago when we had such a great experience!

Tried to message thru website multiple times from different devices and it won't let me because it errors out so here is my 2nd choice.

Check #32572 on August 17th,...

I don't live in Bismarck but when I go there, I like to eat something that's not available where I live and I love seafood. I have been to this Red Lobster location about 25-30 times over the last 30 years and can say that I have tried pretty close to everything on the menu. I have also run the gambit between good and bad experiences at this place. The reason I keep going there is because, occasionally, I get a great meal. Unfortunately, in the last few years, those great meals just aren't happening anymore and the terrible experiences now greatly outnumber the good ones.

This time I ordered The Mariner's Feast with Calamari rings for appetizers. The first thing that arrived was a Mt. Dew which was warm and flat. Then, after what seemed like a short amount of time, considering they were moderately busy, my main meal arrived. Yep, that's right, the appetizers didn't come, again. This almost seems like a feature of the service since it happens about half of the time to myself and the others I have come here with in the past. Now, to the main meal. The salmon was overcooked and rubbery. The rice it sat on was undercooked, as in, the rice grains were crunchy in the middle. The scallops were not grilled well and were slightly undercooked(slimy in the middle). Scallops can be a challenge, I admit. However, Walt's shrimp were an easily avoidable embarrassment. They were undercooked, limp, and the breading was not golden brown but just barely starting to become crispy when they were removed from the oil. This predictable result led to the breading being saturated with oil and the shrimp not fully hot in the middle. The appetizers arrived when I was well into suffering through the main meal. Good calamari is hard to come by in the U.S. so I don't expect it to be great at a chain restaurant but I've had a passable serving of it once in a while at this location. It was slightly rubbery which means it was overcooked. The breading was done well but it's not a good choice of breading for something delicate like calamari rings because it's thick and takes too long to deep fry which will lead to overcooked and rubbery meat. This is not the fault of this location but of the chain itself for poor choice. They were still edible and better than the main meal. Lastly, I would like to say that the biscuits were perfect and are always done well.

In conclusion, I have given this location many opportunities to make up for poor service, mediocre food prep, and outright disasters, like a live Maine lobster that was still raw in the middle, but, enough is enough. I will never dine here again. I cannot justify the high cost for a meal at this place anymore. It's not worth it and I don't think it ever was. I blame management for poor training, poor supervision, and a complete lack of skill and expertise in proper food preparation and service quality.

One final note: My server is a human being who made a mistake and then admitted that he forgot to put in my order for the appetizers. This means he has a measure of integrity and is why I still gave a moderate tip. As I said, the problem with this place is with the management. That's ultimately where the responsibility has to be placed because servers and cooks come and go over the years but what remains are the poor dining...

First I want to say that our server, Lucas, was fantastic. He was very apologetic about our experience and did his best to make things right. That said, this was a terrible dining experience. With the E-Coli outbreak we were offered no salad: understandable. We were offered soup as a substitute and I ordered the lobster bisque. I'm not sure how they could even call this soup, let alone bisque. It was brought out in a tiny plastic "bowl" that looked like the lid to a large fountain pop and it tasted like some sort of powdered mix and water. It was absolutely inedible. I was going to order the Ultimate Feast but wanted a little more lobster so I went with the surf and turf ($6 more), as I remembered the Rock Lobster portion being fairly large in the past. I asked for my 6 oz. filet to be cooked to medium rare. When asked if broccoli was ok, I requested the asparagus instead. This meal also came with garlic mashed potatoes. When my meal arrived, I had both asparagus and broccoli on the plate and no potatoes. The lobster tail looked more like a crawdad and I could tell the steak was over cooked. When I cut into it, the top half was a little pink and the other half was a dried out, grey piece of leather. I showed Lucas and he apologized and went to get a new one made. He came back a few minutes later and said the manager would be by to make it right. 25 minutes later, the manager brings me a new steak, still a little over done, but even worse was extremely over seasoned and barely palatable. I quickly wolfed down what I could, as my wife and daughter had finished their meal 1/2 hour prior and asked for the check. I assumed I would see some sort of compensation on the bill. Not only had I not received a discount, but I was also charged extra for the asparagus that I had asked to substitute. I pulled the manager aside as I was leaving to explain my frustration with my dining experience. I was still not offered any compensation nor an apology. This manager has no concept of customer service and should not be in the food industry. This store might also want to educate the kitchen staff on meat temperatures so that customers get the steak they ordered. I...