Texas Roadhouse — Restaurant in Bloomington

This is a long review, I have some good things to say about Texas Roadhouse and a couple rants and if you read the whole thing I’ll tell you a secret.

Texas Roadhouse is a marvel of the restaurant business. They have built a chain of affordable steak houses that are doing themselves proud. The food is very good and consistent across stores. The wait staff is excellent wherever I’ve been. They must have a top notch hiring and training program to be doing this so well. Which speaks volumes to their management. Consistency in food quality and service levels is what makes it or breaks it in their business and they are tops in their sector. I’ve seen many national steakhouse rankings and they always ranked highly and I would say at this price range there is no better steak chain.

In this price range, there used to be a bunch of cafeteria style steak places like bonanza, ponderosa or even York steakhouse, all almost entirely gone. The new standard is Texas Roadhouse. Back when all of those were new, they were good but they all went downhill. Texas Roadhouse has filed that niche but abandoned that style of service and come up with a better product. They will continue to flourish until some sea change in the industry like a further loss of the middle class which is their customer base. Right now, every store is full and has a perpetual wait list. This screams success. As long as there is a wait list there will be a Texas Roadhouse. Although, the middle class is shrinking everyday. You can blame the loss of Malls and all the stores that populated them, on the loss of the Middle class. Good thing for Texas Roadhouse, there are still enough of us hungry middle class meat eaters to keep them thriving. (Did you catch it? There was a rant in there about our shrinking middle class)

Speaking of the wait list. Get the App and get on the waitlist before you leave the house. Works like a charm and will make your dining experience more pleasant. Nobody likes waiting for a table.

The food, the reason for their existence. I have a two things to say about the food. They must have captured their beef supply chain. By this I mean, they either own their own beef herds or buy on the hoof and process all their meats for their restaurants. This seems to me to be the only way they can sell such consistently good beef at the reasonable price they ask. Great steaks that don’t choke you on their price. There sides are good. I usually get the side salad (always fresh and crispy) with French and Blue Cheese dressings. They come on the side, without asking. Some times I want the mixed “fresh” vegetables. (Another rant here) But I hate those mechanically mutilated chemically treated orange spuds that pass for carrots these days. They are inedible and Texas Roadhouse cooks them and includes them in their fresh veggie side. No thanks. I have asked to have just the broccoli and they will serve it that way so problem solved. But still, nobody should ever think to eat those food industry carrot substitutes.

The only complaint I’ve ever had about the service, is once the food came way too fast. I mean, we got our appetizers, salads and entrees within 90 seconds from start to finish. That’s too fast. Someone perhaps made a mistake, I don’t know how their order entry system works to space out the food or if it’s in the control of the server but this time was not good. Only happened once but I’ve noticed, they really work on turn over: seat and serve more and you make more tips.

Lastly, let’s talk peanuts. Before Covid, they were on every table and in waiting areas and I loved it. Can never get enough salted in the shell peanuts. Anyway, now, if you want some, you have to ask and they come in a sealed bag. I guess peanuts are a potential for the spread of disease. Really? When boxing up our leftovers, used to fill a clam shell with the peanuts in the bucket on our table. (Our little secret) I was saving the next people from cross contamination and didn’t even know it.

I almost forget to mention the fresh rolls. Nice value added...

We have been a patron of Texas Roadhouse since it has been open in Bloomington 3 to 4 times a month. We love Texas Roadhouse for the great service, quality food, and exceptional value. We have never had a poor experience at this restaurant until this past Friday night. We were seated and the hostess stated there were no rolls available and to ask our server. Our server was very sweet, but you could tell she was overwhelmed and by her facial expression she had heard from several guests that she would be responsible for bringing rolls to her tables. We placed our drink and appetizer order. The appetizer came out quickly, even prior to getting our drinks. 3 times our server checked on us and stated rolls were still not available. We had been seated for nearly 30 minutes and completely finished our appetizer and still no rolls. Finally, we saw some runners ( not our server) coming with baskets of rolls. We were so excited and then they sat both of them at the table directly across from us. That table was eating their salads and already had 2 baskets of rolls on their table. We kindly asked the runners if they could bring us some rolls. The blonde headed girl gave us and unbelievable dirty look. She and the other runner brought us 2 basket and THREW them on our table and again shot us a dirty look. Then, the shift manager named MILES came over with a smirk and 2 more baskets and said here you go. You can tell when someone is genuine and when they are being a smart a$$. Meanwhile, the 2 large parties behind us hadn't gotten any rolls. We wanted 1 basket of rolls not 5. Your manager's passive aggressive attitude escalated a greater service problem because the restaurant was obviously having an issue getting rolls made, so instead of providing everyone at least 1 basket he tried to give us a total of 5 baskets. We then gave each table behind us a basket of rolls because they had not been offered any. Miles had a great service recovery moment that he MISSED! Instead of apologizing for the 30 minute delay of rolls not being available, he decided to approach our table with an attitude and a passive aggressive gesture of bringing us more rolls. No manager every followed up with our table to ensure our food and remaining service expectations were met. In order to ensure the excellent customer service that is typical at Texas Roadhouse, Miles may require additional training in...

So many hostess and servers we were left to stand there for an extended period of time while they figured out who should ask us how many for our table. Wasn’t really even busy enough for the amount of servers and hostess they had and seemed to have 5 managers walking around too, very confusing and often made us feel like we were in their way as it was so tight to get around.

Sat us at a table that hadn’t been cleaned, the nut bucket thing looked like it was fermented sludge with also crusted dressing and wilted leaves inside. Server didn’t seem to care and acted annoyed that we asked for it to be moved.

My dish was so salty I couldn’t even get one bite down and the manager I think he name was Madeline, was very nice and wanting to accommodate but by that point I was pretty much over it and wanted to go. As prior to her coming we had notified our server that our appetizers hadn’t ever come out or I could have maybe tried that and he had just laughed that he probably over looked them and if he found them he could just box it then for us to go. So bless her heart that when she made her rounds to check tables I was too done to even attempt to try something different and she offered to take the meal off. The appetizer I guess was never found as no box came out and the server never returned so when time to pay the check we had to ask to not be charged for that either.

Sadly this is not how I remember Texas Roadhouse ever being and it was probably just better left as a childhood memory of a place I used to really enjoy.

While much to be unhappy about I do want to press and hope I’m getting her name right that Madeline was honestly the only good point to our experience, she was kind and we had a very pleasant conversation about my meal, I felt horrible for telling her that it was completely inedible, wasn’t her fault. She did a great service to suggesting items she usually enjoys and wanting to accommodate,...