Bare Bones Steakhouse — Restaurant in Buford

First time going to Bare Bones and visited on a Thursday night. We were a party of 8 celebrating 2 birthdays in our party. It was a strong start, loved the decor and ambience of the restaurant, from top to bottom this place looks like a gem. Some of us were waiting on our party and went to the rooftop for pre-dinner drinks.

Service: I forget the gentleman’s name at the rooftop bar but he was great, really personable and kind. As our party arrived we joined them at our table. Our server Olivia was overall great, it seems she had us, a table of 12 and a table of 5 (That I saw)…keep that in mind. She had a great start explaining the menu, drinks and appetizers. As the appetizers arrived we noticed the service slowed. I honestly don’t blame Olivia because she had a lot of tables that occupied her time but I didn’t see much support for her in that regard. It took 20 minutes after we finished appetizers to take our main course order. Drinks were empty for that same amount of time. Table wasn’t cleared until our main dishes were arriving. Something I will say is Olivia never showed that she was overwhelmed and kept a great attitude the entire time, I commend that. I wish she got better support. Overall she’s resilient and kept the evening spirits up.

Food: For apps we ordered the mozzarella sticks, spinach artichoke dip, and rolls. They were great starts and we all enjoyed. 3 of us ordered choice ny strip, 1 order of burger, and different dishes that I can not remember. The steaks came out a tad under for me, I sent mine back and received it back asap. I ordered the sweet potato soufflé and green beans. The soufflé was amazing, favorite thing I ate. The green beans were like regular canned green beans. Everyone at the table that ordered a steak hated it. There was ZERO seasoning, which I see was mentioned in another review a few days ago. Whoever has recently been added to the kitchen seems to forget to season the meat. I added salt and pepper and that helped. The burger came out burnt! Still was eaten because of hunger. Honestly I’ve had better steak at Texas Roadhouse. The thing that concluded the evening on a positive note was the banana foster! That was the best dessert I’ve ever had.

Overall we enjoyed our evening but it seems some things need...

Dropped in for dinner. Sides were amazing as usual...the grits and mac & cheese are amazing. Creamed corn is decent, as are mashed potatoes. The problem was the steaks, and the lady that repeatedly insisted that this establishment "has their own definitions for doneness." My son and I both ordered the Porterhouse (medium rare), my wife, the 12 oz. filet (medium). My steak was acceptable, my son's was closer to blue rare and my wife's medium was less done than my medium rare. We alerted the server, who was helpful, but then a spectacled lady with a ponytail dropped by to tell us that nothing was wrong, and that Bare Bones has a completely unique set of definition for common terms of doneness. She said their medium has a warm red center, medium rare was mostly red and cool. I asked why my son's medium rare was blue rare and my medium rare was spot on for the same cut. My wife pointed out her medium filet was cooked less than my medium rare porterhouse. She was told that she needed to order "Medium Plus" (and again repeated their definitions of the common doneness terms used everywhere). I asked for a thermometer check to verify her confidence in the doneness. Eventually, they took my son's and wife's already cut and eaten from steaks back for continued cooking. Both came back at the desired doneness the second time, but with a bitter creosote crust that was very harsh. I'm attaching a pic of my son's charred, medium rare steak. They had already cut the filet side (as pictured attached to the bone), and detached the strip side before the first delivery. Presumably, both went back on the grill and were charred to the point my son didn't eat any. The prime meat was good quality but ruined by the repeated cooking process. The server seemed to understand our displeasure and offered to comp desserts. We let our son take one since he only had sides for dinner, but declined for the rest of the table.

Save money and go to Stoney River for better steaks, or spend a fraction more and go to Marcel or Rathbun's for the experience and quality you're...

Bare bones ruined our anniversary. What was supposed to be a nice relaxing kid-free evening was a stressful waste of money. When we were seated our waiter never explained any specials . He took our drink order and brought us water that was the worst water I’ve ever had.. it tasted like a dirty lake. He said there was something wrong with the city water and we could pay for awuaphina. So my husband walked back to the car to get my water while we waited for our app. Not super relaxing there. Ten minutes later my husbands soda still had not come but our app had. I asked for ketchup which took another five minutes and then he took our order still never explaining the specials like the server did next to us. My husbands soda was all ice. When food arrived (we never got the free bread like the table next to us either) our medium rare steak was rare so we had to send it back. When it came back (ten minutes later-more waiting and anxiety about where our food is) since I had cut all the way through it already part was now medium rare , most was medium to medium wel, and about 30% was grey ish white well done.. that part was inedible. The sides were average. The shrimp and grits pretty good. Anyways s manager came to speak with us and we let him know of our food and water issue (although not the server issue since he was hovering right there) . The manager said he would take care of the steak.. so he should have gone and done that as soon as he walked away. However when we got our check nothing was taking care of so more stress and waiting . He took half off our steak eventually and we got the heck out of there wishing we had gone literally anywhere else for our anniversary as instead of enjoying our time together we had constant issues and wasted our money. Never again and will recommend to nobody. It will be another 4-6 months before we are able to go out for a nice date dinner again and a year before a steak dinner so this was very disappointing...