Outback Steakhouse — Restaurant in Canton

I'll admit, I'm not much of a steak guy. To be frank, outside of the Folsom Street Fair I'm not even a meat guy - I've been a vegan for about three years now, and it's worked out for me. I say this because I want you, the reader, to envision the look on my face when my best friend suggested we go to the Outback here in Canton.

"The steakhouse?" "Yeah."

If looks could kill...

But I won't say no to a bloomin' onion, and I was honestly coming off of a really disappointing lunch date with a Philippino graphic design consultant. Gin and tonic? At one in the afternoon? Yeah, uh, no thanks.

It was pretty packed when we got there - this was the Saturday before Memorial Day - so I'm actually pretty happy excusing the long wait time. The hostess was pretty entertaining, actually. She made this joke about wearing cashmere in the spring that had me DEAD. Seasonal fashion is some hard joke material to work with! You probably had to be there.

Anyway, by god if I can't remember her name, our waitress was a real peach - and if she's reading this, I don't mean this offensively, but she sort of LOOKED the part: VERY pregnant. I actually thought she may pop between the appetizer and the main course. Our luck held however, and despite lugging around what may have been a small-yet-dense bowling ball in her stomach, she was SUPER attentive and very quick with the drinks. I had some sort of fruity cocktail, I was too busy making sure her water wasn't going to break to remember the name of it. I'm sorry. She was just really pregnant.

Overall? Great atmosphere, great service. I had a few niblets off of Ted's steak. Maybe it was the cut, but it was really fatty, and I nearly gagged, but it was cooked "exceptionally". That's the word Ted used.

I'd come back in a heartbeat, but unfortunately I'll be in Paris for the next, uh, rest of my life. But if I ever find myself in Canton again, rest assured, I will be sipping fruity drinks at the bar at Outback. And I will probably still be single. Don't be shy.

(Edit: Looking at all the other reviews here, I believe our waitress was Brooke. God, honey, I hope that baby is the next president of Giorgio Armani North America, because you were breaking a SWEAT out...

Something was off from the start. When we first came in, there was no one around - we thought maybe the doors were unlocked by accident. Kind of scary. Anyone could have walked into the store at that point and none of the employees would have been any the wiser. Then, about 3 minutes or so later as we were considering leaving, someone came up from near the kitchen. We saw exactly this one person the entire time we were there (Alex - he was nice). For a period of time, we were the only folks in the restaurant and the only car in the parking lot. Should have been a warning but we didn't heed it. The cheese fries were not to spec and appeared gray in color, were quite dry, lacked seasoning, etc. The Bloomin' Burger was definitely not to spec - notice the build and the burger itself - notice also the veggies I ordered weren't on that plate - they came out on another plate the same size as the entree plate (I understand with all the melted butter why it might not be on the same plate but it certainly doesn't require an entree plate and honestly a bowl would be better). The Kid Mac-n-chz was cold in the middle - I do know this process and this tells me it wasn't followed. I also was not asked how I wanted my burger cooked and I was not asked about my Dine Rewards number. The Bloomin' Onion serving plate was on many of the tables including ours and hadn't been wiped down in some time. The table hadn't been wiped off either. My daughter got a glass of sweet tea in a glass that had food dried to the outside of it near the bottom. The store appeared clean when we walked in but the more we looked around the more it was obvious that appearances are deceiving here. Having nice servers is great but there must be more than that to keep a customer coming back. I love Outback and have eaten at Outbacks across the country. We happened on this one actually heading to Riverstone Corner Bistro for something different (Outback in Canton didn't pull up in the Google Map program) but saw Outback on the way and decided to try this location out. I can say with some degree of certainty that it's time for the JVP here to pay some regular visits. We will not be back...

I am extremely dissatisfied and disgusted by the food I received from this Canton, GA Outback Steakhouse today. This is the 2nd time I have ordered from this location, and the 2nd time I am upset by the food quality, appearance, taste, etc. (I usually frequent the Atlanta/Toco Hills location, many times over the past 8 years, and have never experienced lackluster, dried out, overcooked, disappointing food.) I ordered a to-go/curbside order and arrived at 6:19pm to pick it up. The email confirmation said it was estimated to be ready at 6:22pm, so it’s not like I took too long to arrive to pick up my food. The restaurant was out of orange juice for my daughter’s kid meal, so we had to get apple juice instead. I specifically requested extra cheese on the Aussie cheese fries and was charged 75 cents extra, but it does not look like even an adequate amount of cheese was placed on there. Plate full of hard bacon bits, and cold, dried out, dehydrated salty fries. Neither the plate nor the fries were lukewarm, they were cool to touch. The bread/rusk piece was separated from the soup and hard as a brick. The soup was too salty. The kids grilled cheese looked smashed together, not cooked, cheese not melted; the grilled cheese was not even sliced for my 5 year old. I requested utensils, NONE were included in the bag at all, not even a spoon for the soup. There was also no butter for the bread. There are entirely too many restaurants in that very same parking lot to serve such extremely poor quality and poorly prepared food. There is a Longhorn Steakhouse right there in the very same parking lot, along with Zaxby’s, an Italian restaurant, several Mexican restaurants and sushi eateries, not to mention Applebees and O’Charleys across the street. Evidently, this Outback location does not want customers at all. I should have taken my food back to the restaurant for a full refund, but it was a frustrating...