Three Bulls American Steakhouse — Restaurant in Clemmons

It's very difficult to find certain qualities in restaurants that earn them the title "Favorite". For me, and probably many others, these items rank highly on the list of "Gotta have it" to be a really special place:

Menu Originality - diversity and variety Consistency - food preparation & service Presentation - worn out cliché but important! Atmosphere - warm and welcoming Service - knowledgeable and friendly staff

Sure, there are many others we could mention, but these are basics that most can agree on. So that this review won't consume volumes, I'll try to remain brief without omitting important information.

Menu Originality - the idea is that there is something for everyone, and things you can't find elsewhere - Great Job here. Not only diversity in dishes with generous selections of meat and fish, vegetarian items, casual and formal dishes, but also prices to suit virtually any budget. The steaks are a bit pricey, but for very good reason - beef of this quality costs them much more as well (worth every penny). However, if steaks are too much for your wallet, there are a plethora of very tasty and original menu items that won't empty the bank, and will even leave you enough for one of their tempting desserts.

Consistency - we've only visited once, but our meals took several staff members to prepare and assemble, as well as oversight before each course left the kitchen. Every item we ordered was prepared with care and attention to detail that shows a well organized kitchen team.

Presentation - I hate this word! It has become so overused and pretentious as a catch-all for so called "experts" to vomit their opinions in condescending ways, assuming the rest of us are just idiots. However, with the original intent of the word in mind, each meal was assembled on the plate with care and originality, and accomplished the goal of making our mouths water in anticipation.

Atmosphere - This is a tough one, because individual taste is so subjective and changes over time, which is probably one reason restaurants and bars have to redecorate every few years. This, I promise, will be short. Three Bulls doesn't attempt to overwhelm or "WOW!", but rather to appeal to the masses with an understated, casual elegance. It's Solid, Smart, and Fresh.

Service - If you'll take a moment to jot down his name, Bradley was our server and it would benefit you to ask for him. Not only was he knowledgeable on menu items - ALL OF THEM - but he was also very sharp with drink selection, beer selection (huge beer menu), and wine pairing. At least in my experience, knowledge of the staff tends to go up in direct proportion to the prices on the menu. Brad will shatter that myth quickly, and also treats you like family from the moment you meet. I can't speak for the rest of the staff, but hope that they too strive to please just as much. Our bartender was as good as I've seen ANYWHERE, and it was noted during our visit that he had taken the honor of second in a "Best of Winston-Salem" contest. That level of bar knowledge escalates drink creation to an art form.

Over the years, my wife and I have enjoyed many restaurants in our fair city, but I can honestly say that Three Bulls American Steakhouse is a step above them all. Not just because we had a superb meal there. Not just because the prices were fair and offered items reasonable to any budget. What we enjoyed was an outstanding dining experience, brought together by thorough planning, solid teamwork, and plenty of pride (the good kind!) in making sure that we left as happy patrons.

I am certainly no restaurant critic, but like most of us, I know what I like. Three Bulls American Steakhouse far exceeded my expectations, and there were too many things that they got absolutely right for it to be considered luck or a quirk. Nobody is that lucky, least of all me, as a customer!

For all the reasons mentioned (and because they made my birthday so memorable), Three Bulls is now my new favorite place. Give it a try and it just might become...

Last night's experience was so bad that we aren't likely to return. Several visits have shaped our opinion of Three Bulls -- food has been good, and service has been mostly good, but we have encountered enough issues to question spending so much money for a meal where we leave disappointed in some aspect each time. We made reservations for 5 pm and arrived at 4:45 pm. The parking lot was nearly empty, and there were about 5 parties seated throughout the restaurant and bar in total. When we checked in, the 2 people at the hostess stand acknowledged our reservation and whispered for a moment. In hindsight, we suspect they were discussing placing us at a table where a couple had left before us. One of the hostesses said, follow me and led us to the bar's far corner.

Menus were already on the table, and it was presented as if they had our table "all ready for us." My husband was immediately offended that we were being placed at the worst table in the entire establishment -- a 2 top chair across from wrap-around booth seating, banked against the wall beside the emergency exit/patio in the bar. Having made reservations and with the restaurant almost empty, both of us were baffled the place they chose to put us was in the bar. I asked if a booth was available. She stared a moment and said, "I'll have to check." She walked back to the hostess stand and started whispering with the other hostess.

This awkward wait continued for about 5 minutes. I spoke up to the main hostess and said that this seemed to be challenging for them and offered to leave if moving us to an open booth was too much to ask. She replied that they were totally booked and moving us was difficult considering how many reservations that had. I pointed out that only our table had pre-set menus and we could see 80% or more of the tables were open. She smirked and said, "Well I'm happy to show you (turned around her computer screen) all the reserved tables" -- as if it were appropriate to prove reservations when we could all see no one was waiting and very few tables were occupied. She did not apologize at any point for the length of time this was taking or assure us that they would help us move to a better location for quite a while.

Eventually, she said come with me - and turned toward the bar. I looked at my husband and asked, "Do you want to go?" and he said yes. By this point, we had been in the nearly empty restaurant for 10-15 minutes and felt they did not care if we stayed or left. I told the hostess that we were leaving. No apology for the wait or polite acknowledgment of any kind. I counted 7 vehicles in the main parking lot as we left. There was clearly no rush of people coming in to claim 5 pm reservations. All of this experience felt like snooty nonsense. I have no understanding of why they felt putting us in the corner of the bar by the emergency exit in a nearly empty restaurant made any sense. The hostess essentially communicated that all the other tables were for customers whom they valued more.

A high-end steak restaurant should not start filling reservations with the worst seating in the house. And customers asking to move within an empty restaurant should be reseated before 10-15 minutes. We have eaten at 3 Bulls many times. Something was off each time. Looking back, we realize that the message we receive when we have eaten there is that they really don't care about a customer's experience. They don't like to make any substitutions for sides; they don't care if your food is cooked correctly; and they will place you in their overflow room beside the loud, large group room as a "favor" if you don't have reservations rather than offering to let you wait (this happened to us twice -- and is what prompted us to make reservations for a 5 pm meal). Too many more consistent places to eat to return here. The hostess sets the tone for a meal. They really do need...

My wife and I were excited to try something different in Clemmons after seeing this as an option in town. The building was very clean and nicely presented. Our server (Chris) was great and very attentive, polite, and got everything with our orders correct. We'll move onto the 1 start now... The food, was underwhelming at best, completely unconsumable at worst. My 7 year old thought that her very basic pasta with red sauce was good. My house salad was decent, the ranch dressing tasted ok (I wouldn't be surprised if it came from a bottle), but this should not have been the highlight of our meal. We ordered two appetizers, the cheesy flatbread and ranch cheese fries. Cheesy Flatbread, per the menu "Crispy, flaky flatbread... " The flatbread was neither of those things. It was floppy, undercooked (no browning of cheese or bread at all), covered in cheese and devoid of flavor. Cheese fries were a large portion of fries. They were also not fully cooked. Giant steak fries should be double cooked, and be crispy on the outside, soft on the inside. Not greasy, floppy and also, without flavor. The ranch and cheese looked to be haphazardly tossed in the center. Most all of the fries had neither ranch, nor cheese. My wife is vegetarian, so we had the bacon omitted. Her dinner: She ordered the fish sandwich with onion rings. Both appeared to have been seasoned with absolutely nothing. She said they tasted like they were dipped in plain flour and fried. There was zero seasoning or flavor. She had 2 bites of the sandwich, and wouldn't eat any more, and one bite of the onion rings before she had to ask for ketchup to at least give it some flavor. I ordered the 12oz ribeye with the Brussel sprouts. If you want to call yourself a steakhouse, I am going to judge you by your steak. 3 Bulls gets a failure from me. The ribeye was about pinky thick. It was the only size available on the menu, where I would have expected various sizes and thickness. The steak was very bleh. No basic seasoning of anything, which minimally should be a bit of salt. For it being "hand trimmed to their specifications", it was still very fatty, and not a good cut of meat. I have been to several upper end steak houses and paid a similar price for a cut of beef, and it was significantly better. For the price of that steak, I could have just grabbed a 2" thick cut ribeye from HT, had twice the meat, and it would have been a better cut. The Brussel sprouts were decent, but I fully expected to see the "onion/bacon jam" with them. You had to really look to find it on the plate. The sprouts were mostly cooked ok, but again, no flavor or taste. I noticed that they had a sirloin, filet, NY strip, and ribeye, but no Porterhouse, T-bone, or Prime Rib. Overall, we won't be back. The food was completely lacking and taste for what you would expect would be a fine dining establishment. This is exactly what people think when they say white people don't season their food. There was absolutely nothing unique or special about this restaurant that I couldn't find significantly better (food wise especially) at many other places...