Outback Steakhouse — Restaurant in Columbia

Today my Co-Worker and I visited the Outback Steakhouse location on Harbison Blvd. in Columbia, SC. Despite the horrible previous experiences that I have encountered at this Restaurant we chose to give them another chance. Every other time that I have visited this location there are no guest upfront when I enter and neither is there a Hostess to ensure that we are seated in a timely manner. We often wait over 10 minutes at the front of the Restaurant to be seated and there was no difference today. After we were seated today we waited 17 minutes for a Waiter to come assist us with our orders and he (Winston) only came once my Co-Worker went in the kitchen and asked for some assistance. The Cooks in the Kitchen then went outside in the back of the restaurant where our Waiter was smoking to get him to come in and do his job. After he (Winston) took our orders he then brought the bread out and it was stale and hard and couldn’t be eaten. We received our entrees in the next 30 minutes and once we finished eating we sat there waiting on him (Winston) to come back and check on his table, but he NEVER did. Once, the Waiter did not return I got up and went to the Bar and advised, “We are on our Lunch Break and have been finished eating for over 20 minutes and our Waiter has not returned and we will need to check out.” The Bartender by the name of Jordan then printed the ticket and brought it to our table, but we advised, “The tickets will need to be separate.” Jordan snatched the ticket off of the table and proceeded over to split the ticket, but when she returned she did not wait for us to put our payment in the ticket folder although she was already advised we had to leave. We waited for another 15 minutes prior to Jordan returning back to the table and when I asked for the General Manager’s information this was her response, “Who, the Owner I mean we have two which one do you mean? Its Kevin and John.” Jordan then proceeded to roll her eyes and walk away with the Waiter (Winston) who took the payment. When Winston returned to the table with the payment receipts I advised him, “The service that we received today was absolutely terrible and although it is this way often this is by far the worst I have ever received and I will be in contact with Management to advise.” Winston was not apologetic at all about the service we received today and Customer Service should be his top priority, but instead he stated, “Have a nice day.” I am employed with a very prestigious organization in the vicinity of this restaurant and many of my Co-Workers choose this restaurant for lunch often, but after today’s experience they will not anymore. More hurtful is the fact that I have noticed on multiple occasions how the service to Caucasian customers is much better and swifter than it is for African-American customers. If I could give this restaurant 0...

Went to outback on Harbison with my nephew and daughter for her birthday. It has been a year since returning to this location due to customer service resulting in me leaving and going to a different restaurant . Nevertheless, I decided to give this location another try. Well, the waiter's interactions with us was as if he did not want to be there. We ordered 2 blooming chicken with loaded potato and a Salmon with shrimp dinner. The chicken was dark and we assumed it was the seasoning . However, we discovered it was from burnt grease based on the smell and the taste . The loaded potatos were not loaded and very dry. All 3 potatos looked as if they were trying to stretch the few items they put on the potatos between the 3 of us resulting in very dry and skimpy potatoes. I looked for more from this restaurant .I asked the waiter to bring butter to try to salvage the potato and decided not to complain about the chicken because we felt ,they weren't going to change any grease at 845 because they would have done that prior to preparing the food. The entire time we were seated, our waiter showed absolutely no interest in making sure we were taken care of although, we noticed others going that extra mile. I decided to just request a carryout for the chicken and asked for the check. After my request, suddenly, the waiter acted interested in making sure we were ok. This was definitely something he failed to do the entire time we were seated. Although, we were very disappointed in services from both the waiter and kitchen staff, my nephew decided to just chalk it up to it being (a bad day) for the waiter and leave him a very very nice tip anyway. As far as returning to the Harbison location , that's...

Not great. My husband and I came last year around December and left disappointed, we decided to give them a second chance tonight, to see if maybe we just went on an off night. No dice. We were seated right away, but after that the service was lacking. The waitress dropped off bread and took our drinks and appetizers, didn't see her again till the appetizer came out and she took our order. Didn't see her again until our order came out. Then we didn't see her again till we were just finishing up with our meals. She asked if everything was good, and didn't wait for an answer before asking if we wanted the check. She didn't ask if we wanted dessert, and never once offered drink refills. The food was severely lacking too. My husband ordered a medium well sirloin, and received a medium sirloin that was pushing medium rare. He ate it anyway since, as I previously mentioned, the waitress never checked to see if everything was OK. Mine was even worse. I ordered a medium ribeye, and got a severely unevenly cooked steak. Some parts were pushing rare, yet the other side was medium well. Both our steaks were severely over seasoned too, which was difficult to deal with given the lack of refills to our drinks. The mashed potatoes were also horrible. They were incredibly salty, and I think they put them on my plate long before the steak went on the plate, as they had gotten all gelatinous like some sort of old potato patty. The ladies room was gross. 3 out of 4 toilets were full of toilet paper/paper towels, water on the floor, and no paper towels in the dispenser. We definitely won't be back, this is one of the worst date night dinners...