Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen — Restaurant in Coralville

Ever had people hype a movie up just for it to be a letdown? That was my wife and my experience tonight at Cheddars. We've had different friends and family recommend we eat here.

Our server Jami Z was absolutely fantastic and got to us right away and checked in frequently. No complaints about her at all. She even offered us free dessert after we explained how terrible our meal was.

On to our order:

Courtesy - croissants with honey butter. not bad pretty soft and tasted good only a little soggy from the honey butter being drizzled on it instead of on the side. 7/10

Drinks - a Cheddars Painkiller and a Frozen Maui Margarita that comes with a shot of Cactus Juice. Only complaint in this department was the amount of syrup used on the Painkiller rim it dripped all down the sides of the glass and onto the table making everything sticky.

Main courses - a full rack of ribs that supposedly come with Honey BBQ sauce on them that came with 2 sides, we chose the "Made From Scratch" Cheddar Broccoli Casserole. My wife had the Monte Cristo with Fries. We typically share meals when they are this large, and holy moly we were both disappointed.

First was the "Made From Scratch" Cheddar Broccoli Casserole. Take a bite and it was barely considered warm only to follow up with either super chewy or super hard rice in it, like what happens when you microwave it. Had no flavor to it at all. 0/10

The Monte Cristo - really great....if you want a donut with a little bit of meat and cheese. There was so much dough it's all you could taste. You got a hint of cheese and meat once every few bites but not very much. 5/10

Fries - tasted like they were fried in old dirty oil, they were crispy but not the good kind all you could taste was dirty oil on them but who knows they could've been reheated in a microwave. 1/10

The BBQ Honey Ribs - the biggest disappointment of all. We took a bite and there was little seasoning, meat was bland, and all we could taste was mustard. The sauce had no actual BBQ flavor to it. It was a tangy mustard more than anything else. For $20 for a full rack I definitely expected better quality food instead of this excuse for ribs. 1/10

The Glass of water - had ice and tasted like it was supposed to. Only thing I can give a good rating on from tonight's dinner. 10/10

We arrived around 8:25 P.M. and checked out at 9:18 P.M. Even though the business is open until 10 P.M. it sure doesn't look like it. The entire exterior is dark like they were closed thIs whole time.

As highly disappointed customers we even filled out the review on the checkout tablet for tonight's experience. The only reason this is a 2 star review and not a 1 star review is because of Jami, the server we had tonight.

For wasting $55, we most likely will not be returning here nor will I recommend...

I use to love this place. I did find a bug in my food once and got a new free meal. One time my friend forgot to sign his receipt and the female manager chased after us out to his car with some big dude like he was her body guard. My friend and I are small and he is a twig, you think we are going to hurt you over forgetting to sign a receipt? Haha. Okay so my last interaction with this place happened two months ago. My mom and I ordered food and came to do curb side pick up. We called to let them know we are here and we also described our car and where we are in the parking lot due to there being four other grey cars in the parking lot. Food wasn't done on time. We noticed one of the staff bring out food to another car that got there after us. Well that customer went in and my mom had a feeling they gave her our order so my mom went in too. Yup, they didn't pay attention to what we told them earlier and gave our food to someone else. They said they could remake the box the other customer opened and my mom said no, she wants them all re made because by the time that one box of food is done being remade then all the other food will be cold. This is very reasonable, my mom was not overreacting. She came back to the car and we waited for maybe another 20-30 minutes. One of the girls that work there came up with our food and came to our window and asked "Karen?" And my mom said no. So the girl turned around and went back in and a minute later another girl brings out the same bag and comes up and asks for my moms name and we say yes. I'm not stupid. Your staff called my mom a Karen because she wanted our food remade because your staff's screw up. We are in a pandemic and my mom's request was not crazy. To those two girls, mature up. You are lucky I didn't go off on you for being rude. Also they only remade the box that was touched, not the whole order like we kindly asked. Rest of the food was cold when we got home. The Cedar Rapids Cheddars is the better one. Better staff and...

Absolutely Horrible! This was the first time to visit Cheddars for my wife and I; we wanted to try something new. They opened at 11am, we got there at about 11:25am. From the moment I walked in the door I knew something wasn't right; the floor, including the bathroom, was slimy like it had been mopped the previous night with greasy kitchen water. But, I was hungry. Hostess at the entry was not friendly and acted like we were bothering her. When seated, our server was very nice. Kudos to him. We ordered our food, including appetizer. When that appetizer came, we opened our silverware to find crusty food and dried detergent on the fork and knife for both of us. I asked for new. Second set came as above but this time with green crusty stuff on the knife. Round three was ok, I think our server checked before he brought them to us. My wife wanted the Monte Cristo, but was informed that they were out of that. So she ordered the BBQ Chicken Sandwich with Fries. It came SMOTHERED in ranch with just a dab of BBQ Sauce. She said that the BBQ was hardly noticeable under the ranch. I ordered the Bacon Cheeseburger. Advertised with "4 Strips of Crispy Bacon". It came with two slices of soggy, limp, bacon. The burger was over cooked (black bottom) and dry. Both of our plates of fries tasted like three week old burnt grease.

My wife ate 1/3rd of her sandwich and maybe 10 fries. I ate 2 bites of my burger, a dozen fries, and then asked for the check. My wife asked me to not make a scene and ask for the manager because if this is how it operates 30 minutes after opening, the manager won't care or fix the situation anyway. It was NOT busy at all. So I paid my $35.14 bill, plus a small tip for the server... totaling $40.40, and then we left hungry and vowing not to return.

Server: Brian Check #: 44754 Table: 108 Bill time: 12:20:31 03/22/2021

I tried sending my comments to their corporate office via Cheddars website, but it...