Guy Fieri's American Kitchen & Bar — Restaurant in Durant

Never have I ever experienced this treatment in a restaurant. Me and my family (party of 6) left Winstar and met up with some family at Choctaw with the intentions of eating at Guy Fieri's. We went in on 7/16 @ 7:30p and was immediately turned away along with several other parties of 5 or more. Reason being, they are not able to accommodate parties of 5 or more at the Head Chef directive, who we were told was not even on the clock. They said that they did not want to overwhelm the kitchen with our party of 6. You are telling me that a restaurant named after a world renowned chef at a resort can not accommodate a party of 6? We asked to speak with a manager and explained to her that we are sharing meals and one person is not even eating and she still refused our severice along with several other parties that arrived during the ordeal. We offered to sit at different tables and she said we would have to be on different sides of the restaurant. The restaurant was more than half empty. No wait. Seriously? What difference does it make when the entire order goes to the same kitchen? When I explained that to her she said she would have to ask the server if they are willing to take two tables at once. Why is it even an option for a server? You have to ask them if they want to do the job they were hired to do and hope for the best? All of these excuses coming from a restaurant manager who clearly did not care about accommodating customers, bringing in business, beating projections or willing to do a little work. I am in restaurant management and you don't just reject business. You tough it out and apologize for the wait and as a manager you jump in the kitchen and make it happen. She would not even direct us to who to voice our issue to or try to supplement. Bad business all around. We have been coming here on almost a weekly basis and there was a long stretch where the food and service was struggling but we still remained customers but this is unexcusable.

Below are photos of how unbusy they were. Speechless.

*Update: The same evening I went to VIP Services and to the players club desk to see who I could talk to in order to inform them about what happened but no one could direct me to the right department. They just gave me the generic number to Choctaw. The next day I called and resort services and they tried to reach out to Guys and could not get an answer so took my information down. I also talked to management at Salt & Stone who said I would need to get in contact with food and beverage management but could not provide contact information, direct me to an office or call them over since I was a guest in the hotel. They too took down my information but have had no response either. What wonderful...

We waited for over half an hour to get our appetizers - queso dip and chili. When I asked what was taking so long, as the place wasn't very crowded, the waitress said they were waiting on the queso... and I thought, waiting for what? It appeared from the menu that melty, cheesey stuff was on most everything, surely they hadn't run out!

When the appetizers finally arrived, they were both cold. The cheese on the chili was solidified and there was nothing melty about the queso. I was able to scoop out a few chips full from the bottom of the dish before it got too hard and broke all the tortilla chips. (I might add that the tortilla chips were straight out of a low quality bag. Not even as good as Great Value brand. What's up with that? Every rinky dink small town Mexican restaurant makes their own tortilla chips, but Guy Fieri gets low quality premade???)

The rest of the meal came about 3 min. after the appetizers arrived. My husband had the steak, I got the chicken alfredo. His meal was as cold as his appetizer. I had a warm spot at the bottom of my alfredo bowl. But the first chunk of chicken I popped into my mouth was half fat. (I apologize to the lady at the next table who just happened to look my way when I was removing it from my mouth in disgust. It was not my intention to gross out anyone else.)

After that, I pushed all the chicken to the side and just ate the very al dente penne pasta.

If the food had been hot and fresh from the kitchen, I probably would say it was about a 3 out of 5. Not spectacular, but not awful. Average in flavour, presentation and portion size. Nothing to write home about.

The atmosphere was decent. Open and airy without excessive noise or music. And the waitress was very good - trying to accomodate us as best she could with regular tea fill-ups and apologizing for things taking so long.

Maybe this is a covid problem of being under staffed in the kitchen or something, but I didn't think the meal was worth what it cost. I am unlikely to give Guy Fieri's another try.

If we go back to Choctaw, we'll try one of the other...

I had eaten at Guy Fieri's several times in the past and it was always really good with great service. My two grown sons came into town to visit. I took my family to Guy Fieri's on 06/22/24. I told my sons that it was a great place to eat. We got to the restaurant early to avoid the crowd so there were not alot of people inside. We got the menu and noticed that it appeared to be smaller than the last time we had eaten there. There were only three appetisers to choose from (there used to be Jalapeno bites wrapped in bacon that was incredible). Three of us ordered bottled beer and asked for mugs to pour them into. The waitress came back with three plastic cups and was carrying the cups by the top with her thumb on the inside on of the cups (YUCK...needless to say we did not use the plastic cups) She stated that they did not have any mugs. The waitress came by one time with a refill for my oldest son (who had ordered a soft drink) and then walked off without checking on anyone else. We did not see our waitress again until the food arrived. We ordered the loaded BBQ french fries as an appetiser and they were good; however, our dinners were not that great. One of my sons ordered the bacon mac and cheese burger and he stated that the mac and cheese was very bland and the bacon was soggy. My other son ordered the prime time american kobe burger and stated that it was ok (but not worth $23). My wife ordered the old skool steak sandwich. The sandwich was really small. She stated that the steak had good flavor but was cold. I ordered the buffalo wings. The wings were pretty good but there were only 7 and it did not come with any other sides (for $20). I am not sure what happened to the menu, food and service but I think if Guy Fieri knew what was going on, he would be disappointed. Unfortunately, I will...