Red Robin Gourmet Burgers and Brews — Restaurant in Fairview Heights

We've gone to a few different Red Robins as we are a military family. We never go with the expectation for 5 star service! It's an excellent burger joint that is almost always at capacity right? It can't always be perfect and we know that We usually go for a casual scene and a reliably good burger.

I'll start off by saying that we went this past Sunday. As we do at most establishments, we bypassed the line to sit at the bar. We've been to RR's where that is not a problem! In fact, it's never been a problem until this visit. Once our waitress greeted us she asked if the front gave us our menu and we explained that we didn't know you had to wait in line to access the bar. We felt genuinely bad and would have happily got up and waited our turn but before we had a chance she unpleasantly went to the hostess to grab our menus. At that point we felt more like a burden than at a corporate establishment that we've visited before.

Next, I used the ladies room. It wreaked of urine and was trashed. I looked past that. But then the soap dispenser was off the mount with it's lid open. There was no other soap to use and no one had any other choice but to dip their hand in a container of soap to wash their hands. I'm talking a container that is meant to be a dispensary. So yes, you are dipping your hands in the same soap everyone uses after they use the restoom. This is how the servers were cleaning their hands after using the restroom 🤢 I do believe that is a sanitary issue.

I will say that our server was a nice girl. However, I think she was overwhelmed and it showed. I felt that she was miserable. I know that my husband tried to let her know the bathroom is out of paper towels (we had no expectations for her to drop everything and goget paper towels). We were just trying to help out what was clearly an already stressful work day. Her response was basically that's not my job but she'll let someone else know...again in an overwhelmed sort of frustrated tone. Here we are giving our earned money to an establishment that can't hear they are out of paper towels without making two patrons feel like a burden...again.

At this point if we hadn't been so hungry we would have left. The same waitress put in an order of bottomless fries bc she noticed we waited a long time for our food. Which was nice and the only reason why I'm giving 3 stars. Once again I will say she was a nice girl but I feel her attitude towards work got in the way of her being able to provide customer service. Another waitress approached us with the wrong fries. When we told her we were waiting on bottomless fries she laughed and walked away. I thought she might help her co-worker and grab them quickly? Nope. We didn't get fries until burger came out.

Overall I would say I'm disappointed. I never went to red Robin for great service but it was unsanitary, stressful, and unpleasant. While there might be genuinely nice ppl working there the corporate expectations of RR were unmet. What makes matter worse is I have a horrible stomach bug 24 hours after eating there..and while I can't pin point where I got it I keep thinking about the conditions of the restaurant and the carelessness of the service combined may have...

Updated Review 2023: I was looking back at old reviews and found this gem. We stopped going to this locations for a couple years and then tried it again. They have improved greatly. We've been a dozen more times and continue to return. So I have updated my ratings to show the improvement. Food is better, drinks are good, service much faster, overall pleasant experience. I would definitely recommend now versus from before.

Old Review from 6yrs ago: Husband ordered the Royal Red Robin Burger and it was partially cold. Server never even asked how he wanted it (he had to bring it up). He had a Signature Silver Patron/Ultimate Margarita and it tasted watered down.

Kids all had pizza with fruit. The pizza was all cold. Like, sitting for awhile cold. Didn't even feel warm in the slightest.

I ordered a Crispy Chicken Burger. Probably the only good that came of our visit. It was warm, but not warm enough to feel like it was just made. I figure my food was the last to finish and then it just sat there as all our food got cold. I ordered a Freckled Lemonade (and so did my middle child) and it was watered down lemonade. Wasn't even red like the drink is suppose to be. Literally looked like water with some strawberries thrown on top. We had our server replace the two drinks and she literally brought back two drinks that looked exactly the same. Very disappointed.

My eldest and youngest had milkshakes which tasted good. Nothing wrong there.

Wait time was a bit long, but nothing unusual for us. Our Server was decent, nothing special. I believe they were understaffed though. Lots of empty tables, which didn't make sense with the long wait time.

We love Red Robin, but this one we will never go back to. We are going to try another one thats a bit further from this one, but...

Let's start by saying it is black Friday so I assumed a wait was going to happen, that's fine, our party of 5 with two small kids, are signed in and texted an approximate wait of ten mins, but the lady at the podium said 20, totally fine it's only 2:25, we get our text at 2:28, we wait. At 2:54 as I'm about to say something sje looks me in the eye clicks a button and I got the text, now she has called out every other name but not ours. Two customers ahead of us got into it with her because she didn't put them down at all. Now I get the text and immediately go to the podium and she says "umm give me a few" looks around aimlessly and then precedes to tell me she had us down as a walk out. We literally sat in front of her 10 feet away the entire time so now we've waited 30 mins and the party of 6 that has waited 5 mins gets called after we are already at the podium. No you know we didn't leave you even looked me in the eye and sent me the text just to tell me I'm a walk out, and then proceed to seat a party of 6. No make them wait and seat us. Nope so after a few shitty comments of her doing her job and stop screwing everyone out of eating while she spent the whole time leaning around and doing nothing while the place was very busy. She could have helped anyone with literally anything. But she's like the rest of the part of this generation that are to lazy to work but that's the only options employers are given anymore. So we left and went to TGI Fridays, and had just as bad of an experience but at least we got to eat. I wrote a review for...