LongHorn Steakhouse — Restaurant in Florida

My family and I visited here the evening before Valentine's day, as a bit of an early celebration---We hadn't gone out to eat for months due to COVID, but were so desperate for a good steakhouse experience that we put ourselves out there. Boy did we pick the wrong place.

We were seated very quickly, which is one reason this isn't a single-star review. The waitress that helped us was also very attentive. The good notes end about there.

We put in orders for drinks and appetizers, and our waitress delivered silverware. Shortly thereafter appetizers and plates for them arrived, and we opened our silverware to enjoy. It was then that we noticed how nasty almost every piece of silverware was---Greasy and smudgy like it hadn't been washed thoroughly. I've worked in the restaurant industry, and I can tell the difference between hard water spotting and stuff that just isn't clean... And this silverware was some of the worst i've seen. My wife and kids, recently so excited to finally be having a night out, were visibly uncomfortable. We then looked at the appetizer plates. 4 out of the 5 were disgusting as well---With greasy smudges and food particles on some. We called the waitress over and asked for a manager at that point. The manager arrived in due course, mentioned a couple of times 'I assure you everything is put through the washer three times' while inspecting the plates and silverware, saying it wasn't acceptable... She offered a half-hearted apology and asked if we wanted to stay. We were still somewhat on the fence, since we'd gone through the trouble of getting there and were really looking forward to a good steak. We told her we'd talk things over if she could give us a minute and she left. Bear in mind even though we were starving and the appetizers were sitting right in front of us, nobody at our table (that included three teenagers) had touched so much as a bite... Meanwhile my wife and I's drink order arrived, and as we talked it over I noticed a great big lipstick print on my wine glass. That, coupled with the tepid response from the manager, was the last straw. My wife was so uncomfortable she didn't want to wait another minute, I got up to flag the manager down and she came over. We quickly explained that we were going to leave, and left right then. My wife and kids were visibly upset from the experience---It's stressful enough to have a negative experience like this, but coming off of a solid year of COVID lockdown made it all the more traumatizing. You'd think restaurants were hurting enough from COVID restrictions to make sure they do their part to put their clients' minds at rest regarding cleanliness and sanitization, but this experience speaks otherwise. We won't be back to this location. But we'll also probably just go to another chain nearby, since we aren't tied to Longhorn...

It's too bad, too---My wife and I had been here a number of times before, even though it had been a couple of years. The experience previously was in stark contrast to this. We had great service, and an amazing meal every time. I don't know what's happened since, but this is the only time we can remember walking out of a restaurant like that... It's been at least 20 years.

Just a tip. As a manager, it's your job not only to make sure the dishwashers, cleaning crew, all the way down to the people polishing silverware and rolling it are doing their jobs... It's also your job to read the situation and take quick, decisive action once you're shown how badly your staff have failed at the task they're given. My family wasn't expecting money thrown at us or to be comped the meal or anything, but a little assurance that management would make things right would have gone a very long way. Instead, what we got was along the lines of, "Yeah, this is dirty...Whaddya want ME to do about it?" Guess that explains why cleanliness has slid so far in just a couple of years... If the management don't really care, the staff...

To be honest, not the best. To start after our order was taken, maybe 10-15 minutes later the waitress comes and takes our order again saying she lost the other paper with our order indicating nothing had been started, not that bad, I'm patient. We got a starter bread with butter, which might have been the best thing there! But I love bread. I got a new York strip steak with fries, my son got the children's Mac and cheese with fries and my girlfriend got grilled shrimp over rice with fries, both adult meals came with Ceasars salads . The waitress was bad. To start, only my salad was brought out, but not the other. My salad was soggy and a little warmer than a fresh salad. Not appealing. As I finished my salad and never saw our waitress but we seen multiple other waitresses walk out multiple salads, I finally stopped another waitress to get our other salad, she walks around the corner and 2 seconds later gets our 2nd salad, awesome. Her salad was fine. Just as she finishes her salad, our food comes out. The waitress mistakenly subbed my fries for Mac and cheese with bacon, and completely missed my Lil ones meal entirely, so I immediately asked the waitress that just sat the food, (which is not the waitress that was serving our table). She apologizes and corrects the meal, shortly bringing the fries and kids meal. I assume who was the manager apologized and refreshed our drinks. That all went good, I thank them. Which while all this was done, our waitress has not been seen. Maybe 5 minutes later she comes over to see how things are and starts to ask for drinks but then sees someone else has filled our drinks then walks away. We did not leave a tip because we felt the server did not do an adequate job to receive one. A tip is for above an beyond, your paycheck is for the bare minimum. Just saying. For the meals, both Mac and cheeses were pretty damn good. One was a classic, another was with Alfredo sauce and bacon bits. The fries, were fries. My steak was okay, pretty plain as flavour goes for a 22 dollar steak and it was also a little dry. A1 sauce is my buddy. The grilled shrimp was pretty good but was served warm to the touch and very slightly cooled on the inside, concerning for seafood. The rice underneath was pretty bad. Soggy mushing consistency, had minor veggies in the rice but was very bland. Overall with the price paid of almost $60.00, I would not come back for a family meal. Maybe...

Very poor experience from beginning to end! It's no surprise why they were the less busy of all of the restaurants in the area. Upon arrival, they did not appear to be busy at all yet on a 35-45 min wait. While waiting there were numerous people who came in to check why their waiting time had passed and they still had not been seated. They were told they were still in line and they would be contacted when their table was ready. There was a family in the waiting area and a host told them that they had to wait outside or in their car because they needed to be 6 ft away from the hostess stand, they walked out and left. When we were finally seated, there were no tables sat around us and the host made the comment " We are 50% because our managers got sick and we have to keep a 6ft distance between tables". Our server took our order, had someone else bring bread and we saw her one other time to ask if we wanted refills and if we needed anything else before we had to ask for the check. We only saw her to ask for the check due to another off the clock employee came in to eat and she wanted him to sit at her table and sat him directly across from us where then 8-10 employees gathered right across from us. Another family of 4 was then sat directly behind that table. This restaurant is clearly ran very poorly! Will be calling to try to talk to a manager if they all aren't out sick and...