Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen — Restaurant in Gainesville

I want to preface this review by saying that I typically never leave reviews good or bad. However, I have to address what happened at this restaurant today, May 22, 2025.

We had just left my son’s high school graduation at Free Chapel which was less than 10 minutes from the restaurant. I called the restaurant and spoke with Mya. I asked her if she had a table for 7. She said yes she did. She took my name and phone number and said the table would be ready in about 10 minutes. I said that’s fine because it will take us that long to get there.

We arrived about 10 minutes later. I was told that it would take about 10-15 minutes to get my table together. I said why, and was told that they still needed to get the table together. So we sat there and waited for at least 30 minutes. At this point, I am growing inpatient. I asked the hostess what’s taking so long. She told me that they were waiting on a server to arrive. That she was supposed to be there at 5 pm. The hostess was a young girl. She had such an attitude. I asked to speak with the manager. So the hostess walked away to get the manager and threw her hands up in the air as she was walking to the kitchen. The manager on duty came up. She was an African American lady. Come to find out, she was Mya the one that told me that she would have my table ready in 10 minutes. She proceeded to tell me that we don’t take reservations and that there were 2 large groups that walked in a few minutes before we did. She never informed me that they didn’t take reservations on the phone. She took my information, entered it in some system (because I received a notification after we left) and said that they would have my table ready in 10 minutes. She proceeded to tell me that she didn’t want to stretch the existing wait staff to thin. That we could sit down at the table, but there wouldn’t be anyone to wait on us, until the server that was supposed to arrive at 5 pm, who was running late, arrived.

Instead of Mya saying, come sit down, I will get you some drinks, I will wait on you until your server arrives. What abysmal customer service. I was so mad at this point. My family and I walked out, after sitting in the lobby for at least 30 minutes, when our table should have been ready when we walked in the door, and I went and spent several hundred dollars elsewhere. Your manager on duty, Mya, was absolutely horrible, and so was the rude hostess. I don’t even want to speak with the local manager. I will be calling Corporate this week. Here I am, wanting to take my family out for a nice meal to celebrate my son’s graduation, and it turned into a stressful and pathetic...

UPDATE 11/06/2022 They saw my review and sent me a gift card and apology. We went back and tried it again and was very pleased. Our waitress Chrystal was very nice and our side salads were exactly how they are supposed to be! Everything was very good and so much better. Thank you cheddars for making things right.

I'm sad to have to update my previous 5 star review as cheddars has always been our family favorite. However we were extremely disappointed last night. First the wait wasn't too bad as we had a party of 6. After we were seated it took at least 20 minutes for someone to even come to our table. A trainer came to our table and took our drink orders it took a while and we finally got our drinks then she took our order about 15 minutes later and 5 of us ordered a side salad with our meals and only 1 salad had tomatoes none of them had croutons then it took forever to even get our food and a drink refill we only had one refill the entire time we were there. When the food came one steak was completely raw in the center and cold we did order it medium rare However it was beyond even rare. The other two that we order were supposed to be medium which they were rare. My daughter only ordered a bowl of potato soup and it took 30 minutes for then to finally bring it after me asking 3 different times. I understand our waitress was training but someone should have been actually training her! The place was not even busy at all and we saw several waitresses just hanging out playing on their phones in a booth. Our meal was $125 and we ended up leaving most of the food because it was not good. We told the waitress about the salad but they didn't care so we didn't even both mentioning everything else. We were extremely disappointed to know that the place our family use to love had went down...

I’m going to sound like a real dork here, but how did I not know about Cheddar’s? I never heard of that restaurant before we went there. 🥸

Normally chain restaurants are just blah, but this one was really, really good!!! I ordered the 'Bourbon Salmon with Shrimp' and omg…. so freaking delicious!!! 🍤

I got corn as one of the sides, but it’s not as boring as it sounds. The corn is corn-on-the-cob, cut off the cob. 🌽 Sooooo yum!!! 😋

Here are some pros and cons so you can decide if you want to check out this location:

PROS

✅ Very good food, drinks and service! The honey croissants they give you when you first get there are a wonderful, unexpected little extra.

The cocktails are delish. I ordered a watermelon margarita, and it was enormous with a big hunk of watermelon on the side of the glass. 🍉

✅ Super nice atmosphere. They have an extra large fish tank on the wall with all kinds of bright, exotic fish in it. 🐠 The bathrooms are clean, and they actually have hot water at the sink. 🙌

✅ Okay, this is weird, but they have hundreds of absolutely gorgeous, smooth river rocks around the building and parking lot outside. Next time I go, I may or may not take one home with me as a souvenir. (wait, is that allowed?) 🏡

✅ It’s very reasonably priced, and the portions are large. I was expecting our lunch to cost more. 🤑

CONS

✅ We went during the lunch rush, so there was a wait, and it was noisy. I guess other people have also figured out this location is a good one.

✅ It’s cold inside. 🥶 Bring a sweater! We changed tables right after we were seated because my mom could feel the air blowing on her, and she didn’t like that.

This restaurant is about 45 minutes away from my house. If it was closer, I’d go every...