Sam's Steakhouse — Restaurant in Grantwood Village

It pains me to write this review because my family has LOVED Sam's and in particular my son. He has opted to celebrate all his recent milestones with dinner at Sam's--confirmation, eighth grade graduation and his 16th birthday last night. We have never had a bad experience at Sam's--it has been one wonderful dinner after another until last night. I waited until today to write this review because I didn't want to be reactive or rash, but the experience still bothers me a great deal today. Last night was my son's 16th birthday and we arrived to Sam's straight from school, work and practice as that was the only time we had to get together, so a couple of us were more casually dressed than usual for a special dinner out. My daughter goes to high school across the street from Sam's and unexpectedly was able to join us for dinner when her practice ended early, but she had to come straight from practice and was dressed like a 14 year old coming from practice. No one was more uncomfortable about that than her. While I do not know if our server treated us so poorly because of how my daughter was dressed, I am suspicious because he treated tables around us with more kindness and respect. When the server approached our table, he said "what do you want to drink?" and walked away before we could order an appetizer. He didn't introduce himself or say anything about specials. He dropped our drinks off wordlessly. He didn't return to our table for another 20 minutes and said "what do you want to order for dinner?" and I replied "we were hoping to order an appetizer" and he said "whatever you need", took the order and walked away. All this time I was holding four menus and a wine list on my lap because our table was too tiny to hold them once drinks and bread arrived. He wordlessly dropped off the appetizer and returned a couple minutes later and said "when will you be ready to order dinner?" and I told him we were ready whenever he was. At this point, he seemed to sense that I was unhappy and became marginally nicer. However, when our food came out, things were incorrect. My mother-in-law was given my daughter's medium rare steak and my daughter given her medium well steak. My daughter was eating her potato first, so we didn't realize until her Grandma had already eaten half the medium rare steak (it was dark). My son had a sweet potato and didn't get any cinnamon and sugar mixture for it. We realized after we were done eating that it had been on my daughter's plate and she hadn't noticed it. We never had the opportunity to tell our server about the mix up with the meals because he never came back to check on us until we were done eating. My children are adolescents and they still understood the server's behavior was not appropriate towards our family, but they were polite and respectful to him every time. I still tipped our server 20% as I understand it is his living and he has others to tip, but would have loved to tip him more for a great experience. My son doesn't get to celebrate with family and friends until this weekend since his birthday was on a school night, so I had hoped last night's dinner could be special despite being on a school night. I'm just sad about it because you don't get time or experiences back and the dinner for his 16th birthday at his favorite special restaurant was ruined by one grown man treating his...

We ate here last night for our 11th year wedding Anniversary and had been looking so forward to eating here again as it had been a couple years. The atmosphere and vibe immediately felt very subpar as we entered at least compared to last few times. The service wasn’t equivalent to that of a $50+ per entree restaurant. We didn’t get so much as a Happy Anniversary after sharing with our server. One expects a little pizazz when you choose to celebrate a special event with them especially at a restaurant of this caliber. None of this really mattered much as we were so excited for what was to come after having experienced Sam’s deliciousness several times before. The subpar service continued, when the bread came I asked the bus boy if they had olive oil he sighed and said I have know idea and he obviously had no intention of finding out. My husband and I both worked in the service industry at a variety of restaurants from $80 entrees to $5/10 entrees so we’re fairly lenient and understanding but regardless I would always meet the customers requests if at all possible when asked if they needed anything else or find someone that could. Again, at a restaurant of this level you expect a certain kind of service and Sam’s was severely lacking. Still we were too excited for our coming steak, lobster, potatoes, and asparagus to care much. Then the tiniest, tasteless asparagus were set on the table... wah wah! Seriously they were so sad looking. I wouldn’t even have put these on the menu. I would have created a bisque or pasta special of sorts to use up these embarrassing asparagus. The lobster was decent as was the steak but it was lacking in quality from times before and still wasn’t as phenomenal as we expected and the potato was huge but also lacked in taste compared to years before. To top the night off we felt rushed out by this bus boy who boxed up a partial meal for us. I kept thinking he would come back to get the rest but he handed me a bag and grabbed the rest luckily I said I’m planning to box this up too. So he set it back down and I proceeded to box the rest myself. Needless to say we will not be celebrating anymore special occasions with Sam’s no more large bday groups or even a date night. It was not even close to worth the $150 pre tip check. This all could’ve been salvaged with exceptional customer service. Though I’m not sure what happen to the incredible food they use to do to perfection. I will say the drinks were pretty incredible so the bartender is currently Sam’s saving grace! I don’t understand how a restaurant can justify this pricing when the quality has decreased to a $15ish entree level. A huge disappointment definitely felt duped this time. Not a great feeling on a...

Normally, I’d rave about the quality of food, the excellent service, and the general warm atmosphere that I’ve come to associate with Sam’s. Unfortunately tonight, I didn’t get to have the dinner I ordered, and the service (specifically from the server, everyone else was amazing as usual) was non-existent.

I arrived at 6:15, ordered dinner at 6:30, and at 8:00 a table that arrived 25 minutes after me had their dinner, and I was without an acknowledgement from the server that my food would arrive shortly. I gave it ten minutes, then with still no idea when I might expect the steak I’d ordered, asked to pay for what I’d received, and left.

I appreciate that no excuses were made by the manager, and he refused to take any payment for what I’d had to that point, and the rest of the staff seemed genuinely shocked. That said, when I go out expecting to pay $200+ for dinner, there is an expectation in quality of service I associate with that, and that wasn’t met tonight. If I ever go back and receive a great experience, I’ll write a new review espousing how excellent Sam’s is. Until then, it’s one star from me. Yes, I’m frustrated, but businesses require accountability to improve. This is mine.

Update: So, Mark reaches out and we had a conversation about where the service broke down and all I asked was that he coach the server so no one else had my experience. Not to get on a soap box, but higher end restaurants know not only the quality of the food matters, but the experience must be on par as well. I didn’t ask or want any type of compensation (I honestly feel bad I wasn’t able to pay for what I had that night) but he sent a certificate for a free dinner. Somehow, I hope I can repay the kindness, but I’m confident the next meal will be the normal, incredible experience I’m used to....