Pete's Steakhouse Tavern — Restaurant in Hamilton Township

My fiance and I "accidentally" found Pete's Steakhouse on our way home from Robert Wood Johnson Hospital. I will admit that when I am hungry (starving! 😁) My fiance says I have a tendency to get "cranky, moody, short tempered, and somewhat nasty". (He is such an Angel using polite words AND for putting up with me AT ALL! 😁) Anyway, he spotted something that looked like a restaurant and quickly pulled in the lot (at approx. 25 MPH!) It turned out to be Pete's Steakhouse! My fiance ordered appetizers immediately, so I could get something in my stomach and have ample time to order without rushing and just ordering a burger. First, the staff was extremely helpful and knowledgeable let alone very polite and the service was efficient and accurate. I'm am a very picky eater and usually only order the same things I always order wherever we go. Burgers, Chicken Parm, Cheesestakes etc....... Well this time my fiance suggested I try a special on the board that has all the things I liked separately, just never had it all mixed together in one entree. Reluctantly, for the first time I ordered a meal I have never eaten ever before, anywhere. IT WAS TRULY TO DATE (and let me just say that I am in my late (late) 40's, IT WAS THE BEST MEAL I EVER ORDERED OUT!!!!!! The prices are great, the portions are large, the staff is polite, knowledgeable of the menu's and specials, attentive, and I didn't even one time have to ask for a refill on our Sodas!!!! This holds true for the more than 15 times we have been there since! We take out of town relatives and guests, friends, work associates, children and other couples to Pete's!!!!! I am NOT someone that writes "reviews", I just had to for this place. The atmosphere is fun, food great, service amazing, we hardly wait from ordering to being served EXACTLY what we ordered. Going there tonight when fiance's patents get here from the far point of South Jersey! So excited. And his parents said if we couldn't go to Pete's then maybe we should drive down to their area (a 2 hour ride) and go to a great restaurant they know of in Cape May N.J. Nope!!!!! P E T E ' S S T E A K H O U S E tonight!!!!!! Yah!!!!!!...

I called to verify that they were making fish & chips tonight and off the bat the girl was rude answering the phone. I called back once I had the whole family's orders written down to place a takeout order and this time the girl was rather nice and very helpful. They had a steak salad on the menu as well as a pear salad, I have some food restrictions due to allergies so I asked for the pear salad with steak on it as I knew everything would be fine for me to eat but also be a substantial amount of food... I was told "no, just order the steak salad". I ordered the steak salad and figured I'd just pick out what I couldn't eat. We drove about 25 minutes to pick up, waited and waited when we got there, no greeting from any of the staff, get the food and take it home. I open the salad container, take a bite of salad with a piece of steak and it was fat... 95% of the steak on that salad was just fat. I called over to ask about it and was abruptly told "come back and I'll make you a new one" I refused to make the drive again. The owner then chimed in from the back.. another one with no personality. Between the owner and the girl on the phone I was told the following: -He can't talk, he's cooking tonight. I asked if he thought it was acceptable to have cooked that himself and sent that garbage out? -We don't look at the steak like that, we just cook it and send it out. Ummmm what? -Listen, I'm not trying to be rude but we're really busy. Ok and well you are rude and so is the owner and if you're too busy to put effort into take out customers food then maybe you should not accept those orders. -The owner said to give you a free steak salad next time you come in. There likely won't be a next time but in the event that I choose to do that how's he going to know it's me, you've not asked for any details.

We're done here for quite a while... their staff is always rude, but the food is generally okay and the pricing is decent but at this point I'd rather give my business to someone local that actually appreciates their customers and prepares edible food... that was straight up garbage and...

Let me first say - putting the following unfortunate experience aside – I love Pete’s Steak House for dinner – the specials are delicious, the prices are great and the atmosphere is festive.

However - yesterday August 5, 2022 me and my partner stopped in to Pete’s Steak House for lunch. We both ordered Eggplant Parmesan Sandwiches and we were going to share a side of fries.

Let me describe in detail the Eggplant Parmesan Sandwiches that we were presented with. On each plate was a 12 inch loaf of Italian bread – which was cut in half and cut open. It actually appeared to be nothing more then a loaf of Italian bread – but if you opened the bread – what you saw was an oblong – breaded piece of eggplant – one on each half of the loaf of bread. Yes there was a drop of red sauce on each piece of eggplant – but not enough to cover all of the bread crumbs on each piece. Yes I could actually see in part a breaded piece of eggplant. Honestly I can not remember if there was any mozzarella cheese – but there had to be some. The sandwich just looked dry and – well a loaf of bread with bread crumbs.

As a side note Pete Steak House occasionally employee’s waitresses that eat nails and drink drano and unfortunately we had one on this day.

When we said the sandwiches were not acceptable – she said –I didn’t make the sandwich, that is the way it comes, you guys do this every time you come in here. She took the sandwiches and stormed into the kitchen – as you heard her yelling to the cook – they don’t want the F**king sandwiches. Mind you this played out in front of 10 or 12 other customers – who heard her cursing from behind the kitchen door.

We paid for our drinks and left – When is Pete's Steak House going to get rid of these dinosaurs?

UPDATE

I recently went to another local resturant and once again ordered an Eggplant Hero - Let me show you what a good hero looks like - now to be honest I would have settled for half of what this sandwich looks...