Buddies Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Hammond

I am embarrassed that I recommended this place to my family who were in from out of town. We have been a handful of times before, and service is normally slow- so we expect that. But last night we were told the wait was 45 minutes. We waited an hour and half. We were then sat 30 minutes before they closed, and tried to order. “Tried” being the operative word; they were out of almost everything; from appetizers to entrees to sides. The food took an even longer time to come out, and when it did - it was extremely average. We were forced to get mac n cheese as a side due to the other sides being sold out. I highly recommend you never order this. It was awful and we sent them all back. No one at the table could eat it. All of this to say, we normally like the food yes. But last night was a huge disappointment and fairly embarrassing. I’m not sure if understaffing was the issue... However, Buddies is the only nice restaurant in town open on a Monday. I can only hope that next time they are overwhelmed they let everyone know ahead of time that they are sold out of the majority of items and the wait will be astronomical. We would’ve appreciated that truth and been happy to go somewhere else that could give us the experience we were looking for. Side note: our server himself is the only thing that saved the night. He was a great server but I don’t...

Must have been a bad night. Was told about this resturant from some local Hammond residents and reviews were awesome, so we had to go. Went on a Thursday when they have steak specials so we thought it'd be a great time to see how good the steaks were. We are full time RV travelers and have visited steak houses all over the US. The atmosphere was great even under these covid restrictions. Drinks were great as was the bread and appetizers we ordered, but our mission was for a great steak. My wife ordered shrimp and Our friend and I ordered our steaks med rare....my favorite. The salad and potatoes were very good, but that steak was by far the worse steak I had ever had. The middle of the steak was a perfect medium rare however; the outside of the steak was burnt and the burn taste overwhelmed the taste of the inside. I normally don't say anything so I ate all but about 5 pieces that were just too burnt on the outer side. At the end of the meal the waitress (who was very good) asked how our meal was and I had to let her know. I didn't want any compensation but feedback to the cook was important. With my years of cooking steak it appeared he had the heat of the grill to high causing the burn. Needles to say...we were very disappointed and would not recommend this place for...

Coming here for well over 6 years, and i have never had an issue with service, nor the food. Tonight I can say without a doubt that has changed. While I understand that servers may be overwhelmed with their tables (if understaffed, and i do not know if they have that issue) service time is key. The fact that a manager had to step in to take our order isnt great, but isnt a big deal, and shows that they at the very least, have good management.

Then comes the food. Yes, we all ordered steaks (aside from one Ahi Tuna order). 2 of the 5 steaks were ordered Rare (assuming they would over cook them, order shy as a precaution), 2 were Med-rare and the 5th was Medium. ALL the food came out cold, and one had to be sent back for being under cooked. To follow this, the 2 rare steaks? cold...understandable right? Until i got to a point where it was so under cooked that i couldnt eat it, the fat wasnt even rendered (the marbling was still visible) telling me it never even got warm enough to render the fat. I didnt make a big fuss in the restaraunt, as thats just not right, but i did inform the manager on duty. All Im asking is that yall do better.. we love the establishment, and we will be coming back, but please..do better. No single table spending over $450 on dinner should get cold...