Idaho's Rib & Chop House - Idaho Falls — Restaurant in Idaho Falls

I'm a frequent traveler for my job. I despise chain restaurants but absolutely adore Rib & Chop House. I typically get dinner in various cities like Billings, Casper, Cheyenne, Bozeman but recently noticed one opened in Idaho Falls. Because I don't overnight here as it's in my back yard, I decided to give it a try for lunch as I keep hearing what a great lunch they have. I arrived about 11:15 a.m. There was one person sitting on the patio and one at the bar, that was it. So it wasn't busy. I first visited the washroom to wash my hands and there were two employees in there clearly "gossiping or crabbing" about something who I surprised when I entered and clearly was an annoyance to break up their chat session. When I washed my hands, one soap dispenser was without soap so they definitely weren't in there making sure the washroom was ready for a busy lunch. I returned to my table and ordered the blackened salmon Caesar salad. It took about 25 minutes to arrive ... crazy long time for a salad when the restaurant was literally dead. In the meantime, a couple gentlemen came in and so the bar seating now had about 5 men and me (I was at a table, a couple of them were at the bar and a couple more at another table). My salad arrived and the salmon wasn't remotely blackened so I asked and the waitress said "oh, it's not really blackened, it's just a seasoning ..." Um... no, blackened salmon is blackened by searing a seasoned salmon steak ... but ok, whatever. I tried it. The salmon was truly cooked perfectly, medium rare. The Caesar salad was great ... but the salmon had almost no flavor. Definitely not the Cajun style seasoning that should be on a blackened salmon dish. I was and remain very disappointed in that as I chose it because I wanted something spicy. The waitress checked back on me only once and dropped the ticket ... then went back to chatting with the fellows at the bartop and ignored me. I finally had to get up and take my credit card and receipt over and ask to be cashed out as I'm in the middle of my business day and not able to lounge about forever waiting on her to finish flirting. I do love Rib & Chop House. Their food has always been outstanding. But the manager of this location needs to do a little work on training staff to make sure customers (even the business women dining alone) get the attention they should get and that the washroom is properly supplied and that their Blackened Salmon resembles what one expects from Blackened Salmon. Otherwise, a...

We enjoyed our meal, had a good time! Joe was our server and he said he’s a newbie but he’s doing great. We made reservations for 7p on a Saturday for a birthday, the reservations were probably unnecessary. It was moderately busy but there was no wait. I would have liked a better table next to a window. I should have asked, so that’s my fault. We were seating in a hallway type area next to the kitchen door. Weird when we made reservations, usually you get a decent table.

We started out with a Pain Killer for the birthday boy (delicious) and an Old Fashion for me (boozy, perfectly sweet, cherry was a bit old and wrinkled, correctly expressed orange peel), and the Boudin Balls. The Boudin Balls were the highlight of our meal. Crispy on the outside, soft and flavorful inside with a tiny kick of heat. The mustard remoulade was the perfect accompaniment. No plates were served for appetizers and we had to ask for silverware. Salads next, and they were salads, nothing super exciting aside from the blue cheese dressing which was awesome. I love big old hunks of cheese and they delivered.

We shared the Cote de Bouef and were disappointed, but it wasn’t the worst steak we’ve had. The char on the outside was too much, probably 1/4” of pure black inedible charcoal. It was criminally under-seasoned (we asked for steak sauce 😂), but maybe the seasoning was incinerated during the cooking process? The internal temp was good on site when it came to the table and this is where the real issues start. They steak was placed on a smoking hot pan table side and cooked more, then the plates we were given to eat off were also smoking hot. Unnecessarily hot. It was insane. So hot they continued cooking the steak, I make no exaggerations here. Soooo, by the time we ate the steak it was medium well, some pieces well done. Eew. This whole process also made the table really greasy and messy for the rest of our meal. Learned our lesson there, next time skip the Cote de Bouef. Garlic mashed were great, although zero garlic was used in the making of those. At least not any we could detect.

We shared a free dessert for the birthday boy. He chose the peanut butter pie and it was lovely, we devoured it. We will go back for sure, there’s a lot of menu items I...

We have been here twice, ordering apps, mains, and drinks.

Drinks were fine. House wine overpriced and small pours. Microbrews were well priced.

We had fried green tomatoes (amazing) and crab stuffed mushrooms (really good). If I were going out for apps and drinks on the patio in the summer, this would be a great place.

Mains. Sirloin was ordered medium rare: well done. We didn't finish it. It seemed like an overcooked, over seasoned, cheap piece of meat. Lobster tail was excellent but needed lemon and salt. Snapper was fishy. Maybe old.

Sides. Baked potato was everything an Idaho native could want. Fluffy and fresh and huge. We only managed half. Green beans had been piled next to the snapper and tasty fishy since the snapper tasted old. Not good.

We came back for a second time because they sent us a $50 gift card for their 25th anniversary. Our $112 meal was $62. It was worth $62. The steak and salad were obviously cheap, but that could have been covered by good service. They did not have a table for our 5:45 reservation. We were seated at 6:00 and the table had baked potato smeared on the chairs. My husband moved them around so I had a clean place to sit and no one noticed or asked if there was a problem. The waitress didn't know the beers on tap and told my husband to go look. Um, this is the most expensive restaurant in Idaho Falls. You should know the beers on tap. Even the cheap dive bars know that.

Finally, I think the staff was demoralized from the gift card plan. The restaurant wanted to drum up business using the $50 card because of the anniversary but people didn't tip on the total. The result was a waitress who didn't bother to provide the beer list, didn't stay to see if the steak was properly cooked (it wasn't), and had to be flagged down to get a second glass of wine. The staff had checked out.

Will we return? No. Smokin Fins is ten yards away with cheaper wine, equally good apps, better entrees, and most importantly staff that wants to create a good...