Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen — Restaurant in Indianapolis

Not impressed at all. The Manager lied to me, the manager spilt a drink on my girlfriend and didn’t come back to clean it up. Saturday July 5th me and my family thought it would be considerate to call ahead by almost 3 hours to let them know we were bringing a big party, we called again when we were 30 minutes out to give them a heads up once more. Both calls I was assured that we’d be sat a table big enough for our party. We arrived at the restaurant and to our delight both tables that sat 10+ were available. We were told they were first come first serve so it was perfect timing.

Well when we were being seated the manager told us we couldn’t sit there after I was told twice on the phone we could… the reasoning you may ask??? The manager said that there were two parties coming that had wheelchairs and if we did not allow them to sit in those tables, we would be breaking up the families with wheelchairs and making it harder for their accessibility... So yes this sounds like a more then acceptable reason, so we broke out family up to sit in two booths that weren’t next to each other and didn’t get to eat with each other, because we obviously didn’t want to take the accessibility away from the disabled. This sucked especially since the reason we were going out to dinner in the first place was to get to know my sisters boyfriend who we were all taking out to eat, from ENGLAND.

Turns out, the manager lied. 10 minutes later both tables were sat down and neither table included a wheel chair or person of disability. I confronted the manager about it and he then told me it wasn’t because of wheelchairs, but because he didn’t have a server for those tables at the time, (the tables were directly across from our booth, and would have not been difficult for a waitress to cover us instead of the booths, and it was literally 10 minutes, we hadn’t even had our drinks delivered to us)

So not only did the manager lie to me, but he tried to GUILT US into not requesting the tables we were promised because he was too lazy to reorder the servers assignments when the evening shift servers showed up 10 minutes later…. Plus he spilt a drink on my girlfriend and didn’t clean it up, my girlfriend ordered a drink without the nutmeg and it came with the very thing she asked for it to not have, nutmeg. My steak that I ordered was well done even though I asked for medium.

Overall I would say next time the manager should not lie to a party just because he was being lazy and didn’t want to switch the servers tables. Especially using persons of disability to excuse your behavior. And then not even admitting to your lie after the fact.

I can confidentially say that is the first time I have ever experienced an establishment with such unprofessionalism and lazy management that they used fake persons of disability to excuse their laziness. If I could give rating on the manager I would. Instead the service is taking the hit.

Let me conclude this with the server did everything she could to appease us in the moment, she offered us those tables but obviously we weren’t going to accept them under the impression someone in wheelchairs were going to need them. She did her job the best she could under the circumstance that the manger put her in. I genuinely still can’t believe we were lied to about people in wheel chairs because of a managers bad work ethic. I’ll never eat there again, and most definitely will not be recommending it to anyone else who asks about it.

What a great introduction to American culture to our friend from England… lazy, deceitful, and unprofessional…...

In my many years of management and training I can only identify a couple dozen experiences that were so overwhelmingly positive that it affected my sleep.

I told the manager at the Cheddar’s restaurant last evening that he was a lucky man. What I wished I had also said, was how clear it was that he was at least part of the source of his own luck. His every observed conversation reflected his respect for each employee, an encouragement, an acknowledgment of their participation in their role.

Customers were 40 deep at times standing in the entryway, waiting for tables! Singles, to 17 people parties, waiting for a table. If that makes you think twice about heading to Cheddars on a Saturday night, I get it. Honestly, my first impression for my own group of 10 was just slightly better than hopeless when I first arrived. I am glad we stayed.

Why? We had a good meal, with attentive service, from the time we began standing in that hoard until it was time to go. And we walked out past an only slightly smaller hoard at nearly 9PM.

What made the difference? This perspective is as much for those working at Cheddar’s last evening, as it is for regular review readers.

If I had to compare the entire staff at that restaurant to anything, it would be to a hard working, hard playing, young basketball team being challenged by their opponents, and meeting that challenge head on. They won their evening. It has been forever since I was at a restaurant that had everyone moving, everyone engaged, everyone making a difference. Our waitstaff had to deliver massive food to a table for 10. There were many large tables. I don’t recall seeing any one person struggle. At times it was 3 servers arriving to make deliveries; not just at our table.

They worked hard. And they were friendly. Patient. Attentive. Efficient. Nothing wrong with ten orders at our table!

But let’s add the value of a smile.

The hostesses managed their crowd with incredibly positive attitudes and a smile for everyone. Need another smile? “No problem, we do that.”, seemed to be their response. Nothing artificial in those expressions. No fatigue. No frustration. Trust me when I say my group is anything but “easy”. I saw no frustration. Being treated as well as we were, generated a calm, patient customer crowd. Not just my group. I watched 100 people move through the process. No tempers. Nothing but patience. Amazing. Absolutely amazing.

I remarked to one person at our table that I could not imagine the pace in the kitchen. They had to be firing on all cylinders as well. Clean plates and glasses could have been casualties. But those were handled just as well. Way to go!

I’ll bet when the employees get ready to come to work before a night like that they know they will be exhausted at the days end. And I’ll bet that their families think that they “just work at a restaurant”. They should tell their families that they work with a group of people to make their restaurant hum. It is no ordinary restaurant with no ordinary restaurant jobs or ordinary people. Lots of reasons to be proud of their work.

Obviously, I was impressed. I routinely told my children that their work experiences should mean more than just their paycheck. I have no doubt that if they take a moment to acknowledge their success and the source in their efforts, hang on to that. It will serve you well.

As we departed one of those hostesses was cleaning the glass door. She said “goodnight, thank you for coming’. Impressive from...

I went here about a week ago for my birthday. My family and friends also came, so we had a party of 10. My husband has called in advance for a table of 16 for 5pm They never asked for his first name, or verified any info. So when we got there at 5 and he told the hostess our name, they said they couldn't find it. The name they had wasn't even close to our last name. So they said we couldn't take that table, we had to go somewhere else. Even though we said we did a rezo for 16@5pm. Thankfully, there were only 10 of us in the end, but we got squeezed at an 8 top, which was not comfortable. Now mind you, I was a server for around 10 years and so I have sympathy for this industry. I ordered a margarita with our appetizer order which wasn't until 520ish. My margarite came about 10-15 minutes later by the bartender, not our server. By then I'm sure the asst. manager realized that we were indeed the 16 top, because "the other people" never showed up. We didn't get an apology. We finally ordered our dinner around 540pm. We did not have our appetizers when dinner came out, which was almost an hour since we'd arrived! It was a Saturday night, but it was not that busy. Our appetizers finally came after we started eating. The manager brought them a d apolodized and said she'd take them off the check. By then, those of us that had steak had to send it back to get recooked. Those of us that wanted a rarer steak, got over cooked and those that wanted more well done, they received under cooked. My husband ended up giving his steak back after 2 tries and said he wanted it taken off the check. The server was ok I suppose, but she was a little snippy when asked where our appetizers were and had difficulty refilling our drinks, etc. I think the whole dinner could have gone a little better if management would have apologized for the reservation mistake, instead of letting us think we were in the wrong. We did have a manager come by the table towards the end of the meal and said we got a 10% discount off our check for inconvenience. Really, one of the main reasons I'm posting this review, is because I think management could have done a whole lot better in making us feel better about the dinner. Our checks came out and those were messed up too, with food on the wrong check and apps/meals still on the check that should have been deleted. It was just one mistake after another the whole time. Like I said, I was a server for a long time and I understand things can happen in the restaurant business, but this time, management did not seem that apologetic and it felt like they just wanted us to finish and leave. They knew it was a birthday dinner for me, and we weren't offered desserts at all, before we were finished eating our checks came and we had to deal with all that before leaving. It was about 645pm by the time we left and instead of feeling happy and carefree, we felt upset and frustrated. Just, with everything that happened, management could have done a way better job of making us feel better before we left...