Outback Steakhouse — Restaurant in Jacksonville

I usually don't blast an establishment that over the years has become my favorite. I have been a general manager of 2 Outback Steak houses in the past..So here goes. My wife has just came to the States and she's never had Prime Rib, Outback has always been a great place for consistent "no surpizes" Prime Rib. We arrived a out 4:50pm was greeted by a lovely hostess the place had maybe 8 seated booths/tables at the time. The hostess grabbed a couple of rags went into the bar area and had to clean a table for us to sit. I thought no big deal maybe the only server they had available was in bar area. So we were led to our table, it was 15 minutes before we were ever greeted by our server, the table that was next to us had a server, I guess he was serving regulars and was having a 15 minute conversation on how he liked to make pizza ( we heard every word) while being completely ignored. Finally we were greeted by our server. We made our full order , appetizers, salad and entree + drinks. A few moments later our food arrived -. all of it !!! The appetizer which was great, our entrees at the same time then our salads after the entrees. So we're sitting with a complete table full of food. We decided to get a to go box for the appetizer and started our salads. Ceasars, the lettuce was water soaked with a tablespoon of dressing dumped on the side of the bowl, then to the Prime Rib, my only thought was that it had to be last night's leftovers ,reblasted and reheated. Now med-rare Primes are always a little more "chewy" than their Steak counterparts, but you actually had to saw these things apart. My wife could not cut hers. They were apparently close to the center, but the quality of meat was horrible. What a first impression for my wife to have on her first taste of Prime Rib, just now forgot we ask for horseradish and never got it, nor was our drinks every refilled or did the server ever come back and check on things. Bad training, bad management, bad food prep, complete lack of product knowledge. IF your ever in Hot Springs Arkansas, go to the Outback there or the one in Conway, those folks have pride in their work and will show you how its done !!! NOT THIS PLACE!! ...

Hmmm there isn’t much I will say great about this place. In general this particular location is dying and I can see why. It’s never busy so you won’t have to wait to get a spot, but I suspect there is potential with food waste. I walked in at 4 pm on a Sunday for service. First it took a long time to get greeted and a menu by the bar. In fact one of the people was sitting there and started to chat with me asking me how I was doing, my answer: hungry. I had just finished working all day at the hospital. The side salad came out and I needed a microscope to see where the dressing was. Ok finally my 16.99 chicken tenders! Yup that’s right $17 for nothing special chicken tenders. I was served a loaded potato with a black spot that as you dug into it the dead spot was bigger and bigger. When I brought this to the attention of the bar / server he did switch it out which they did switch it out. I asked the manager to come by and I showed her the pictures. She seemed to have no concern that her kitchen had any problems with serving that to their guests. She explained that potatoes have spots on it. I totally get that, but to be serve that and expected that I should eat that or eat around it, or that my appetite would not be curved by the sight of what I found is appalling. I have no questions as to why this place is always empty nor should the owner, manager doesn’t care and accepts this by the kitchen. I showed her the pics and said just so you know what will be put on your review and she said okay and walked away. No way in hell if I was starving would I eat here...

Server greeted us promptly. Got drinks quickly and then ordered shortly after. Took probably 10 minutes or more to get 1 Caesar salad and it was delivered by another server. Drinks refilled by that same server. Entrees delivered by a different server. Original server comes back to ask how everything was, fortunately food was on point, otherwise we probably wouldn’t have gotten it back for another 10+ minutes. We finished eating and left my card on the table waiting to get cashed out for another few minutes until the original server finally came back. (Keep in mind we finished dinner around 1 hour prior to close and most tables were cleaning up or empty)

I also don’t really like the way they take payments at the table, especially after I felt my original server didn’t really do a whole lot in comparison to the other 2 guys who were refilling our drinks, delivering food etc. she brings me a card reader and just flat out says “and if you just wanna add your tip” or something of that nature, and stands there watching you since you HAVE to add the tip, PRIOR to the server running the card! Are you supposed to just stand there to pressure me into tipping more, even if I felt like I got bad service?

To be completely blunt the experience at the end felt like a situation at traffic light where someone walks up and down at a traffic light or stands at your window until you give them food or money. This part doesn’t just apply to my server but that process in general...