Chophouse 101 — Restaurant in Kannapolis

My wife and I so badly want this place to do well, since we are both native and local to the area. With that being said, we visited last night with our 10 year old son.

Our family has had the benefit of a ton of travel throughout the USA and we've dined at some great places through the years, so we are not stuck eating just in our area and we've been exposed to some really good steaks and chops and food overall through the years. I preface this first to let people know who are reading this review, that this type of food may be decent or good to some people who have never experienced really high end food before. That wasn't the case for us here.

That being said, we've frequented Epic Chophouse in Mooresville quite a few times through the years and have always had pretty stellar food and service. Since this restaurant is calling itself a chophouse, we expected it to be similar in food options and taste. Boy were we wrong.

We were greeted with a a warm welcome at 5.15 and sat right away (as we had called earlier to book reservations but they were full starting at 6). Waitress was nice and attentive but the food went downhill from there.

We got our order placed pretty quickly and the salad was brought out. Very small portion of salad but it was tasty. The waitress then brought us bread and we were shocked at the type of bread they brought out. It looked & tasted like some cheap dinner rolls from Food Lion or Aldi's. THEY WERE HORRIBLE!! We had expected at least something similar with the bread as to Logan's or Long Horn and that was not the case by far.

My wife ordered the Creamy Penne Pasta w/no meat. It was horrible. It tasted like a frozen meal that had been heated in a microwave. We score that meal a -1 if we could rate that low.

We ordered our son a 9 oz Sirloin cooked medium and it was decent. The quality of meat though for the price we paid, was well below par and very grainy tasting. We score that steak a 3 out of 5.

I ordered the half rack of ribs and grilled chicken breast with garlic mashed potatoes. The ribs were very dry and only luke warm (like they had been cooked for hours before and sitting in a warmer) with very little sauce on them. The grilled chicken was very odd. It was a flat piece of chicken breast (which I had never seen before) and it definitely tasted like it was pulled out of a freezer bag and thrown on the grill. It tasted very processed although it was hot. The garlic mashed potatoes were as dry as a West Texas dust storm and cold. I would rate this plate a 1 out of 5.

Final word here from us, The food was definitely over priced for the quality. We do believe in & want to support local very strongly, but we will more than likely not be back unless they correct a lot of issues. I don't see this restaurant making it very long unless the locals will accept poor quality food and be happy with that. If you're wanting to try a legit "ChopHouse" that's close by, Epic would be a much better place with similar pricing. Not saying Epic is the best that there is, but much better than this place. We can only score this place a 2 Star at this point and that's favorable in hopes it will get better.

I will be glad to upgrade my review at a later date when I go back, if things...

Discovered this place on Wednesday and we came back again on Friday. My son and I stopped in during my daughter's gymnastics practice. He's 11 and loves steak. He got a sirloin and I wasn't too hungry and I got a buffalo chicken sandwich and onion rings. The chicken was great. I was kinda on the fence with the onion rings, but I got them again on Friday and decided I liked them. Not a ton of flavor, but good. My husband came with us on Friday. I got a grilled chicken sandwich this time. I'm picky about cheese and there's no pepperjack here so I just got it without cheese. The bacon on the chicken sandwich was fantastic. My husband got the french dip. He said that was really good but he LOVED the bread that it was served on. My daughter was with us this time and she got the kids cheeseburger. She's very picky but she liked it. It's honestly one of the very, very few places we've eaten that we all liked. The bread and cinnamon butter served ahead of the meal were good. That was my 8 year old daughers stipulation. She didn't want to go unless they served bread, ha. The cinnamon butter isn't like Texas Roadhouse. They use a powdered sugar in their mix. It seemed more like a cinnamon sugar mix here. I liked it. Love the area down by the ballpark. Neat area just to walk around. The inside of the restaurant was lovely. It's hard to describe, but it's an eclectic feel where you'd feel comfortable coming in in jeans and a tshirt, but would also fit in if you wanted to dress up a bit. We didn't have a reservation on Friday evening when we arrived ~6p. We were seated right away. Don't know if that is always the case, but I was glad it worked out. The service was good. The first visit the waitress was good up until the time the food was ready to be served. I saw it on the counter under the lamp and it sat there for 5 mintues. We were in a bit of a hurry or it wouldn't have been a big deal. Someone else eventually brought it to us (after trying to give it to another table first). Friday night the serivce was spectacular all of the way through. I thought the prices were reasonable. Portions weren't overly-large, which I liked. You can eat your full meal and not feel like you have to roll out of there. We'll be weekly...

I'm conflicted. I'm not sure if my hopes were just too high or if it just really wasn't all that great. I'll start off with the pros. 1. Our server was super sweet. She was very attentive and quick! 2. The coconut shrimp was super delicious and probably my favorite thing that we ordered. 3. Seating was super spread out and it wasn't loud. We could actually hold a conversation, which was nice. 4. The prices were great, but this is where it gets muddy. For the price it was up to par, but something seemed off. It presents itself as a high end steakhouse. It was far from that, but for the price, it was what you might expect. Cons: 1. Overall, it just missed the mark. We thought maybe it was a little more fine dining than what it actually was. Like they were trying but at the end of the day, it wasn't there. The plates and knives were close the plastic. The steak knife shredded our steaks instead of cutting them, the tables were similar to a plastic coated. It just rode the line of cheap. 2. The drinks were not that great. Our of three mixed drinks, we wouldn't order any of them again. 3. The atmosphere seemed off. Everything was white and black, including the lights having over your table. Bright white Edison bulbs everywhere just set the tone for a weird atmosphere, especially at 10pm. Also, we sat next to the server window, which is where everyone seemed to gather and talk as you can see in the pics. 4. The food was mediocre. Our steaks were cooked to temperature, but had very little seasoning. I should have known when I kept seeing people request A1 sauce. And their "signature sauce" that you can see plated in the photo was very similar to A1 and ketchup mixed together. The Mac n cheese tasted like plain noodles. Not one ounce of seasoning. We opted to skip dessert for these reason.

Overall, I think maybe our hopes were set too high. I want there to be nice places to eat close to home but, I just don't feel this is quite it.

What we ordered: Cesar salad to start. Porterhouse with baked potato and steamed veggies. Serloin and coconut shrimp with Mac n cheese and loaded potato. Drinks: old fashioned, Long Island and a margarita.

Cost: $104 *note, this was Valentine's...