Outback Steakhouse — Restaurant in Kansas City

2023-07-14 My wife and I were looking for a quiet place to have a nice dinner.

Convenient location with great highway visibility. Plenty of parking, but no dedicated motorcycle parking. Wheelchair friendly entrance (no steps) but the door does not have a power opener.

It's pretty nice inside. Lots of rich, dark wood tones and warm lighting. The benches in the booths have a little bit of padding and are comfortable, but not overly so. It was also quiet enough that the host could speak in a normal conversational tone and still be heard clearly.

We were there on a Friday night and there was no wait time for a table for 2. Not sure if there usually is a wait time or not as there had been a pretty strong thunderstorm just a couple of hours earlier. The host was friendly and polite.

My wife and I started with alcoholic beverages. She had what appeared to be a blackberry martini and I had a smoked old fashioned. My wife loved her drink and my old fashioned was very drinkable.

They brought us a small dark bread loaf and butter, and it was quite good. When we finished it, they offered to bring more.

We opted to skip appetizers and just order our meals because we were both hungry.

My wife ordered the salmon and I ordered the prime rib. My wife reports that the salmon was delicious, as was her baked sweet potato and her broccoli. My prime rib with Au Jus was also delicious. I had the mashed potatoes and they were excellent. I was actually a little surprised at how tasty they were. I'm pretty sure I will always choose mashed potatoes as a side when I dine here in the future. I also had the broccoli and it was on par with the best I've had.

We did not order any dessert as we were both pretty full from the generous portion sizes and did not want to be uncomfortably full.

Overall, good atmosphere, good service, very low noise, good lighting, and excellent food. Prices seemed a touch on the high side. If you've got the extra cash, this is a good place for date night or other...

Let me lead with my server was very nice and very attentive as they always are. I never have any issue with the customer service, however I’m there for a good steak and maybe a nice drink which unfortunately has been lacking at this particular location. Not sure if it’s other Outback’s, however on several occasions, this last time included, which will be my final time, as I had previously chopped it up to a bad night but now am convinced Outback has turned into every other fast food chain restaurant. The food is made quickly and lacks that intense flavor it used to have more specifically the steak. The mashed potatoes taste terrible and if the food tasting terrible wasn’t bad enough the WATER taste terrible. How this is even possible with filtered water is beyond me, but I had to order sparkling water for the second time that I have been there because the water smells and taste terrible which in turn has the ice tasting terrible so now you have disgusting soda as well so I couldn’t wash my bland and over cooked steak down with anything other than the 4$ water that I had to purchase. Were the filters changed yes per the staff and manager, however something is terribly wrong with the taste of the water that should really be addressed there’s no way it should have a scent, Add to that the fact that I purchased 2 drinks from the bar as well hoping it could not be bad, well I’ll just say if u want water you’d do better to order the blackberry martini it tasted more like water than the water which it shouldn’t considering it’s supposed to contain alcohol🙄Vodka where 🤷🏼‍♀️ ? They should remix their premix drink because it lacked what’s necessary for an alcoholic beverage mainly the alcohol. The manager was nice enough to take off 10$ from our 150$ bill so that helped and gave 2 more non alcoholic alcohol drinks for our trouble😂 and while the waitress was sweet, I’d say it was my family’s...

The great: the food and the service.

The bad: The insane drunk manager (we didn't realize it at the time - she never introduced herself or ask about the meal).

The Chiefs are playing the Bills in the playoffs. My family and I were finishing our meal when a tipsy lady, whom we know now is the manager, approached our table and said, "Here for the football game?". I quipped that, no, we never get to watch football in January - we're Vikings fans. She then proceeds to give us a little grief, which if fine. It comes with the territory.

She then proceeds to LAY into our 'terrible' team as we awkwardly laugh a few times. I won't go into the details, but she made the four of us incredibly uncomfortable. She literally spent over a minute talking her mess while we literally said nothing in return; just awkward nods and my nine-year-old getting scared of this stranger who wouldn't leave us alone. It was bizarre, awkward, and her dialogue was just so pointed and disrespectful. I had to dismiss her from the table during her drunken rant saying "oooook, we get it", at which point she rolled her eyes and huffed away. We just spent a bunch of money and then got needlessly roasted before we pay the bill.

To be clear, I'm not upset about stupid football jokes. I'm upset about the complete disrespect shown to us. How this person is a manager makes no sense in my brain and we won't be back while she's in charge.

Oh, three other employees on the way out agreed that she, in fact, "really sucks" as...