Simms Steakhouse — Restaurant in Lakewood

My husband and I were traveling to Colorado to visit our son, which happens only once a year. This year we were visiting during Christmas and made reservations at Simms for Christmas Eve dinner at 6:30 p.m. Two days before, someone from the restaurant called to confirm our reservation. I confirmed that we would be there and how excited we were to visit their restaurant. I even expressed surprise that they were open on Christmas Eve and the women explained that they are open 365 days per year.

The morning of Christmas Eve, I went to their website to see their menu. Several things sounded delicious and I planned in my mind what I would be ordering. We arrived at Simms for our reservation and were seated within 10 minutes. During our brief wait, we noticed several people walking through the restaurant with plates. We assumed someone was having a corporate party with a buffet.

As soon as we were seated, our server came over to tell us about the buffet. We politely listened and then asked for a menu. He explained that there was no other option than the buffet. I was flabbergasted. We were NEVER told that there would be a buffet, not when I made the reservation and not when they called to confirm. We were dressed up and I was in high heels and hadn't planned on carrying plates through a restaurant from a buffet room to our table. We never would have made reservations had we known this. Our server asked if we had reservations and apologized that the buffet-only option had not been communicated to many patrons that night. He assured us that there were many wonderful food options on the buffet and asked if we were still interested. I told him we needed a minute to discuss amongst ourselves. We decided that we would not be able to find another reservation at 7:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve and decided to stay.

We settled in and headed to the buffet. IT WAS TERRIBLE. The "salad bar" was sparse and basic, the soup was lukewarm, every side dish that we tried was lukewarm and ranged from disappointing to bad. The carving station had beef and pork. The beef was good; I did not try the pork. They also had chilled crab legs and peel-and-eat shrimp.

We purposely did not complain during dinner because we did not want to ruin our Christmas holiday dinner, but we laughed and complained about the experience on our way home.

I hesitated to write this bad review because I normally give establishments the benefit of the doubt, even with a bad experience. However, Simms should have informed their patrons that there was a buffet-only option on Christmas Eve, especially during the confirmation call placed to us two days prior. At least we would have had the opportunity to make other plans.

Our yearly special dinner with our son was a total bust. Although my husband and I laughed about what a terrible experience it was, it's really not...

My partner and I came here for dinner last Saturday. The place is so pretty and the view is fantastic. Our server was Stephanie I believe. Unfortunately, our service from Stephanie was severely lacking. It was alright at first, she got our drink and apps order but after they came, and she took our entrée order, she did not check up on us. We had finished with our apps and everything was just sitting there. We agreed that we wanted a few things wrapped up and figured she would come by to clear the table before out entrees came out, nope. Our entrees were delivered by other staff and we had a difficult time finding room, my partner and I had to move things around because the staff with our food had his hands full and once everything was on the table it was so crowded. I asked that staff member if he could clear some of the empty dishes and wrap up the things we wished to save. He sent Stephanie to come do it and she didn't apologize or ask how our first bites were. She left and did not return for almost an hour. We had finished our meals and our empty plates were just sitting there. We would see her helping other tables, but this isn't a Chili's so we felt it rude to wave her down. She just kept ignoring us. Finally one of the staff from earlier came to our table to clear our empty plates, and I asked if he would bring us the dessert menu, he did. We figured out what we wanted and then back to waiting. When Stephanie finally came over she commented on us already having a dessert menu but didn't say anything else. We ordered dessert, ate our dessert and then back to waiting. I told my partner that as soon as she came by again we needed to ask for the cheque, even if she tried to ignore us, and then give her our card right away when she brought it so we wouldn't have to wait forever to leave. We were able to get out without too much waiting but we had to be more forward than we like. A big part of coming to a nice restaurant like this and paying a premium is having our needs anticipated and receiving excellent service. It was incredibly disappointing to spend such a nice evening having to concern ourselves with poor service. We only tipped 15% because of it. The food was incredible, however, and we were quite pleased with our steaks and other fare. I had a few cocktails and those were quite nice. Unfortunately, with so many other 5 star experiences at other Denver restaurants of similar quality, we might not make it...

So after driving by Simms for over a year we finally decided to celebrate a special occasional on a Wednesday night. Didn't make reservations as we arrived at 5:02 and figured we'd be ok. It immediately took a bad turn when I dropped off my finace at the top entrance and decided to spin back down to the lower parking lot. The Valet was NOT happy with my choice of dropping my lady at the front door and gave me a dirty look as I turned the car around to park. When she walked in to request a table she was greeting warmly but was told no tables, just a high top available in the bar. Not a problem for us! Instead of escorting us to table with menus she simple just pointed at a table and we figured it out ourselves. Once waitress arrived we eventually go menus and ordered. Salad came out fairly promptly. About 35/40 mins AFTER sitting down, waitress comes back asking if I ever got my salad. It was eaten 20 mins ago :( We then watched her go back and put in our order, now it's 5:50 or so. She comes back and i ask if our meal was coming out, she says in just a few. She forgot to enter order. I ask manager to look into it and meal then arrives about 6:05- an hour after we sat down! Waitress comes back to check on us and I ask for more butter for my loaded baked potato (which sadly wasn't loaded- a bit of bacon and barley any cheese). Butter never comes. At this point we are disgusted. We arrived here early enough to spend 1:30 mins to eat as we had plans. But sadly were now rushed and unable to enjoy this meal. Then, when asking for check and an additional to-go box, she's gone again! No box came. We left hungry, upset and annoyed at the entire experience. Manager early on DID comp my drink which I greatly appreciated for the late meal arrival but when you are paying over $200+ for an elegant night out, you MUST do better than this. Sadly, chances of us going back or even recommending this place are slim to none now. Food was good but service and response was terrible. No matter how good a meal is, attitude, timing and service can ruin everything. We simply couldn't enjoy our meal or experience when so many things went wrong. Waitress however was kind, warm and nice. She just didn't do her job to the level of what Simms appears...