Outback Steakhouse — Restaurant in Lebanon

I hate to say that we had quite the bad experience in Mother’s Day.

We called ahead a couple days in advance in which we were told they do not accept reservations, but can add us to a waitlist. We understand and that was fine. We were told for our entire party to be there 30 minutes prior to the time of our waitlist and then expect maybe 30 minutes more than that. Cool. It’s Mother’s Day when it would be busy. I got there and checked in with my party present at 1:35 2 o’clock went by 2:30 went by. 3 o’clock hit and we’ve been standing very patiently. And finally, we asked the manager.”Could we just push two round tables together?” . They were side-by-side and we were just letting the manager know we were OK with sitting like that. In which she responded that that’s what we’re gonna do if you give us a minute…….

Ummmm excuse me maam. We have been here for an hour and half. We watched several parties come in and everyone in that restaurant be sat before us. I get we are a party of 10, but they left us until flat last because they didn’t want to deal with it. Several tables walked in and Were not on a waitlist and were sat because they only required one table.

I will never give outback my money again. We waited and hour and a half before we ask a question and your manager was rude!!!???? WHAT!!!!

We were finally sat at 10 after three. Our server was faith. She took our orders. We received our drinks and appetizers in a short period of time we took our order in which we explained how our checks would be divvy up. Our server didn’t return. Other servers dropped off our salads. Other servers dropped off our drinks. But after we ordered, we did not see our server again until after our food was delivered. We could not even finish our meals after they came because we never got another refill. When, she came by we were nearly finished with our plates. She asked us what we were drinking in which a few minutes later, a different server brought us our drinks out. By then we were entirely finished with our plates and needed boxes when we got boxes she brought out a pen and pad and asked each one of us exactly what our order and drink was, and had to REWRITE it all down to go and divvy up the checks. Which I thought was very amateur, and I didn’t understand since we explained in the beginning how our checks would be. It felt like ordering twice. It was really ridiculous. After she wrote it down on pen and paper, she still got my check wrong and mixed up my husband‘s food with someone else in the party. And I ended up just paying more because I didn’t wanna wait for our checks to have to be re-printed and everything to be moved around again. (She did offer to fix the check) We tipped our server sufficiently (20%) because anlmost everyone at that table works at a restaurant, which also causes us to be a little more patient. But I can tell you as a whole that we will not be back. I took pictures of the plates we ordered our steaks, medium, rare of which they were medium well. But because of the time situation, no one wanted to wait and they did have flavor. So we didn’t say a word and just ate. I know working on Mother’s Day is stressful but when you have a party being extremely patient, maybe you should be patient as well……

We received checks at 4:35. Paid at 4:50 and left at 5. We were literally there for 3 1/2 hours and it just seemed a little ridiculous. We feel overlooked. We felt unimportant and no one wanted to “deal” with a party of 10. If someone would’ve just been honest with us and told us they couldn’t get us in in the amount of time they had originally quoted or a party of ten is just really hard to get down and been honest we would’ve just left. We would’ve never sat and waited for an hour and 45 minutes for a table…….

My husband had ate one fry when I took the picture of his plate…..

We watched people come in wait eat and leave several several times over before anyone even tried to accommodate us. I know you may not care, but you definitely lost every one of my family’s business...

The take away experience is always terrible. I try it about once a month hoping that they have solved the problems but they have not. I order online to avoid any chance of miscommunication about what I would like. I don't do complicated orders with substitutions yet every single time I am missing items. The items are always "checked off" on the receipt yet not always in the bag. On my most recent trip when I asked for the missing items I was given replacement items. One was correct, the other was not. I have restaurant experience and so I try to be understanding, I know that things happen... but this is about a years worth of orders that have been missing items. Every single order has been missing items. Not one order have I ever received from this location has been complete. This is an ongoing problem that has been happening since 2020. If you choose to get take away expect to have to check your orders before driving away and know that something is almost always guaranteed to be missing or incorrect.

Editing to update I gave the take away service another try and once again have missing items. It's insane that this restaurant has a 100% order accuracy failure rate. The kid that brought the food to my car acted like I was inconveniencing him by being there practically shoved the bag thru my window turned around and walked away. Very disappointing. This is 100% a management problem. Having been a restaurant manager I can tell you that the management staff at this location is to blame. There is clearly no follow up or training of the take away staff. The management is failing miserably to ensure guests are receiving the level of service they deserve. Being under staffed isn't an excuse either. I have run literally thousands of shifts as a restaurant manager under staffed and never struggled with order accuracy. I will never, ever spend another dollar at this or any other outback restaurant. Obviously Corporate is long overdue for auditing this location and dealing with the failure of...

Outback (Lebanon, TN). I had (another and last) terrible experience at the Outback in Lebanon, TN. It has gotten worse lately, and I'm not going back. The greeting staff seemed confused and arguementive amongst themselves about seating to the point that the line to check in backed up. So, I asked if the bar was open seating, which it was. Mind you, the restaurant wasn't very busy, and there were only two other people seated at the bar (several open seats). The two of us sat at the bar and waited about 5 minutes while the male bartender was at the register and then talked to the manager (I later learn is "Ricky"). I went to the check-in hostess and got a menu so we could be ready to order when someone decided to acknowledge us. The female behind the bar didn't seem to be working, I assumed she was there to clean or take dishes/glasses. However, after sitting for a little after 10 minutes, four men sat at the 4 seats next to us, and the female promptly put 4 menus and napkins down, asking them what they wanted to drink. I then went back to the front hostess station and asked to see a manager, and one of them left to go get the manager. The others were STILL discussing it debating the seating for the waiting guest. A few minutes later, the thing girl pointed across the restaurant at a gut wearing a red shirt and said, "That's the manager," as if I was supposed to get up and chase him down. We got up and promptly left. The manager walked past us as we were about to go out the door, and I gave him a short peace of my mind. Others waiting at the front door started leaving, likely aggravated with the service (lack thereof). I've lived in Lebanon for about 10 years, and this location just keeps getting worse. I keep thinking it will be better next time, but it never is. I won't ever be returning. The restaurant...