Outback Steakhouse — Restaurant in Lexington

Let me just start by saying that I have worked in the restaurant industry for over 3 years now, and the experience my family and I had at this place was absolutely unacceptable. We made a reservation for a birthday dinner in our family, initially everything seemed to go well, they prepared our table and sat us quickly. Although for the next 15 minutes, multiple waiters and staff members walked past our table, making eye contact and didn’t say a word. No one came and got us drinks or even acknowledged that we were there. Hard to believe that in a small dining room, a table of 7 people goes completely unnoticed.

Like I said, I work in a restaurant and understand that under certain circumstances, it can be difficult to greet a table quickly, but 15 minutes or more is ridiculous. I myself, had to get the attention of the host who sat us to let her know that we had yet to be waited on. This is where it continued to go downhill, from the time I notified the host, it took an additional 5 to 10 minutes for someone to come to the table and announce themselves as our waiter.

I won’t say names, but the waitress was nice, and tried to seem interested in making our experience better but she ended up being very nervous, distracted, fidgety, and just seemed like she didn’t want to do her job. At one point while she was taking our food order, she reached in her back pocket and checked her phone as one of us was directly telling her our order.

The only good takeaways I have from this experience is that the food came out quickly after it was finally ordered and it was very good. Also one of the managers came to the table to apologize and even bought our appetizers.

In the end, with my experience working in this industry, I know this situation is somewhat common in a lot of restaurants and it’s due to improper training. Wait staff should know that if you see a table of guests sat for an extended period of time, even though they are not in your assigned section, make sure to greet them and notify them that someone will be with them shortly. Even just providing them with something to drink is a good cushion to not make them feel ignored or abandoned. Most people just simply walk out of a restaurant if they are not acknowledged within 10 minutes. We have to be better. I can confidently say, this would never happen in my workplace, and if it did, someone would deal with the...

Updated 9.18.2024: I can confirm my previous posts. The service is still lacking. When we sat down there was a wet nap in the seat and a napkin on the floor. While our waitress was nice our glasses were empty multiple times. In addition, it was like she didn't take away used plates and with six people they kept piling up. Not one plate was picked up until we were literally about to get up and leave. We ended up moving some over to the table next to us that had not been bussed even though the customers left 15 minutes prior. The biggest thing that I found rude was that we had a birthday with us. Some of us were still eating and the waitress pushed the birthday girl to pick a dessert even though she was still eating her entree. I thought maybe she would wait to bring it out but she brought it immediately. We had to shuffle plates around to find room for it since no other plates had been picked up. The dessert sat in the middle of the table for at least minutes before she even started eating it. (glad it wasn't ice cream) As soon as she started eating the waitress brought the check. It was obvious she was trying to get us out the door. As a side note, they were at about 25% capacity so they did not need the table. Food was delicious but the Aussie Rum Punch was not. The ingredients were not incorporated/mixed well.

Previous Post: The food is always great but the service is consistently horrible. The last few times we have went the service has gotten progressively worse. The last time we sat for almost ten minutes before someone came and took our drink order.

Update: 7.25.2023 We visited yesterday for lunch and the service has improved (at least for this visit). Carly was extremely attentive...

I have never had such a horrible experience as I had today at this restaurant. We got there at 3:00 pm. We were seated. Our waiter took our drink orders and brought us bread. We told him we were ready to order. He put the info in the device he was holding and told us that he couldn't get it to go through. It was giving him a message that there was still an open check on our table. He left and came back to have us reorder. In the mean time, 4 tables were seated. We watched as each table was served their food. Our waiter came by our table and refilled our cokes. Got that wrong. My husband was drinking Diet Coke and was served a regular Coke. We were brought another plate of bread. That is the last we saw of our waiter. Three of the 4 tables were getting containers to put their food into so they could bring it home. By this time it was 3:45 pm. This restaurant was not crowded at all. We started realizing that we had been waiting for 45 minutes for our food.

We flagged down another waiter to see if he could find our waiter, who had gone MIA . The waiter we flagged down walked past our table twice and never let us know what he found out or if he found our missing waiter. Now it is 4:15 pm and I have about had enough. I am deciding whether or not to get up and leave or still wait. My mind was made up when our missing waiter decided to make an appearance . NOT AT OUR TABLE BUT THE ONE NEXT TO US. HE LOOKED AT ME AND TURNED HIS HEAD AWAY. We both started to get up and only then did he decide to come tell us that he would go check on our meal. I told him not to bother. I will NEVER set foot in that...