Texas Roadhouse — Restaurant in Logan Township

Native Texan here. And apart from the fact Texas Roadhouse is a national chain that was founded in Indiana and headquartered in Kentucky, they do a DECENT job of trying to replicate the food you’d get at much better known establishments in my beloved Lone Star State.

How you know Texas Roadhouse isn’t 100% authentic is there is no fried okra on the menu; in Texas, it is ALWAYS beef ribs—NEVER pork; and Texans don’t say “Yeehaw” anywhere (but probably at Texas Roadhouse).

The draw here are their steaks. But it kind of never matters which cut of steak we order, it’s just mediocre. I just go for the Southern Fried Sirloin—which again, you KNOW it’s not 100% Texan because it is ONLY and EVER referred to as Chicken Fried Steak in Texas—or the south, period. I’m splitting hairs on this only because I know my stuff.

Besides, once you’ve visited authentic Texas steakhouses or been to Japan where the BEST steaks and real wagyu beef is from, you’re kind of ruined for life ordering steak from anywhere else.

A real Texas steakhouse would have a pit somewhere on the property. You’d be able to smell the food before even getting out of your car. But Texas Roadhouse doesn’t have a pit, which explains why their ribs and chicken aren’t smoked and are too wet with sauce. Slapping sauce onto meat (without even bothering to leave it long enough on the grill to carmelize) is a sign of a bad pit master trying to cover up bad barbcue. And again—we don’t do pork ribs in Texas. Texas Roadhouse has to know this on some level too because they don’t explicitly identify their ribs as being beef or pork on their menu. They just refer to them as ribs, and what you get is pork. And it’s probably because beef ribs are harder to do.

Texas Roadhouse in Altoona is probably the most popular eating establishment in the area because Altoona just doesn’t have much of a food scene to speak of. Texas Roadhouse is just fine, but it speaks volumes of how the lack of food diversity can stunt an area.

This place is always packed. And the service seems fine enough. But if you order a house salad as a side (because there is no fried okra) be prepared to get a whole lotta toppings and very little lettuce. I’m not sure if there has been a lettuce shortage for the past 6 months, but despite being very good about serving bright leafy green salads when we first started patronizing this particular location, lately, 2/3rds of our house salads have been composed mostly of egg, bacon, and cheese. This last time we went, the waitress even asked me if I wanted extra bacon, egg, and cheese crumbles and I told her no. But my salad still came with a ton of toppings and a smidgeon of lettuce mixed in. I’m not a big salad muncher to begin with, but sheesh—if even I am complaining about the lack of lettuce, there’s a problem.

Anyhoo—Texas Roadhouse Altoona is the best restaurant chain in this neck of the woods, for...

I was excited to take my family out to dinner and the fact that my children and husband had never eaten there before and guess what it was a huge disappointment ! Our steaks were not cooked correctly, my daughter's cheeseburger was close to rare and her bun was like a hockey puck, when our waitress asked how everything was I said about the meal and asked if they would recook them meat and a fresh bun for my daughter, she suggested that we not have the bun toasted next time! Then returned with the steaks and they were hotter and still cooked wrong, then the manager came over to check on us and suggested to see if there's anything she could do to make our meal better well at this time we had been there 45 minutes they wanted to close we were disgusted and didn't really want to do anything more asked if we wanted to take anything home and I said sure I could cook the steaks at home to the way my family would prefer it that's a good idea jokingly smiled and the manager said okay great went and got me containers gave me the bill for $156 and that was it no I'm sorry no how about let's you know remove one of the items from this meal considering your husband ordered a $20 steak and didn't even eat any of it but one bite and that was it so I do not recommend anybody going there if you want a good steak because they obviously not sure how to cook it let alone give good customer service because I would have at least comp one of the dinners for somebody on the bill and I certainly would have been a very apologetic but that's how you got customer service these days when it's more important to make money than take care of the customer. The other problem was the fact that our server didn't repeat the order back didn't check back with us within a couple minutes of receiving anything and that all could have been avoided the whole situation if she would have done those two simple things now she lost customers and I'm going to mention to everybody how horrible the service was and how horrible the food was because that's just...

My husband and myself ate supper here on Sunday. We arrived here around 5pm and they were really busy we were told it would be a 30 minute wait time. Fortunately we didn't have to wait that long which was a plus. After we were seated we ordered our drinks and boneless Buffalo wings. When our wings were brought out they were hot(temperature wise) and they were good. My husband ordered a 11 ounce sirloin well done no pink and I ordered a 6 ounce sirloin well done no pink. The older lady who brought us out our food said to cut into our steaks to make sure they were done to our liking but she was gone before we even got to check out our steaks. I cut my steak and it seemed fine till I cut the thicker half of it it was red the thinner part of the steak was perfect. So half of my steak was well done the other half was not. My husband's steak was red the whole way through his steak but he was hungry so he ate it any ways even though he had ordered his steak well done no pink also. The male manager that was working that night was going around asking people how their meals were but he totally avoided our table I had my steak on my plate with the redness of the meat showing. I got a hold of our waitress that was taking care of us and I told her about my steak and she took care of it for me. When the manager brought my steak to our table it was burnt to a crisp so it went from being under cooked to over cooked. The manager never said a word to me when he brought my steak to me just placed it in front of me and never said a word to me. All I had wanted was my steak well done no pink and when it was red inside that was not what I had ordered. I was very disappointed in our visit this time I know they were busy but it was not a good visit. I always get my steaks well done no pink and all the other times they were able to...