Outback Steakhouse — Restaurant in Lumberton

My daughter was baptized today. To celebrate she decided she wanted our family to go to Outback after church. At 12:15 I called in for "call ahead seating" Kelsey answered the phone. I explained we had a group of 15 and were on our way. Kelsey asked that I hold so she could speak with the manager. I was placed on hold for 10 minutes. When she returned to the line she explained the restaurant was busy and we would have an hour wait time but she would still put us down. I told her no problem, I understand you are busy on Sunday. When we arrived to the establishment I informed the hostess that our party had arrived. She said there was no call ahead for us and asked for my name. Kelsey, on the phone, did not ask for my name, just how many were in the party. I explained this to the hostess who did not care, she said she would just put us down at that time for a seat. I asked her about the 20 minutes that had already passed since I called and she said there was nothing she could do. I then spoke to the manager, Austin. I explained the situation and he said he was aware that we were coming, but it would still be another hour before we could be seated. While I was talking with him, my brother in law noticed 2 empty tables that would accommodate us. We were told we could not have those tables because they were for a call ahead seating. We were okay with this. We went outside and waited for 45 minutes. The entire time we waited those 2 tables were never occupied. My brother in law went back inside to speak with the manager. He waited at least 15 minutes on the manager to arrive to the front. We were finally seated at the tables that had remained empty for the duration of our wait. It appears they were set up for my call ahead seating, we were just never sat there.

Finally, we are seated. It takes 10 minutes for a waiter to acknowledge us. Another 10 for drink and appetizer orders and at least another 5 for 2 high chairs to arrive for the irritable toddlers that we had with us. After our children have their meltdowns and our orders are placed, we continue to wait 30 minutes for food. Half of the orders come out and we wait another 20 minutes for the reminder of the food. Two orders had to be sent back to the kitchen, our waiter had to return serval times to the kitchen to replace our half-filled condiments and dessert orders were never taken. We finally ordered dessert to go (some of the meals ordered came with the dessert, or we would have left by then), we waited another 20 minutes for our checks. We were at your restaurant for over 3 hours. Our food was terrible, our service was terrible and no one did anything about it. The manager was almost impossible to find and the server (Cameron) seemed to avoid our tables as much as he could.

I have worked in the food serving business. I understand it can be difficult to accommodate large parties, and I understand that sometimes things do not go smoothly, but this entire restaurant visit was a joke. There was no reason for us to receive the service we did. I am not one of those people that usually makes a complaint. I am easy going and laid back and I am extremely understanding, but this was 100% uncalled for and I strongly feel that your establishment needs more training, better staffing and lessons on customer service. I do no plan on ever returning to your restaurant, and I will be sure to let everyone I know about my experience. This was the worst restaurant experience I...

Hello. I am reaching out to you today with a complaint about the Outback Steakhouse in Lumberton, NC. On 08/09/2022, at 450pm, me and my family arrived at the location. When we arrived, I informed the host that I had a party of 12. The host stated that it would be 45 minutes wait because there were no servers at work. While waiting I observed that several parties came in and they all were seated before we were. Literally there was no one in the restaurant when we arrived so I am confused on why we could not be seated. We had to wait for a long time before we were seated. It seemed that the host discriminated against my party due to the size or another reason. Once we were seated, we did have a server that was a great joy from what we encountered earlier. It is not her fault for this complaint. We ordered our drinks which came in a timely fashion. When we ordered the food, it took an extremely long time regardless on when the order was in. I did observe that the restaurant was not full of people. In my party, the food was awful and unfit for any consumption. The steak was dry, burned, and bad flavored. Two people out of my party had to send their ribs back because the ribs were extremely salty. Service was slow and the food was terrible. We paid a lot of money for the food and it was not good. I am requesting that the host be talked to because she was very negative in the way she talked to us. The food was not good. More than half of the food was wasted. Did not have any take out plates. I am asking that my party get a refund for the entire meal. I read the reviews and I noticed that some of the complaints from others have not been resolved. This was suppose to be my birthday meal and it was the worst food I have had for my birthday ever. Everyone was disappointed. I use to be a regular at Outback in Lumberton, NC but this was not a joy. Others at the table were also disappointed and have their own tickets that they will complain about. As a recommendation, please train all your staff on customer service. With the expensive prices please hire Chefs versus off the street. Food may be better with chefs.

Urgent Helena Odom,...

So I never write reviews but this was a new experience for me. 8 lounge tables dirty, not one person evening trying or making an attempt to help the busers to clean so people waiting could sit. (Including my party; busers get tip out, y’all get the tips. Let us sit) Servers standing around everywhere, not even again trying. So then sit at bar. Not sure that is much better. Watching a bartender that ignored us the whole time then dunk dirty bar dish into over filled water (the sinks running into each other) & then taking the glass w/ still suds on it straight to drink well to then make a drink for a table; multiple times & apparently bar sink system not working correctly as then I watched her dump a jug into one of sinks instead of proper dispense.This bartender also never even taking time to try to catch up on dishes except when needed them. But of course greeted her friends that sat at the bar. I travel a lot. I eat in restaurants a lot. I have never witnessed such laziness. There was a wait, but it wasn’t an hour. It was extremely disappointing that there was no sense of hospitality or service. Clean up after yourselves. If you come to work, WORK, try. I’ve never seen so much standing around in a restaurant in my life. Or been so disappointed or disgusted. Overall one of the worse experiences ever. & again, I never write reviews. (Oh & my salad was drowning instead of being tossed as it has for 20+ years, but of course, no one asked or bothered to check on us, so as Outback says, ‘No...