Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen — Restaurant in Mesquite

This review is going to be stranger than fiction. I wish it was fiction, but it is facts. Walked up to Cheddar’s server at 5 pm on Saturday, October 12. People are waiting on benches to be seated. OU Vs. Texas game was happening. Little blonde early 20’s server (maybe younger) said a 15 minute wait for dining room seating . I asked if we could order food at the bar? She said that was a different waitlist that was more than 20 minutes. I responded, “Ok, we want to be on the first list, please.” The two of us looked at the bar and there were 6 or 7 seats open at the bar. We decided to sit down and see if they sent us away. Instead the bar tender surprisingly gave us menus! We said we our on the dining room list and would just like to order drinks. The couple next to us made a big stink about not being able to take their cocktail to go. I don’t think that’s legal? It is in Louisiana, but I don’t think so in Texas? IDK. It was a shit show. Meanwhile a guy sent his baked potato back because it was wrong. We waited patiently to order a cocktail. Bartender asked a coworker to go get some lemonade. We finally got to order our Texas Sweet Teas. Got the text our table was ready. My sister went to get the table while drinks were made. We had already been here over 20 minutes by this point. Drinks are almost done and bartender proceeds to pour them out! I exclaim “Why are you pouring them out?!” He says his coworker got water, not lemonade, because the first one was clear. Oh ok. So he makes the drinks correctly because he cares about his job. I wish I would of got his name, because he was a good dude. I ask sis what is our table number was when she got seated. The server girl said “yes” when she asked what is the table number? And walked away. Thank goodness for the little computer at the table and it said table 91. Of course our table is right by the kitchen as usual. So I found her. We sat at our table 30 minutes waiting for someone to recognize our presence. I ordered the trio appetizer with ranch instead of honey mustard on the table kiosk. I finally put the call server light on the kiosk. Multiple employees walked on by without eye contact. FINALLY, a beacon of light, an angel, Kayla, took notice of us poor unfortunate souls. She asked what was going on, had we been served? We replied no. Everyone around us were enjoying free croissants and we were starving. We told her we have been waiting almost an hour for our appetizer and no one had even said hi to us. She went to work getting our food and checking what happened to the server assigned to our table. It was so strange, there was a server helping all the other tables in our row except ours. Kayla said she found out or server clocked out right when we were seated and another one wasn’t assigned. She was glorious and was gracious and made sure we were happy. EVEN THOUGH WE WEREN’T IN HER SECTION! I told her she was the bright spot of our experience....

I had been going to this cheddar since a week after it opened. I've had many good memories here and the food and service have always been great. I have had many friends work here and theh have all been positive and very competent. Yesterday, I regret that this was not the case. I had asked for my server Landon Swearingen because I had been told to come up there. Landon had been my waiter before and was outstanding. I waited on Landon to sit me down after telling him I was there, so I went back to the hostess. She told me that Landon was unavailable and it would be 30 minutes to an hour and that I would have to wait. About 10 minutes later A manager by the name of jordan mcdonald approached me and said that I was welcome to have another waiter but landon had said that he was uncomfortable being my waiter and taking my order. I immediately said okay, No problem and left without incident. I then called the restaurant and identified the manager as Jordan McDonald and the G.M. as Joel Green. This information was given to me by manager jordan mcdonald. I advised manager mcdonald that before when landed was my server he had told me that Jordan McDonald was a terrible manager and a "creepy douchebag" he also brought up some very unprofessional things while we were talking about secondary employment. He had stated to me that he didn't make any money and that he was trying to get into HVAC. I informed him that I had a club and that I was always hiring people. And that they usually made a lot of money. I gave him a business card and and he promptly begin communicating with me and other staff on our Instagram. During our conversation at cheddars, he explicitly detailed how black customers did not tip and that they were a problem and that he was always looking to make extra money and that he would check everything out and get back to me Etc et cetera etc. This is why it is so unusual how he would feel about being uncomfortable around me or as my waiter. Okay. So I feel that after going to cheddar's for so long, taking so many friends there, as well as sending employees to work there that this is unacceptable and very unprofessional. I do realize that Landon is very young and sometimes young men can be immature, but in this kind of setting there is no excuse for this. The manager wanted me to hold off on this but I insisted that I go ahead and do this and talk to the GM if I had to. I think that all of this was handled very sophmoric with the manager not handling this right. I believe that the waiter should have come up with something different on how to handle this. All this did was cause very hard feelings.And a bad review with people's name in it that does not reflect well on...

First time eating at this chain while in the Dallas area for the eclipse. Quite a long line of customers waiting when we arrived at 6pm on Sunday, but we had gone online and placed ourselves on the wait list. Waited 5 minutes to be seated. Large restaurant with paddle style ceiling fans and a big aquarium. Lots of staff on duty and they were all working hard. Our waiter was Jacob. Friendly, efficient and fast. 2 complimentary butter croissants arrive at your table within the minutes of you being seated. We ordered the queso dip and homemade tortilla chips. A large basket of hot chips arrived with a dish of piping hot queso and another dish of salsa. I ordered the half rack of ribs with grilled shrimp, and roasted corn. I paid 99 cents to upgrade my other side dish to a dinner salad. Dan ordered a small sirloin steak (6oz) with coleslaw and a dinner salad. The arrival of the apperizers and the main meal was well paced. The side salads were huge, like an entree salad, and were excellent. Crisp cold lettuce with tomatoes, cheese, shaved carrots and croutons. I felt full after eating the appetizer and salad. The entrees were equally impressive. The ribs were very meaty and the bbq sauce was perfect, not too tangy and not too sweet. The 4 grilled shrimp were cooked perfectly and had good seasoning. The corn was buttery and had good seasoning as well. Dan's steak was cooked a perfect medium with a pink center. He was happy he ordered the 6oz steak because there was so much food. The coleslaw was creamy, cold and sweet (perfect, because i hate vinegar based sour coleslaw). We were too full to consider dessert, even after we saw a giant slab of chocolate cake go by with vanilla ice cream. All the employees were friendly and attentive, even though it was extremely busy. This is a very family friendly restaurant as well, with quite a few large tables. The table next to us had 14 people, and i saw that they were getting excellent service. Overall, highly recommended for quality of food, portion size, and very economical. Our meal was $44 before adding the tip. This is unheard of...