Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen — Restaurant in Mishawaka

Unfortunately we didn't have a very good experience, our first time at Cheddar's today. My family and I decided we wanted to treat ourselves for dinner, we wanted to go right after school to beat the dinner rush. Got there about 4ish I'm guessing, as soon as we walked in the door, the atmosphere was stale and something was off. Stood there for a few minutes waiting to be seated, no one around... As someone comes up, she walks up to another lady sitting on a bench. The waitress told the lady that the manager would be out, but it could be a while bcuz "that's how they are"(exact words from the waitress). We finally got seated and the last waitress was friendly and took our drink orders, which (I know this is small) but my daughter asked for no ice, but got ice anyways, small thing, whatever, so my daughter drinks it, no complaints then. But. Then she was getting ready to leave our table n told us to place our own appetizer on the tablet thing. I understand establishments are trying to turn things into electronics bcuz they don't have to pay the tablet 😂 but I don't want to be placing my own orders if I'm going out to eat. Anywho, got out appetizers but another woman brought them out, and those were great, had anothee mix up, but no complaints. We sit there for a while and the waitress checks on us 1 more time, so what, that's 3 times she's checked on us, in the time we have been there. But then I had asked her if we were going to be allowed to order our food. She said oooooo I forgot... So you have a table, and you forget to get your customers dinner order? Placed our order with her, she left, and we sat there for a while, waiting for our food, still picking at the appetizers and we wait and wait and wait, nothing from anyone, nothing from the waitress that our food was running behind, she didn't even check on us. Other people were getting their food. Finally she came back and she brought us 1 last refil, then left again for a while. Finally she came back the last and final time but that was my straw. I told her that we had been waiting for our food, and I could not comprehend why it's taking so long, due to us being there before it even started to get slightly busy. (Let's not forget that she was attending the next table over to us, more than she even looked at our table). I was fed up, and asked for a manager. Took a bit for a manager to come, but get this, here comes our food, go figure right?? Hubby told him to take the food back, it was completely unexceptionable for no one to even check on us to tell us that our food would be late. Hubby told him we would pay for the food and drinks we had already ate and he could take the dinner dishes back and off our tab and we wanted to leave. I literally never felt so judged in my life at an establishment. Yes, I have pink hair, yes I have tattoos and piercings, yes I have gauges in my ears, but I have MONEY TO PAY FOR MY FOOD! WHICH OUR TAB WAS AT $80 AND WE ABSOLUTELY DID NOT CARE CUZ WE PLANNED TO PAY FOR IT, WELL FOR FOOD WE WERE PLANNING ON EATING. I think that the establishment needs to retrain their employees and managers to better handle customers in these types of situations and to be able to update their customers when food is RUNNNING LATE. You're working in a customer service position, working with customers, learn how to communicate.... My hubby works 12-16 hour days and we had to go some where else to eat, due to the lack of transparency from Cheddar's about our food. Doesn't matter if the manager was getting ready to give us our food or not. Hes a human being, im sure he would of been a bit upset waiting so long for his food too. Never once did I cuss, never once did I start a scene, but I won't be going back. I don't feel like being judged by the way I look, again.....

Only reason food is getting 3 stars, is bcuz my hubby liked the chips and ground beef queso and the cheese curds...

Not a fan of the artichoke dip, to each...

This is one of our go to restaurants. When the family can’t decide on a place to go I say Cheddar’s? The tension settles and we all go “yeah that actually works”. The service is great and we’ve never had to wait for a table even when they were busy. The food is heavy comfort food and you will want a nap after. But it feels nice to be full with a happy belly. Oh and it will be a good happy belly nap after :)

This time our waitress was over the top excellent. So we’ve been going for 2 years but I wanted to give Ryan props because she did a spectacular job. She was proactive, happy to accommodate us, even when she didn’t know the answer to a question she went and asked someone who did. She offered more help than we needed (in a great way) and laughed and joked and took her time with us. She didn’t take too much time where she would get behind from what I noticed. But she just didn’t make us feel rushed.

When our son asked for a to go cup for his drink she brought him a fresh drink in a to go cup and even brought me one that I didn’t ask for.

She was even a good sport about our daughter not wearing her glasses and thinking there was a shark in the fish tank… it was a carp or something clearly not a shark at all, just had a big top fin. We all had a good laugh including our daughter. Ryan mentioned something about Ciclettes? All around a great experience with lots of comfort food and laughs.

Our favorites:

Island tiki - a beautiful sunset looking sweet drink with a good amount of kick

Cheddar’s Painkiller- pineapple, coconut sweet goodness but it does get pretty watered down and alcoholic toward the end of the drink.

Loaded baked potato soup- deliciousness devoured quickly

Watermelon Vodkarita virgin- basically sweet and sour mix with a little watermelon purée but it made our teen happy and didn’t taste bad when I tried a sip. I imagine the alcoholic drink would have been quite delicious.

Homemade chicken pot pie- this is our 15 year old’s go to dish and she even dipped some of her brothers fries in it.

Monte cristo sandwich- warm and filling. It was good.

Honey butter Croissants- they come free as the standard table bread. The kids love them, I eat one each time because I’m always starving but could do without, hubby always gives his up to the kids because he’s not a fan.

Santa Fe Spinach Dip- delicious and even reheats well for leftovers. The chips are so thin and crispy they don’t always support the heavy dip but it’s so delicious we just keep digging the broken pieces back out of the dip and eating them mess and all.

Wisconsin Cheese Curds- we get these every time and they are always delicious. They are like a better version of mozzarella sticks and bite size form.

Not a fan:

Sirloin steak- lots of gristle and tough to chew but the flavor was good.

Shrimp Alfredo- decent taste but they left the tails on the shrimp and they were covered in sauce, so it was really messy and not a pleasant experience.

Buffalo chicken wrap- it was okay and definitely better than their burgers. But not great.

Burgers- very bland hubby took his home and drowned it in spicy...

We arrived around 3 pm on a Thursday, the restaurant was quiet and mostly empty. I observed maybe 3 tables occupied, and was promptly told that we would have to wait to be seated because the table needed to be cleaned. Really, the restaurant is a ghost town? So we waited. We sat for 10 minutes before our waitress showed up to take the other tables orders that came in after us. The waitress takes our order, as we are about 25 minutes seated, says "I'll be right back with your drinks and goes to another table 6 feet away to take another order first. 10 minutes later, ice tea and coke arrive. 5 minutes later cold croissants arrive. 10 minutes later salads arrive. 3 minutes later dinner arrives.... Are you kidding me? The waitress brought the wrong dressing, because she never asked what flavor and brought what she felt like. My pasta had that stale refrigerator after taste. No, the Cajun shrimp didn't disguise it. The shrimp had that just ready to go bad after taste and texture too. My better half's dish wasn't much better, as it had the same Cajun shrimp mine did. My ice tea sat empty the entire meal, which means I never saw my waitress again until we were done. She came by the table and asked if we needed anything, *heavy sigh I ordered another ice tea and paid the bill. Our plates were mostly full when we left. I'm not a picky eater and love to leave a generous tip, but under these circumstances, this review is the only tip I'm leaving. You, the managers, clean your coolers better. Stop using pasta from a bucket that is stored in a walk in cooler. That's what it tastes like. Quality control your seafood before you make someone sick. Teach your wait staff how to take an order, suggestively sell food options, and attend to the customers needs. I left your establishment hungry and irritated, as the food was mostly inedible. I don't send food back, I've seen Waiting. I didn't complain to management or the waitress, as they were not present. I will not waste my money or time at your...