Colton's Steak House & Grill — Restaurant in Muskogee

On 08-17-2024 at approximately 7pm, my wife, daughter and I decided to try Colton’s Steak house in Muskogee, OK. When we arrived, we could tell that they were extremely busy. We knew going in that we wouldn’t be getting a table anytime soon. To our surprise, we were immediately seated by the very friendly hostess.

Shortly after being seated, our "first" waitress shows up to take our drink order and asks us if we would like to order an appetizer. We ordered sweet tea and an onion blossom. She brings the tea out and asked if we were ready to order. My wife ordered a full rack of ribs to share with our daughter. They ordered two salads and a side. I ordered a T-bone, a salad, and a potato.

Approximately ten minutes later, the waitress shows back up to take our order again. I told her that we've already ordered and are waiting on the salads and appetizer but would love some rolls while we wait. She advised us that the rolls would come out when our appetizer came out. Approximately fifteen minutes later, the salads come out but only 2 of them. I explained that we ordered three salads. The waitress looks confused and goes back to get the third salad. Upon returning, she asks a third time what we ordered. I had to point and show her our order on her pad. Several minutes later, our food comes out but was served by the (2nd) waitress (she was wonderful) who told us that our first waitress had to leave. My steak was over cooked, but I didn’t complain because it actually tasted pretty good. The ribs however were so tough that I bent a fork and knife while attempting to separate them for my daughter. My wife took one bite out of them and said, “I can’t eat these”. My daughter had to knawel what meat that she could get off of the bones. The blond manager in a blue shirt stopped by to ask if everything was okay. I told her that I wasn't one to complain but I was wondering if the ribs were smoked in house or offsite and then re-heated at the restaurant (as this would explain the rubbery texture). She advised that the ribs were smoked at the restaurant. I told her that the ribs were not eatable and were extremely hard. She just said, "Sorry about that, I'll tell the cook". I finished my steak, and my wife and daughter go to the restroom. I settle up with the check and see another manager with dark hair and asked her “when you think of smoked ribs, what comes to mind when thinking about the meat tenderness?” She answered “fall off the bone” I replied exactly!! I then pointed to my daughter’s plate of half-eaten ribs and said does that look like fall off the bone to you? She said “I’m so sorry about that” I will go tell the cook manager. The blond wait staff manager chimes in and says, “I’ve already spoke to him about it, he said it was the brand of ribs”. The dark-haired manager comes back a few minutes later, grabs my daughter’s plate to take it to the back and says he doesn’t believe me that the ribs are that bad. My family leaves the restroom, and we went on our way. The more that I thought about it throughout the night, the more it aggravated me that we spent $23 on food that we literately boxed up and fed to our dogs. (we could've bought a 40lb bag of dog food for the price of those ribs). We were not looking for a free meal but if a customer tells a manager that they're unhappy with a dish, the least you could do is offer to get them something else. Both managers seemed not to care at all. I was at least hoping for a free appetizer for our next visit but would have been happy if they would’ve said sorry, let me make you something else in place...

My daughter and grandbaby traveled to Muskogee to swim at the waterpark. After a full day of swimming we were exhausted and hungry. We looked up steakhouses in the area and chose Coltons because we had never been there before. We are pretty laid back and was not in a hurry but our waitress was on top of things. She came out with a basket of hot dinner rolls, butter and a jar of honey. She took our drink order and we ordered an appetizer, fried pickles which she promptly got in, brought our drinks back to us and took our dinner order. She brought fresh drinks before our cups were empty and checked on us often. Our appetizer was taking a while (which I had not even noticed) but our waitress did and kept apologizing to us for the delay. The restaurant didn't look very busy but later we found out there was a huge party in the back and that is what was causing a delay in our order. I was amazed because most restaurants are loud and it is very noticeable when there is a large party, but here I would have never known if I had not been told. Due to our appetizer being delayed our waitress got the manager on it, I never had to say a word. When our food came out, there was a mistake in how many shrimp my daughter got and the manager brought them out with an extra one. My point in all of this is, we had been swimming all day, we were not dressed in our best, if anything we were looking rather sloppy this day for an evening dinner at this type of restaurant yet not once were we judged but instead treated as important guests of the establishment. Our waitress was very friendly and on top of her job, we never had to complain because she made sure we were taken care of and updated on what was happening before we realized it. I wish I could remember her name. The manager Kat was the friendliest manager I have ever encountered, she was helping her people take care of things, and was also on top of problems before customers could realize there was one. I did not expect a discount on my meal, I would have happily paid full price simply because the employees were giving a 110% and treated us with such respect while they were dealing with a large party in the back. I don't feel as if there are words to express how wonderful the staff at this establishment are and if I am back in this area I would most certainly eat here again simply because I appreciated the level of service that was provided by this team. They were the perfect example of how a restaurant should treat their customers. Thank you Kat and our waitress for a...

This place is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. My wife and I used to eat here quite regularly (once every week or two), and generally speaking, I love the food and atmosphere, and the service can be really good. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a wildcard. Now we only go once every 2-3 months, and sometimes it's really good on food and service, and other times it's really terrible, for both food and service. Typically, I order a fish or chicken meal, which I personally recommend the Hawaiian chicken or mesquite salmon. I always get the sweet potato fries with the marshmallow sauce. My wife normally gets a burger or steak. Again, food and service is about 50/50 where it's either really good or really bad. Doesn't seem to matter whether it's busy or not. Now for specifics, when the service is bad, it's typically been because the wait staff just vanish for the majority of the visit. There have been times we've been seated, and wait 20-30 minutes just to get drinks. Then other times we may be served our food, and the wait staff never come back until long after we're done eating, so no refills on drinks or even to check that the food is what we expected. A couple times I've had to flag down other wait staff just to get the check and leave. On the other hand, there have been a couple times the wait staff were great and checked in consistently, but there were issues in the kitchen. One occurance I remember, the waitress was embarrassed by the kitchen staff and constantly apologizing because of issues in the kitchen (I believe they ruined a meal, had to restart, then completely forgot another meal, and had something else wrong). It's hard to say what the cause of everything is, but I feel like it's training (in regards to training up staff a little more or better before releasing them on their own) and lack of engagement from management. What I mean by that is most restaurants these days will have the manager go around the restaurant occasionally checking in on guests, asking about their experience, etc., and I have never once had this happen at Colton's. If so, I would've voiced some of these issues when they happened. My last tiny complain is in regards to portion size. My wife always gets regular fries, and I get the sweet potato fries, and she'll always have a good size portion or stack of fries, meanwhile I'll get a little plate with a few fries on it. It's never enough, and I'm always a bit disappointed when it comes out and I can easily count the sweet potato fries on the plate because...