Outback Steakhouse — Restaurant in Nashville-Davidson

My family decided to meet in Madison and Outback was picked as the spot for lunch.

When we arrived, we checked in with the hostess.

There were six of us, four adults, one four year old and a ten year old. The children are my grandchildren.

We were informed that the table We were to sit at was occupied right now, but that the group that was there now had been there “one hour and fourth eight minutes and should be leaving soon.” We sat in the lobby area and waited about 20 +- minutes and we were seated.

We were served by “Lexa” and the server was good.

The table would have two checks, my wife and I and my granddaughter on one, my daughter and her family on the other.

We ordered appetizers, 2 blooming onions and coconut shrimp.

We ordered our entrees.

My wife and I had the salmon with shrimp and mushrooms, fresh vegetables and rice pilaf, my granddaughter had a Cesar salad with grilled chicken.

All of our food was delicious.

My understanding is that the food on the other side of the table was delicious too.

Meal, tea refills, bread.

All was good.

We were not offered desert.

Lexa brought the checks. Mine was $85. I am not sure how much my daughters check was.

I had two $50 gift cards from 2014 that I decided to use today.

When Lexa picked up the checks she rang out the gift cards

The check amount used all of one gift card and $35 of the second card, leaving a balance of ~$14.

I gave Lexa $20 cash for her efforts on my side of the table.

She returned with the receipts and I completed the check to end the transaction.

As I was folding the check and placing it in my billfold, another server that I had not seen until he walked up, came to my table and explained matter of fact Lt that “ a group of 19 people will be arriving in 7 minutes and they are going to sit here.

Knowing that Outback doesn’t take reservations, I thought that was the perfect time to have some fun, so I told him that it looks like he had a problem. A couple of minutes later my group stood up and headed to the door, but not before I had the opportunity to have a chat with the manager on duty.

I explained how I had to wait to get the table and how this whole thing aggravated me.

I should add that I too am in the hospitality industry.

The manager, Mr. Hickson was apologetic and assured me that he would have a talk with the server.

Additionally, Mr. Hickson offered me $100 in cards that can be used in any Outback, explaining that he wanted us to return to this location and give them another chance.

I agreed and accepted the gift, shook hands and left.

I gave the cards to my daughter for her to use.

I may or may not go back but thought that this unbelievable experience should be...

My husband and I have been loyal customers at this Outback location in Gallatin, visiting almost every week. While the food has consistently been good, the service over our last four visits has been very disappointing.

Today, we decided to sit in the bar area, hoping for better service than we’d received in the dining room the previous three times. Unfortunately, our server Angela was not attentive at all. Initially, I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, but it became clear that her lack of service was selective.

Angela was very attentive to the other three tables in her section, bringing them refills promptly and checking in to see if they needed anything. Meanwhile, my husband and I never received refills, and we had to ask twice for items we requested with our order.

The final straw was when we asked for more bread and salad dressings, and Angela took her time each time we requested them. When we were finished dining, I asked for a to-go box, blue cheese dressing, and a Coke to go. She returned after a long wait with a Coke Zero instead of a regular Coke and still had to leave again to get the dressing, leaving us waiting another six minutes or so.

When I told my husband I no longer wanted the to-go drink because it wasn’t what I ordered, he confirmed with Angela that it was Coke Zero. She insisted we’d asked for Coke Zero and said she’d get a regular Coke, but “it would be a minute.” Any competent server would have checked their order pad instead of arguing. Yet she seemed to remember everything for her other tables, who clearly received better service.

Good food can’t make up for poor and inconsistent service. This experience, combined with our last few visits, has left us frustrated and disappointed. We will not be returning to this location anytime soon.

Management at this Outback should consider hiring and training staff who truly have a heart to serve and believe in treating all customers fairly, because as far as I’m concerned, money spent is dollars earned, and loyal customers deserve to be treated...

On 11/29/18, my wife & I went here to eat. We got there around 5:30 & the restaurant wasn’t even half-full but our waitress kept disappearing for long stretches of time. She was nice but I think she was way overrun because it took about 10 minutes for her to return after initially greeting us just to ask us what we’d like to drink. I also threw out that we wanted to get the onion appetizer (not that she’d asked but we were hungry & didn’t know when she’d be back) & again waited for a while for her to return. Finally she brought our drinks & while we continued to wait for our appetizer someone from the kitchen came by to get our order because “he was helping her out.” My wife & I ordered our dinners (mine was a ribeye w/ a loaded baked potato, hers was a filet w/ a baked sweet potato, both of them medium rare steaks & we got the wedge salads, too).

The onion came out & we just had a few bites when the salads appeared but they weren’t made correctly. Our salads didn’t have any bacon, about two strips of onions, & the balsamic glaze was mostly water. We weren’t even a quarter through our salads when suddenly our entrees arrived. Seriously? Medium rare steaks don’t take long to cook & they knew we had our table taken up with the onion, salads, bread, & plates. We weren’t happy to ignore our appetizer and salads but we weren’t about to eat cold steaks. Our waitress came by to glance that our plates arrived & vanished again without checking to see if we needed anything. I know what I got wasn’t a full steak as it was so flat. I don’t even think it was a ribeye. & to top it off, the potato I ordered had so much salt on the outside of it I could literally draw in it. It was like they oiled it up & rolled it in a salt like for a deer, not a human.

We made our way through our dinner very quickly since it seemed they wanted to rush us out of there & I got the check for a very dissatisfying $75 meal that half went home with us because we couldn’t eat it properly. Guess we'll be going to Longhorn...