Spencer's for Steaks and Chops — Restaurant in Omaha

This evening my wife and I had the displeasure of interacting with the staff at Spencers steaks & chops located in the Hilton garden hotel. We’ve enjoyed a staycation together in the Hilton for the past 7 days, and finally decided to give Spencer’s restaurant a try. Due to Covid room service isn’t offered, but we were able to pick up our order to take it to enjoy in the privacy of our hotel room. Upon arrival we were greeted with several dirty looks, and the hostess that handed us our order was extremely short and rude, I can only assume it is because my wife and I were a bit dressed down for the aesthetic of the restaurant. Nevertheless, we grabbed our bags, and headed back to our room. We unpacked the food and to our dismay our meal was extremely sloppily presented, the one steak we did receive was so over cooked it was difficult to bite into, and the other one of the $90 steaks we ordered was missing. My wife called down to Spencer’s to explain the situation, and was placed on the phone with a very rude female manager. She’s said “Well several of our employees checked the bags so there’s no way items were forgotten”. When we insisted that a steak was in fact missing she demanded that I pack up the entire $200+ order and bring it back to the restaurant so that they could confirm we were indeed telling the truth about the missing item. We asked if the kitchen would be remaking our entire order then because our food would be cold and unappetizing by the time we took it all the way to the restaurant then back up to our room and she became very snooty and placed me on hold. When she returned she laughed the issue off and explained that the error was theirs and that the order was taken down wrong. She offered to make another steak and give me a free beverage, but by that point the damage was already done, I mean who accuses a guest of lying about receiving an item?! We ended up throwing out the entire meal, and headed out to 808 chophouse where we’ve enjoyed a lovely evening. Respectful and kind staff can make all the difference. Even when we stay at this hotel we will never return for a dining experience at...

A very disappointing experience.

We had a reservation, so were seated promptly...but didn't see a waiter, busperson, etc. for 15 minutes. And they weren't particularly busy.

If the maitre de hadn't come by, we wouldn't have even gotten water. When our waiter finally showed up, he took our drink orders and our food orders.

It was easily 10 minutes to get 2 glasses of wine. When we'd ordered our food, we both ordered the lobster bisque and the ribeye steak. I added brussel sprouts.

We received - after a long wait - 2 lukewarm cups of lobster bisque. Which we did eat, but only because we saw no one we could talk to about getting it warmed up.

We did EVENTUALLY receive bread, but again, we had to ask 2 different people for it.

So our meal comes out and my wife asks if we weren't getting salads, which come with the meals. The waiter explained that he'd subbed our salads out for the lobster bisque? Even though the bisque is listed as a STARTER?

The steaks were great, and the sprouts were quite good.

Then for dessert, I started by ordering the Lemon Brulee. The wife ordered apple pie. The waiter explained that the apple pie was huge and big enough for 2 if we wanted to share. I said sure. He said he'd bring the pie and 2 spoons.

The pie comes out...with 2 spoons...along with the lemon brulee.

The brulee was not good. It didn't have that silky smooth texture you think of with a brulee. It was more like a quiche type texture...and it had been over sugared and the sugar was burned very dark, causing some bitter flavors.

2 cups of very bitter coffee rounded out the meal.

And I'm not sure if the problems were staff or management. I saw no managers all night, and when I went to the bathroom, the faucet sink wouldn't shut off, and the floor tile in front of the urinal had broken loose and would rock...

For the prices and the location in Omaha Ne you would think this would be the best steak money can buy, long story short, it was not. The first red flag was the serrated steak knives, while it is just an opinion, the only two reasons I can think of to need serrated rather than straight edge is: you are too cheap to take the time to sharpen them which shouldn't be the case given the price, or your steak is so tough you need serrated knives. The steak I got was a rare filet, and while it wasn't terrible, it was pretty tough which could mean the chef was having a bad day or they started with just an okay steak; If I'm paying $45 for a steak I'm expecting a darn fine cut of meat. Second red flag is more an observation, they ask everyone to cut into the middle of the steak when they bring it to make sure it was cooked correctly. I personally found this odd, if you're claiming to be a high end steak house, one would hope the chef would know whether or not it was properly cooked. Once again this was probably just me, but I found it extremely odd. Side note, they claim to make the cesar salad in house but they use packaged croutons, which if they put so much effort into it in the first place, why skimp on that part. On cesar dressing which they "make", it was probably the blandest tasting I have had. The best part of the restaurant, at least for us, was our waitress. She was an extremely friendly and sweet woman. There are a lot of steak house options in the area, you might want to check then all out before making a choice,...