RusTeak Thornton Park — Restaurant in Orlando

If I could give this restaurant a rating of 0 stars, I would. The service and treatment I received during a recent dining experience at RusTeak’s Thornton Park, Florida location was appalling. The management team, in particular, lacked professionalism and was both rude and disrespectful to my entire party. My husband contacted the restaurant and made a reservation for 16 people for a joint birthday party. He was assured that the staff would be able to accommodate the size of our party. When we arrived at the restaurant, the hostess indicated that they only had a reservation for a party of 6, which was in error. This was the first breakdown in communication. The words ‘six’ and ‘sixteen’ are quite distinct. We were then seated in a different area that was too small to accommodate the size of our party. Our waitress offered us a private room, which she then showed to my husband and two other individuals in our group. While in the private room, the manager, Hannah Brestel, my husband and two other friends. Even though it was unoccupied at that time, Hannah Brestel blatantly refused to seat us in the private room. When asked why, she stated that she would not be seating us in the private room because it was reserved for the following day. Besides the fact that this is an absolutely ridiculous reason to deny seating to a group whose reservation was incorrectly recorded, this was yet another breakdown in communication. This time, however, the breakdown was not between our group and the staff, but rather, internally, between management and staff. Apparently, our waitress did not know about any upcoming events scheduled for the next day, or that as a result, she should not have offered us the private room. Instead of communicating with her staff (i.e., the waitress who led us to believe the private room was even available), and politely providing clarification, the manager then yelled, "GET OUT" at my husband and friends, while falsely accusing them of accosting her. This is far more telling of the restaurant’s lack of professionalism or training policies. This manager did not have the training or capacity to manage the expectations of this restaurant’s guests or clearly communicate with her team. I am also certain that if you were to review this exchange as documented by the cameras in the restaurant, it would be very clear that no member of our party approached the manager in a manner as she falsely described. Instead, any recording of our interactions would clearly show that Hannah Brestel, as well as the restaurant as a whole, is ill equipped, lacks training or expertise in providing service on a busy night to its patrons. Instead of diffusing the circumstances caused by the restaurant’s error, Hannah Brestel chose to scream and yell in response. These are not characteristics you would expect of a manager. We ultimately ate and paid for our meals, but our entire dining experience, as well as my birthday, was ruined as a result of the treatment we received. Had we been greeted with hospitality and kindness in response to the error made to our reservation, this incident could have been avoided altogether. We probably would not have minded the fact that we were not seated together and would have likely found no need to accept the waitress’s offer to look at the private room. If you’re looking for a pleasant dining experience where you will be treated with respect, this is not it; you will be sorely disappointed. The owner’s response to other reviews is very indicative of this. Instead of acknowledging an experience, or contacting its patrons to, at a minimum, identify the source of a complaint, the account identified as this restaurant’s owner finds it more appropriate to opine on tort liability for emotional harm to its staff. This restaurant should consider its own liability in the form of its hiring decisions, training and culture as well as the fact that the public is free to share opinions and reviews of their experience using platforms such as this. I will never patronize this...

I have been here 2x before and really enjoyed it. Went last night, party of 6 for my birthday. Service was poor from the start, didn't get any introduction to the menu, the flavor, anything; felt as if the waitress wanted to get us in and out so she could turn it one more time before the nights up.

No silverware so our apps sat for about 5 minutes before someone came with silverware.

2 entrees arrive after an hour, turns out they were not for our table, the runner did not know what the dishes were so we looked through one of the dishes with a fork, they determine it was at the wrong table and brought the dishes to a different table, unbelievable! After we dug through it with a fork.

Then 20 minutes later our entrees came out, they totally messed up 1 of the dishes, not even getting into that.

3 of our meals were cold, I mean ice cold, the Mahi sandwich, crabby steak, and a burger, were all cold. We very politely mentioned it to the waitress, just made a lighthearted sarcastic joke about how the kitchen must be having a hard time, because the food was cold.

The manager comes over and inquires and we say, because we are not rude, "it's fine, don't worry about it, the food is really cold but it's not a big deal" the manager then says "oh, you are the best! Thanks" implying that because we said it's not a big deal means that he didn't need to remedy the situation.

As it was my birthday, they said they would give us a free desert. We picked out our desert, the cronie, which is basically a doughnut with some powdered sugar and ice cream. She comes back about 5 minutes later and said the rule has changed and the only free birthday desert is a brownie and ice cream.

We all laughed and said it was okay, we will take the check.

So, all in all, the service was horrible, the management has no idea what's going on and is purely incompetent. The food has great potential but they just need to execute better.

It's very unfortunate because at that price point you can go to many other wonderful restaurants in orlando and get excellent, creative food and great service.

Good luck Rusteak, hope you can get...

Limited street parking.

Trendy dark restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating. Wanted to give it 3.5 stars but no option in Google to do so, so bumping them up to 4 instead. The food was a hit or miss.

The sauce on the mussles appetizer was delicious. Unfortunately it only came with 2 triangles (1 square garlic bread slice) but we were a party of 4. We asked for additional garlic bread which took maybe 20+ minutes to arrive and also was charged extra $3 for 2 extra square slices of bread cut in a diagonal to become 4. The mussels were room temp by the time it arrived so it may have been longer.

The crabcake appetizer was decent and tasty as well.You can definitely taste the crab.

My rusteak burger (ordered mediun) tasted a little on the dry side despite it having bacon. The egg was fried throughout and not over easy with the runny yellow that I'm used to seeing at other restaurants. The patty itself was lacking in flavor had a slight overcooked texture/taste. I would not get that again. The garlic mashed potato option was much too creamy and baby food like.

The salmon on the salmon salad was decent, but the large salad that it came with was lacking. It was mostly kale and other greens but the flavors did not mesh, maybe because texture of the dry raw kale overpowered each bite. It would have helped to marinate the kale in a garlic lemon bath to soften the kale.

The steak salad came with cubes of steaks pre-cut small bites. Not bad. The salad it came with was a romaine drizzled with modeno balsamic vinagrette, candied cranberry and nuts, cherry tomatoes, red onions. This was one of the better meals on the table this eve along with the mussels appetizer.

While the food is not terrible, with the exception of the mussels, steak salad, and crabcakes, it was an uneventful meal. I highly recommend the mussels though. It was packed with flavor out of all of them whereas everything else thereafter was just ok or towards the bland side.

Service was...