The Palm - Orlando — Restaurant in Orlando

I was totally shocked that the iconic Palm was a total disaster for dinner. It was our first time back since the family run restaurant was sold. I ate there for dinner with my family from NYC so I was accustomed to the great steaks and lobster and service from the original Palm and Palm Too on East 44th Street. However our meal here in Orlando didn’t even come close to matching the reputation it had prior to being sold to The Landry Steakhouse franchise. The bacon was some kind of Asian fusion concoction that had nothing to do with resembling a thick cut broiled steakhouse bacon. The manager gave us some tacky excuse that it was complimentary because I had mentioned we were from NYC. They gave it to the next table as well without the tackiness so that was a clue to what was going to be in store. Our 3 NY State 16 oz strip sirloin steaks ordered medium rare came out soft and warm to the touch and lacked any grilled crispness exterior and worse of all was moving red rare. One of the steaks was not the same size and was smaller and that was rare as well. One of my family members after eating the first slice wound up with a stomach virus 24 hours later. Steaks were taken back and reheated. The side dish of the half and half which is half fried onions and half fried potato chips was also a disaster. There were just 4 chips buried underneath a full plate of fried onions. Those 4 chips were completely burnt. I suspect somebody walked away from the oil fryer and overcooked the chips and thus buried the least burnt chips to conceal their mistake. I brought it to the attention of the waiter and he apologized and went back to bring me a fresh order of fried chips. By that time my steaks returned and had by the time we were finished eating the steaks the waiter brought us back a full plate of fresh chips and to my shock again they were all completed over fried to the point of burntness again. Somebody asleep at the fryer again must have dumped the chips in the fryer and forgot about them. Our waiter never even paid attention to the fail again as he just placed it on the table without even noticing a thing. When I got his attention again and said we don’t want this order and that this is unacceptable he looked at the plate of burnt chips and said .” Oh I agree I’m so sorry” then to make matters worse he says, “ oh wow look how overdone these are” then stuck his finger on top of the pile of burnt chips then pressed down which shattered the chips completely as if it he was giving me his final exclamation point to the disaster of an experience our family went through. The Orlando Palm resembles nothing that it was known for. The service was tacky and the food were second rate diner quality. I will not return to another Palm franchise again and will advise all our friends the same. ...

I'm going to start by saying, thanks for having my wife, son and I. We were staying at the Hard Rock visiting and showing my son a awesome time at the Parks over the weekend.

We were turned down at most restaurants in City Walk after leaving Universal due to not having reservations. I already had my eye on "The Palm" before even arriving in Orlando, and wanted to try it while we were in town, but didn't think we were going to be able to make it happen due to time and showing my son a good time.

After being turned down as a walk in at many other nice places, I decided to try and reserve a table here at the Palm. Was able to do so, and we got back on our water taxi and came straight over to have dinner, very hungry and excited. We came straight from the park so yes we had on our comfortable clothes, tee shirts and shorts. I understand that this is a Nice restaurant but the welcoming we got when we arrived and really the entire time we had dinner was very disappointing. Our waitress, I forgot her name was very polite after I broke the ice and advised her that we're human and just here to eat.

I totally understand the quality of what is supposed to be fine dining, and very familiar with good customer service because I manage a HUGE customer Base myself. I think it's very sad to feel like you and your family are being looked down on because we have on tennis shoes and a tee shirt after coming back from an amusement park and eating in a restaurant that's attached to our hotel.

This is something this restaurant and the world can do way better on is treating people with respect and kindness no matter the appearance because I can assure you wealth comes in all shapes and sizes and fancy clothing should never dictate how someone is treated. I follow a man named Jesus Christ and that's who a gauge how I see people and this world needs to practice this too.

My family and I will certainly be back to the Hard Rock Resort and Universal but we will certainly look past "The Palm" no doubt.

Again, thanks for having us and God...

Update * 2024**. *6th year in a row dining here (10/11/24) at 7:00 p.m. as it was our family tradition in Orlando and sadly this will he our last. Let me first start off by saying our waitress was absolutely phenomenal. She was attentive and was so pleasant to our family. But that's where it ends. Now let me preface this by saying I eat at top steak houses around the country and know what a prime steak is. Absolutely, positively, the Palm is NOT serving prime aged steaks. The flavor, tenderness, fat content was not there one bit. It was tough and definitely a choice cut maybe eveb lesser. Maybe Hurricane Milton may have brought a disruption to their food distributor or the fact that they were hosting a big corporate function and had to churn out more than expected steaks, but this was unacceptable for a $80.00 prime ribeye. I felt deceived and taken advantage of. My wife ordered the lobster gnocchi with vodka sauce. This was far from a lobster gnocchi with vodka sauce. It had no cream and was basically a red tomato thick paste. Italian resturants would distance themselves far from this dish. My wife took one bite and couldn't even swallow it. The shrimp.bruno on the other hand was excellent. As being a landry member for 6 years and coming to the Palm for the same number of years we were never charged a corkage fee but to my surprise they charged us this fee probably because management was disappointed that we complained about our meals. I woke this morning pretty hurt that my favorite resturant in Orlando has taken a nose dive for the worst.

Oh and one other thing that left a bad taste in our mouth. The $11.00 kids butter pasta that was the size of small microwavable kraft macaroni and cheese bowl that even my 3 year old daughter commented on was off putting. Thank you Palm Orlando for giving us great memories in the past but we will be looking elsewhere in a heavy saturated Orlando steak house experience. Something has changed and it is not...