LongHorn Steakhouse — Restaurant in Panama City Beach

I’m not a stranger to cooking or grilling. The appearance of the “steaks” were unappealing. Granted we orderd without the heavy salt-spice seasoning. (Makes me wonder why so much, need people to order more drinks, or your grade of beef is not as described?) There are 3 grades of Choice, aging process.

The “Flo’s filet” appeared to be “cut" out from a Porterhouse, not the inch+ high round “puff ball” as other Longhorns? Little sear. The “Renegade”, it too had a little patch of a sear, and it was NOT A CENTER CUT, as it had several strands of connective tissue within the piece. Makes it tough to chew.

Both “steaks” seemed to have a light sear and the rest of the meat surface was that of a MICROWAVE appearance !! Which could explain the extremely fast service. So “Guests” who don’t order alcoholic drinks are served fast and pushed out the door? Really!!???

So upon calling (the next day) to gain more information about the “cooking procedure”, I was told that there are 3 cooking/heating methods available to the “chef”? Flat grill, Fire and Cast Iron (which I use w/ offset fire) Asked if that was available on the menu, and of course, NO!

The “color” was okay, no “fire” crust/bark. SIMPLY had that MICROWAVED texture. SMH!!

Granted most of your Guests are maybe tourists, and the others have never tasted Texas open-fired “Q”. We travel around the USA, not our first rodeo at a LHS. Maybe it’s just this Franchise location that is cutting corners? We’ve found that “Logans” seem to have better consistency between their locations.

And BTW, little to NO greeting when entering the front door, even though there were 3 Hostesses. A manager (?) never came by to ask “How is everything”, though he did visit the table next to us 3 times? And NO “THANK YOU” AS WE WALKED PAST THE SAME 3 HOSTESSES OUT THE DOOR! The Server, Julie was good, though she is trying to earn her tips. We did not question the “meat”, just wanted to get the hell out since we ate the good salad, get the “dinner” over with...

My "beef" is not with the restaurant, its with the manager lady who handled the situation over the phone when I called. We are locals, we dine-in and pickup often from this location. When we dine-in everything is great, the food, service, no problem. If there is a screw up, they do their best to make things right, remake the food, bring missing item, etc... Online orders another story. We go pickup the orders our selves to make sure food is still nice and warm when we get home. Sometimes items are missing, salad dressing, some sauces or a butter for the bread. Todays order was missing sauces for two orders of WW shrimp and caesar dressing, enough to ruin the food experience. So we called the restaurant to express our concern about the frequent missing items from our online orders. Told the manager lady we were locals that dine-in and pickup often from this place. Asked the manager lady if she needs to verify the order, instead of an apology we were treated as a serial freebie seekers, her tone was rude from the start, asked me if i wanted to go back and get the missing items which is almost an hour round trip. I said we were already eating and it would take a long time. She offered $5 gift card, which is less than the tip I left on the online order which i picked up, and still no apology from her. My wife was laughing next to me, saying why am i even bothering, if i needed their gift card or an apology. I said its the principles. Anyways, right before manager lady hang up the phone she said non-apology "sorry", which ruined my appetite. If this happened when we were dining in the restaurant they would triple fold to make things right. I guess the managment only cares when you dine-in, online orders dont matter and the people who call when they screw up are liars, at least thats how the manager lady treated me. Oof, feels little better. Sorry for the non deserved one star review for the restaurant. My family and I still...

I contemplated long enough if I should leave this review, but I just have to say it out there to hopefully help the management later on.

We went on a busy Saturday early evening for dinner late summer last year. I came in with my family & extended family. We were greeted by a nice server. That’s when I smelled something bad, I have sensitive sense of smell. I brushed it off as I thought a farmer may be seated near us with cow manure on the bottom of his boots, no big deal. The food came & they looked great, but I smelled it again. This time it was really awful. I was starving so I started eating, but every now & then I could smell it. However it was getting worse like something rotten or a sewage smell. My son who was seated across me smelled it too. By then I realized it was the server. I had to excuse myself because I was about to throw up, thank goodness I made it to the restroom.. My order alone was almost $50, but I couldn’t finish my food.. I started getting nauseous as I sat there worried I may throw up on the table while my family & extended family was enjoying catching up. And to be honest, it ruined my evening, I just wanted to leave.

I waited this long because I don’t want to embarrass the person. The server is nice & did a fantastic job overall. However, the smell was just too much to ignore. I understand that not everyone could afford to go to the dentist, but maybe the management could have some gums or mints available for the staff to chew on just to freshen one’s breath, after all they are serving food. As a food establishment, you never want your customer to experience a foul smell. And as paying guests, we’d love to have pleasant experience & maybe look forward...