Red Robin Gourmet Burgers and Brews — Restaurant in Raleigh

First, I had a big problem on my visit to Red Robin with the bar service. When you walk in, there is a full bar, so you make certain assumptions about what is available.

My mom ordered a vodka martini, I ordered the Red Oak listed on the beer chalkboard. Our server came back and said they can’t make a vodka martini because the bartender doesn’t know how to make it. The simplest drink in the world, and maybe the world’s number one cocktail, and they can’t make it? They absolutely have the ingredients. The bartender said that even if they knew how to make it, they didn't have any way to add that to our tab.

And of course they don’t have the beer I ordered, I guess the eraser is missing so they can’t update the board?

So this got us off to a very bad start. The whole situation at the bar was perplexing.

I 86'd my beer, but my mom switched over to one of the signature drinks on their menu. It wasn't really what she wanted, and it turned out to be a really sugary mess, so she didn't even finish it. I guess a lot of people like drinks like that so maybe we are just weird.

Anyway, I guess because Mom ordered a drink she didn't get water, so she had to ask to get that. I kind of expect that water for everyone is the norm.

Also kind of oddly, Red Robin seats you at the table and doesn't give you any utensils or napkins. I mean, you don't have any food right then, so I guess their logic is that you don't need it, but once drinks are on the table there is a good chance we are going to need napkins.

I don't know if the server was going to provide them anyway, but when our food came we did ask for utensils, and she gave them to two of our party, but none to my wife. I guess they are thinking that she has a burger, she can eat like a savage. (When she starts chowing down on a burger, there are times when you see a fierce look in her eyes, so maybe so.)

The utensils are kind of a joke too, one small, thin napkin and a fork. So we had to ask our server for another set of utensils, and some napkins. Again, I guess they are figuring you just don't need a knife, but my wife very often wants to cut her burger in half and take part of it home. So yeah, if you pass out knives, a lot of people aren't going to use them, but still, for utensils this would seem to be the norm.

Food was fine, served promptly and as expected. There are pretty much no vegan options, so I got the bottomless house salad, and the server was super-prompt about asking if I wanted a refill when I finished mine. This was definitely good service, and much appreciated.

I don't really hold lack of vegan options against any restaurant, I do my best to work around it. But it is a plus if they have more options. Here I could get an Impossible burger or a Veggie burger and remove a few toppings, so there is at least something, but not a lot. If you aren't in the mood for a burger and fries, which I wasn't, there's not a lot left. Again, I don't hold this against Red Robin, this is just a place where a food place can pick up extra points by doing better than the norm.

I started off giving this a zero star review because of the mess ordering drinks. Thinking about it overnight I feel like I came in hot, so I've upped it to three stars out of five. At the core, you come to a restaurant to eat, and the food was pretty good. There were just so many missteps and unforced errors, that really dragged the experience down.

For those of you who care about these things, I looked up this restaurant's sanitation scores on the Wake Co. website. Their last two visits were a 98 and 99, which is just one teeny item away from perfect. So even if you don't like the food or the service, you can at least know that they run a tight shop in the...

Worst dining experience I can remember. The orders were wrong and the wait staff was rude and unattentive. We took our 5 year old there on her birthday at her request and waited an hour between the time we sat down to when our food came. Our server hardly came to our table during this time to refill drinks. When we received our food, out of the six of us, five of the orders were wrong. Cold pizza, wrong ingredients on salad, missing piece of chicken on entree, missing broccoli, etc. Those items were mostly corrected by someone who never identified himself but he was not our server (service manager?). I had finished my meal before many of them were corrected and some items were never corrected. Drinks were not refilled and we didn't receive any napkins until after I had finished my meal so I had to go to the bathroom to wash my hands. At this point our server abandoned our table. My 5 year old asked when they were going to come and sing to her but there was no way I was going to ask them to do one more thing when nothing they had done so far was right so our family sang to her at the table. When we finished, I had to walk around the restaurant looking for our server to get the check and I finally asked another server to bring it to us. After a few minutes, our server appears with the check and then leaves again. We wait for about ten minutes and when we see our server, we had to point to the check to get her attention to come and pick it up. She looked directly at us but walks the other way. After a few more minutes she comes back to get it. It was almost as though so much went wrong with our service experience that she didn't want to show her face to us again. Before we left, I told her that the service was pretty rough and she nonchalantly said "sorry" as she turned to walk away. As we were leaving, the service manager was at another of her tables putting out a fire. We will never...

I had a very poor experience from walking in the door. I ordered food online and had a pickup time of 9:35pm. I arrived at 9:40pm, and walked into the restaurant with no one present at the front takeout counter or hostess stand. I stood there and made eye contact with two employees who did nothing. The manager was busy with another disgusted guest that requested to speak with him. After several minutes of standing there, a woman emerged out of the bar area to ask about my order. I told her my name, and she went to the kitchen to get it. She then brought out food for someone else, and told me my order was being put together and bagged. I waited a few more minutes, and the manager asked if I was being helped. I responded with yeah, eventually I'll get my food. He didn't apologize or anything, and said that two people were working on it. Really? It takes two people and 10 minutes to put my food in a bag? Then he disappeared. Another guy came from the kitchen, and asked me what order I had. So again, I repeated my name. Then the woman showed up again and asked me the name on my order. I was so irritated by that time. I finally get my food, and get the heck out of there over 15 minutes after my quoted order time. The fries were already luke warm at that time. I get home (another 15 minute drive), and the onion rings were cold and greasy. My burger and bun were saturated with grease. The burger was a little warm at least (hence the generous 2 stars). I had to ask for ketchup and seasoning, and apparently I should have asked for napkins because not a single one was in the bag. I get a very greasy burger and onion rings, and no napkin to clean up with. $13 later, and I would've had better service and a better burger from burger king...so...