Yard House — Restaurant in San Antonio

I love Yardhouse, it’s my favorite chain restaurant. I’ve eaten at Yardhouse in Denver, Las Vegas, Austin, downtown SA, etc and have never once had a problem.

But this location is a different story. We brought my wife’s parents, who are from overseas (6000 miles away!), and we bragged how great this place would be.

We received terrible service. We ordered several appetizers and they didn’t put in half of them. Then when our entrees came out, half my order never came out, even though the food runner promised it was coming soon.

I tried to flag down waiters, bartenders, and even our waitress who all completely ignored us. I was literally trapped in the booth because of our infant daughter, and not a single employee would give us any help, even with me yelling and waving my arms and I’m pretty tall (6”1’). Finally I was able to caught a managers attention even though he was leaving work it seemed. He told me it was their busiest day ever, and was sorry but they were just so busy.

I thought that was pretty rude because I sat in traffic for over an hour, only to come to this location and find zero parking, so we had to hike a mile with an infant. Then we waited 25 minutes for a table only to be seated next to the toilets. With a high chair in direct path of the toilets, so every single person in the restaurant can squeeze past our baby.

So I don’t feel bad that you are “too busy” to put fries out with a hamburger. Hamburgers generally come with French fries in most civilized establishments last time I checked.

The manager comped our meal because I told him about certain appetizers that never came out and better not be on our bill. He went to check and returned saying the bill was taken care of. This implied to me that they charged us for those appetizers but never delivered them.

The tables surrounding us seemed to be seated after us, served faster and they even pay up and leave, while we are still waiting to get enough food to eat here. They really dropped the ball and I will never return to this location, I’d rather drive to Austin instead and get better service.

Pros: literally none. Cons: burgers without fries, parking is impossible, food forgotten by waitress, staff is unhelpful and ignores you, they’ll try to seat you next to the restrooms with an infant seat (who does that??), manager is too “busy” serving other people so I should accept poor service, 3 appetizers you may never receive. No fried chicken, no onion rings available. Music...

What a treat. 🔥 Granduer is matched with the quality of food and service, despite the frantic level of business.

Food, 9/10. This location delivered possibly the best execution of a challenging menu in my most recent memory. In my visit, plates ranged from an elevated burger, a Japanese influenced steak dish, to a Nashville chicken sandwhich. Asian flavors were delicate and delicious, and Americans flavors were robust and verbose. Fried elements were juicy and audibly crunchy- ASMR level good. My highlight of the night was our Ahi tuna sashimi appetizer. Rich, aeromatic, and fresh. The appetizer was so simple, elegant, and delicious that I was made well aware of the level of flavors that were coming to the table. My plate personally lacked the finishing touches that would have sent my pallet into the stratosphere - Nashville hot chicken could have been hotter and sauced. Pickles would have been better on the sandwhich to pair with the plated Spear. My wife also asked for a house steak sauce, which tells me the steak dish overall lacked that finishing blow. Perhaps a marinade or a finishing sauce.

The service was 10/10. In scenarios with 100+ guests, I expect the absolute least. Today, we were helped by a server who ram their section like a machine. Constant check-ins with small talk and support staff delivering from bar and kitchen accurately. One part of our order was delivered to the table hot after a short wait- and we were visited by the manager on duty. The level of communication, teamwork, and coordination in this service was clinical and graceful. I can't begin to praise your efforts enough. Thank you.

The atmosphere is one for tavern style fun and comroderie. It is unruly, alive, and bustling. You might catch an expected roar of cheers for a sports game, a racious laugh from a visiting party - the chatter is inviting and positive. Dark and intimate.

Incredible selection of top shelf and the largest selection of ice cold draft beer you'll find within an hour in any direction.

This is a great stop for a weekend adventure or reuniting kindred spirits.

This experience is a tough one to beat. Thank you so much, YH service and staff.

We'll...

I typically like yardhouse. I go to the downtown location often. But my experience at the La cantera location (and on my birthday at that) ruined Yardhouse for me.

I let the hostess know that I had 9 plus a highchair in my party. When we got to the table it was 2 square high tops pushed together with 7 chairs and a high chair (the chairs were already squished in pretty tight). Obviously a mistake, so I kindly let the hostess know. I even presented a solution (there was another empty table behind us that could have easily been combined with ours to provide enough room). Apparently that table was already assigned to someone else so instead they said the only thing they can do is give us an extra chair… again… we had 9 1/2 people.. 7 1/2 chairs plus 1 chair is 8 1/2 chairs.. the math isn’t mathing.. not to mention how squished the table already was. But apparently they thought we were the stupid ones or at least that’s how they were talking to us, like we couldn’t understand english just because we didn’t agree with their logic of trying to squeeze all of us onto this table. So at this point I’m ready to just leave rather than cuss out the hostess because again.. it’s my birthday and who needs to deal with this sort of crap on their birthday right?

So finally the hostess goes back to my original recommendation of adding the extra still table behind us, but not without an horrible attitude again, this time picking up and slamming the chairs in place. I’m ready to slap her at this point but my husband kept his calm despite her talking to him as if he’s some kind of idiot..

Anyway, after all that we stayed.. thankfully the server was both nice and attentive. The food was good for the most part other than my husbands steak (poor guy), he did ask for well done but I guess that translates to burnt to a crisp lol. He’s not one to complain so he didn’t say anything.. I typically am not either but this overall experience kind of hurt to be honest, there was no reason for such disrespect from the hostesses (and I wasn’t even being rude to her at all until she started talking to us like we were stupid). We won’t be going back to...