Outback Steakhouse — Restaurant in San Diego

A rather sad example of a restaurant which used to be quite good, which is now a DNR. Let's start from the beginning of our journey, for my birthday bash, which turned out to be a terrible mistake:-

On arrival, the hostess was less hostess than hostile (I hasten to add that we were nothing but jovial, so it's not like we turned up and offended her) and grumpily seated us, followed by loudly slamming down bread and plates shortly thereafter. We shrugged this off - anyone can have a bad day.

It's not all bad, I should note - our server was engaging and helpful, and deserves credit for us not just walking away once we got to the entrees - she saved the day for them despite evident incompetence in the kitchen, and should be congratulated for her efforts.

Soup - fine, you can't mess-up bag-soup too badly, and as always, the French Onion soup was tasty.

Entrees - Oh boy, where to start? When you order a medium rare steak, you expect it to be pink inside, and the first sirloin I received was barely able to be cut, it was so overcooked. It was also massively under size (and I know what meat looks like by the ounce, because we often weigh portions at home - my 5oz sirloin was circa 3oz). The second one I received (after a roughly 30-minute wait) was still more medium-well than medium rare, but at least it could be cut, so I grudgingly accepted it. My wife's steak however was an entirely different story - she ordered a slow-roasted Prime Rib, medium rare. What she got looked like a piece of charred shoe from a plane wreck incident report, and when asked to cut into it to check it, it couldn't be cut as it was so tough. The second attempt they made looked the same, with the same crime-scene blackened horror of the first one. The third attempt looked more like it, but it required the manager to do it himself in order to turn out actual edible food. Bottom line - the chef was incompetent, and a restaurant is only as good as the weakest link.

We were not alone - the table next to us had the same issue with a prime rib, and they never received a re-do at all, despite waiting for 30-40 minutes. They just walked away, and I honestly wish we'd done the same, because I'd have had a better meal if I'd just driven through a burger place, thrown the burger away afterwards and burned a $100 bill.

It's a shame, because Outback Steakhouse used to be a passable place to get a steak. After last night's shockingly poor performance I can only assume they've gone to the dogs, so cannot recommend them at all. Unless you need a burned-shoe movie prop for a plane crash...

My husband and I walked into Outback Steakhouse on a Saturday around noon. It was much less crowded than I had expected. Despite the minimal crowd, we waited almost 10 minutes to be seated. We didnt have a dedicated server, we were being waited on in passing. All the employees except for one guy, who was also the bartender, seemed to be extremely buy doing nothing. The bartender/server who was really hustling from table to table seemed to be the only employee taking orders, serving most tables, and closing tickets, shoutout to him. We placed our order about 5 minutes after being seated. We waited about 25 minutes for our Onion! Took a lot of patience, considering how empty it was. I honestly was tempted to walk out, but finally, the onion came out and the nice woman in the blue shirt mentioned that she comped the onion due to the long wait. That was extremely generous and we are incredibly grateful.

I had been begging to come here since I started craving a blooming onion a few weeks ago. I had only ever had a blooming onion from the Del Mar fair. The Outback Blooming Onion exceeded my expectations. It came to our table hot, crispy, and flavorful. The breading was minimal, the onion petals were crunchy, not mushy, and had an actual onion-skunk flavor. We also ordered a Blue Cheese Wedge Salad and Sweet and Spicy Fried Shrimp. We enjoyed all the food. The salad was crispy, crunchy, creamy, refreshing, and clean. The sweet and Spicy shrimp was hit and crispy, the breading was also very minimal. The shrimp were okay-sized. Not massive, but we were served a generous amount. The complimentary brown bread and butter was unexpected and delicious. Warm, fresh, soft. The butter was perfect.

We were also surprised how decent the prices were for the food. We found it to be a good value for the quality and quantity. The drinks we personally avoided because most of them started at $10😬 we found the drinks to not be that...

Went to eat tonight around 530 or so and I have to say one of the worst experiences we’ve ever had here. We ordered to croc tail and a guava margarita. As we were eating the blooming onion (which is amazing every time) the drinks were taking a while to come out. Finally got the drinks and there was no croc 😔 I asked about it since it was part of the experience and our waiter said they were out. So that was a bummer, but then when the food came out my fiancé was missing his side of Brussels and they only brought me my baked potato. I had ordered the garlic Parmesan chicken bites and she said they were waiting for those to come out. I ended up finishing my baked potato by the time they finally arrived with the Brussels and my fiancé was almost finished eating his plate of steak and chicken. My son had ordered an ice cream scoop and that took a while to arrive as well. I asked the waiter about the ice cream and she told me the cooks got busy and she would check on it, but at this point we were ready to leave so I asked her to cancel it, but a few minutes later she came out with the ice cream that looked as if it was sitting there for a while because it was melted. The entire experience was a fail, and normally if there’s issues with the food, the service makes up for it, but our waiter was very slow and monotone which made for even more of an awkward experience. To top it off we were served Luke warm water- tasted like tap water with no ice at all. It wasn’t even cold water. $80 for an experience like this- we were just shocked and couldn’t wait to pay and get out of there asap! I would understand more so if it was packed and they were super busy, but this wasn’t the case at all. Bad experience all the way around this time...