Outback Steakhouse — Restaurant in San Marcos

Intended to take my 35 year old son, my mom(his grandmother) and my wife to Outback San Marcos for dinner. My son requested "steak" as a way to celebrate his birthday. We arranged a birthday cake (small with a candle and ice cream) to finish the meal with. We arrived on time and were seated. A tall, bald server, was assigned to our table. He took an order of drinks and we commenced our quiet celebration (our grandmother is 93). It took a good 20 minutes to get someone over for appetizers and our waiter actually waved us off like we were irritating him in an attempt to secure the order, still, it appeared he was overwhelmed a little, although it wasn't crowded.. After that it took another 20 minutes to get someone else to take our order (because our waiter was apparently too busy so another waiter, younger gentleman came to our rescue). Then, another 20 minutes passed before the original waiter came back and informed us that our order was goofed up and somehow didn't get back to the kitchen. SO, he took our order again and ordered us another round of drinks. Finally, our food came. At that point we were famished, and so we ate but the steaks were very, very small and the lobster more resembled a large shrimp tail. Two bites from grandmother and that was it.

At the end of our meals, I had reminded them that we were expecting a cake and candle with a side of ice cream. Out came a small dip of ice cream with a candle. Enough said for preliminary preparations!

It was obvious that this Restaurant was insufficiently staffed AND the food was dismal. Their steaks must have been purchased as day old specials at the market. I have never attended a restaurant that performed so badly in all aspects of their profession. The 2nd waiter WAS very gracious and came in to cover for our primary server... the only highlight of the evening. Frankly, next time we'll buy some steaks from Costco and do them at home... the results will be much better.... and the Lobster will dwarf their offering!

I don't normally react to subpar service or food offerings but made this restaurant an exception. They need to let the one waiter and their cooks go and get people who are interested in serving the public better. They're ruining their reputation... if...

We had called ahead to see what the wait time was and was told there was no wait, when we got there we were told there was a five minute wait, which is fine I understand things happen. The wait was much more than 5 minutes, and when we were finally seated we were placed at a table that had been open that entire time, they didn't have to set anything up, we saw it the entire time we were waiting. I can forgive all of this as minor annoyances. I cannot forgive the server who left us there for another 15 or so minutes. It was the HOSTESS, the lovely Mara, who stepped up and helped us, and had to manage our server. She was incredibly apologetic, brought us our waters, our bread, and grabbed our server since we had been there for so long and hadn't been able to order. The server didn't care, not one bit, he seemed disheveled in appearance, with greasy hair that made me worry about his cleanliness. Thankfully some other man was the one who brought us our food. The Caesar salad was excellent, our steaks were okay, I asked for garlic butter topping on mine, last I checked a topping goes on top not on the side, but okay. The butter didn't fully melt when I put it on my steak, so I had aa really buttery bites. The other steak was partially overcooked, I'm not sure how you get half of a steak to be well done and the other medium rare, but applause for that talent I suppose. The server once again dragged his feet when it came to getting us our check. We got a box for our food and boxed the food well before getting the check. At least the check was paid in a timely manner.

Overall the server needs better management and the food is expensive for what you get (Texas Roadhouse is a MUCH better steakhouse with better pricing). I don't anticipate on Outback still standing 5 years from now, not without major improvements. Mara was a wonderful hostess who went above and beyond to attempt to salvage our night and I deeply appreciate her efforts, they should be hiring more...

We had a really surreal experience here when my girlfriend and I, and her father went here to dine out before driving him home.

First, though the restaurant was perhaps 30% full, we had to wait 10 minutes for a table. This was alright, given that I assume they were short-staffed at a normally low-activity time of day, but not ideal for my girlfriend's dad, given that they offered no cushioned seating to wait in (just a hard wooden bench). We also weren't really "seated" by the hostess; but rather she walked around the corner to a table and left our menus and silver on the table and then went back to the hostess stand; due to some confusion on our end (mostly to do with managing gf's dad and his walker, and safely getting to the table). Ideally, the hostess would see everyone seated -- the only real hint we got about which table was ours was the silverware rolls and menus that she'd left there.

After we were sat, there was some confusion/controversy about who our waiter was to be, so we were visited by one waiter, then another, then our order was finally taken.

I ordered a strip steak, bone-in, and a side of asparagus -- I only mention my order, because after watching two other tables that came in after us receive their food, we wondered why our order was taking so long.

The answer was (we were told this by yet another waitress, who we flagged down) that all of our meals were held up waiting for my asparagus to be finished. What a weird thing to wait for, bring out the proteins and then tell us the asparagus was lagging? Don't leave the main entrees all to cool waiting for it. We asked this waitress to bring us everything but the asparagus and she was very helpful about doing so.

My skirt-steak was also, in the area of the bone, pretty undercooked, and nearly everything arrived cool.

Haven't been to an Outback in several years and now I...