The Flame Steakhouse — Restaurant in Sanford

My husband and I stumbled upon this restaurant approximately a year ago. We’re from Charlotte,NC. We fell in love with this place. A week before finding this place my husband was diagnosed with cancer. I remember sitting in this restaurant and my husband saying to me that when he has won his battle with cancer we were coming back here to celebrate. On June 6, 2025 he rang the bell 🔔. So on June 28, 2025 we decided to go and celebrate at our favorite restaurant The Flame Steakhouse. Approximately 6:30 p.m. we arrived. The host was very nice. Because we did not have reservations we had a 15 to 20 minute wait. No problem. Very understandable. The waitress was very polite. She asked what would we like to drink? I said sweet ice tea and my husband said let’s have some wine. So we ordered a Bottle of wine, (NOT A GLASS) . When the waitress returned she had 2 glasses of wine and a glass of sweet tea. She stated that the wine we ordered was NOT CHILLED AND AS SOON AS IT WAS SHE WOULD BRING IT. My husband and I was a little confused but we said okay. Then she took our dinner order. About 15 minutes later she came out with our advertisers. After sitting there for another 20 minutes we see the host and the waitress coming towards our table. And they are telling us that the Crab Cake dinners that we ordered they don’t have any and the wine we ordered they don’t have that either. So now we’re confused because what did you give us to drink if you didn’t have the wine we ordered? By that time we both were feeling uncomfortable with the way things were being handled. The waitress couldn’t tell us what kind of wine she gave us. So we ask if she could get our ticket and let us pay for what we did get. And she did. The sad part about this is. My best friend and her husband arrived around 8 and ordered the exact thing and was served with no problem. But the difference is my husband and I are Black and my best friend and her husband are white. We only wanted to celebrate my husband being cancer free. I don’t understand why is there so much hatred in our hearts we’re all...

Overall: disappointingly mediocre and a horrible value. For the "most expensive place in town," you're honestly better off going to Applebee's -- the food would be as good and the price would be way lower.

Atmosphere: the restaurant looks okay. The bar is way cooler than the dining room. The dining room looks like everything was bought at a Kirkland's store.

Service: the only redeeming quality. Server was great. Unfortunately, the backwaiter kept making really dumb mistakes which made the server keep apologizing. Good service industry help is hard to find these days.

Food: basic and underwhelming. Tasted like Sodexho made most of it. At $40 a plate, was anything made in house? Bread rolls were clearly from a bag. Steak was very salty and undercooked. Baked potato was dry. Honestly, I make better steak and potatoes at home on my grill for 1/4 of the price. Shrimp was underseasoned and overcooked. Scallops were alright. Crabcake was mushy and slimy, not even slightly crisp in the outside. "Caesar salad" had no hint of parmesan cheese, no fresh pepper was offered, and way too much dressing.

Presentation: appalling. Absolutely. Who pays $40 for an entree and the ramekins are PLASTIC? Ridiculous. Absolutely no thought to how the food looked, just dumped on the plate with no garnish, no color, nothing. Did anyone in the building go to culinary school, or even eat at a decent restaurant before?

Drinks: no draft beer. At least the bottles of wine were cheap compared to other "nice" restaurants. It was pretty embarrassing when the backwaiter refilled our waters with Sprite, but the server fixed it quickly.

Conclusion: Reminded me of Quincy's Steakhouse back in the 90's but at 10x the price. What a ridiculous waste of money.

The chef and owner need to visit other actually nice restaurants like Green Valley Grill in Greensboro, NC. The prices there are LESS than the Flame but the food tastes wayyyyy better, the presentation is exceptional, the atmosphere is elegant, the service unbelievable. The restaurant has good bones, they just have...

We attended their Valentine's service.

Food: We ordered an appetizer (fried green beans), a 14 oz dry aged ribeye and a 10 oz regular ribeye. We both got salads - I had a house; he had a cesear. I had mashed potatoes. We also got a house bread.

Bread was okay. The exterior was hard and it's DENSE. The odd part was the bleached smell - either they're using bleached enriched wheat flour OR they need to wash their towels better. 2/10 - skip it.

The fried green beans were the best thing they served. Fresh, lightly battered. They needed salt (my first sign of things to come...) but otherwise good. Mind you, this is a HUGE serving - definitely an app for 4. 8/10

Salads - both salads came with house croutons. These over-greased cubes of death are 90% oil, 10% bread. Avoid at all cost to your arteries. Past that, you can't really mess up a salad. 6/10

Ribeyes - starting off - the plating was backwards. I ordered a 10 oz med rare ribeye. He ordered a 14 oz dry aged ribeye. I'm convinced he GOT a 14 oz regular rare and I got a 10 oz regular blue steak. I did not taste the "funk" of a dry age. If that's dry age, either A. They're lying or B. They have an incredibly poor quality dry age. Considering it's $55/steak, either is possible. Either way, the temps were horribly wrong. The mashed potatoes were inedible. The sheer salt content made then taste like licking a rock.

For the cost, it's simply not worth it.

Service - our waitress was good. Times were certainly slow, but I attribute that to her table load, not her. She didn't ask about the steaks and waited several minutes before asking about meals. My plate was practically untouched and she made no mention. We also ordered beers and she either didn't know she should or didn't know how to pour them into the glasses. We poured our own beers. At 8$/ea, pouring would be etiquette.

Atmosphere- I have the least to say here. It's not bad, but it's dated. It's "nice," but more along a...