Stagecoach – Country Roadhouse & BBQ — Restaurant in Sedona

I want to start out by saying I don’t like being this person. I went to culinary school and I own my own food based business so I tend to be observant when it comes to food and I’m not usually critical because I understand things happen but this was so disappointing. You can generally tell the popularity of a restaurant too by how busy it is…we left around 5-5:30 and the restaurant was still pretty empty.

The service was great. Our waiter was awesome and I very much appreciate him. My husband and I ordered a salad to split, two steaks, baked beans and mashed potatoes.

I don’t know about you but when I think baked beans I think of beans in a thick and sweet barbecue sauce, these were not those baked beans. It could be a local and traditional thing but these were pinto beans in a thin and greasy yet unflavorful water. Not my cup of tea and our waiter was wonderful and saw they definitely weren’t for me and took them off our check but we still ended up spending $160+

The salad was great. It’s really hard to screw up a Caesar salad in my opinion and this one was wonderful. It had a bit of a kick and the croutons were amazing.

The cocktails (I got the prickly pear martini and it was wonderful) were great and the beer was good so that’s a plus.

The steaks….oh the steaks…I like my steaks either medium rare to medium and so does my husband…these came out medium well to well done and while they were still juicy, they just weren’t great. When I’m spending $46 on a ribeye, I would like to think I can trust the person at the broil station to make the steak the way I like it. They were also INCREDIBLY salty. I LOVE salt so me saying they’re salty is definitely saying something. Other than salt, and some seasoned butter melted on top, there wasn’t much flavor added to these steaks and they were also very greasy. This was honestly the most disappointing part of our meal because of how expensive they were.

The potatoes…I love a good loaded mashed potato but these were so incredibly under seasoned, the extra salt that was added onto the steak could have gone towards the potatoes, along with some pepper and a healthy amount of garlic/garlic powder.

And finally…the bathrooms…we had gone to a local distillery before dinner for some sunshine and cocktails and as soon as we got to the restaurant I was in the need of a bathroom break…my husband went first and said before he even opened the mens room he could smell it. He said the mens room doesn’t have urinals you can flush like a typical restroom, but basically an unflushable troph where the urine is just stagnant. And I would say this is very likely true because I was about 10 feet from the restroom when it smelled like a dirty litter box. I went to open the women’s restroom and the smells from the men’s rooms was so overwhelming it almost took my breath away. The women’s room itself was perfectly fine and clean but as soon as you open that door to go back to your table, all you smell is urine/ammonia which kind of ruins the appetite.

Overall I don’t think I would recommend this restaurant to anyone for the simple fact that the food is no where near worth the price. I could have gotten a whole damn meal at a Texas Roadhouse for the price of the steak itself and it would have been significantly better. It took everything in me to not walk into the kitchen and teach them how to make a proper steak. If you’re just going for a girls/guys night where all you do is drink, I definitely recommend because the cocktails were great…if you’re going for an actual meal, I would reconsider…I’m genuinely sad because although we were expecting to spend a good deal of money because we are on vacation and we like to treat ourselves every now and then to a good steak dinner, we spent way too much on this meal, it wasn’t worth the money we spent, and we didn’t eat half of it. I feel terrible about this review because I had such high hopes. I hope this place is better the next time we...

We had such high hopes visiting Stagecoach and it wound up quite the rollercoaster ride. Just about an equal amount of highlights and lowlights that I’ll describe herein. The restaurant itself is beautiful and clean. A modern, hip, minimalist southwest vibe throughout. All of the staff we encountered were very nice and personable. Drinks were nice with an artful dried lime slice in my wife's marg. I was surprised however that my local Cottonwood craft IPA was served in a Bud Light pint glass. I found that somewhat tacky.

Prior to ordering we were provided a lengthy list of items they were “out of” or that we’re otherwise unable to order because of the day it was. Unfortunately it included some of the things we had our hearts set on. Including the Bison Short Ribs and Pulled Pork Egg Roll. We spent some time with the menu shifting to Plan B, also considering just going somewhere else. To add insult to injury, Plan B was a bust. We were informed the Wagyu Churrasco Cutlets are “no longer on the menu” despite the fact it was clearly printed on the menus we were holding!

We spent 45 minutes to go 3 miles in horrid Sedona traffic to get here so we stuck it out. We all finally settled in on our main dishes. My son started with an order of the Arizona Corn Chowder and he loved it. Beautifully presented and had a nice smoky flavor. He also had the Loaded Gun Board which included a sampling of smoked baby back ribs, pulled pork and andouille sausage. Everything looked and tasted great. Especially the pulled pork which had a nice barky texture and toothsome chew. I had the Jalapeño Cheddar Sausage which was outstanding. I particularly loved the nicely dressed Napa cabbage slaw with its bright flavors. My fries were hot, crispy and tasty. I was surprised though that this sausage dish was not served with any side sauce, like a mustard or BBQ sauce or something like that.

My wife ordered the Filet Mignon with Bourbon Compound Butter. The steak was cooked to a perfect medium with a nice amount of pink in the center. The compound butter on the other hand was shocking! Crowning the beef was a huge unmelted disc of what tasted like honey butter. Roughly the size of a small hockey puck. Seemed much more appropriate for cornbread or something. It was as if they topped it with a blob of whipped cream or scoop of vanilla ice cream. I’ve never experienced anything like that at any of the steakhouses we’ve dined at across the US or Europe. The poor server was flummoxed and insisted it was not honey butter but it was most definitely sweet which does not pair at all with beef. Maybe there was brown sugar in it, I don't know. I invited her to have the chef/cook taste it. I don’t think they did.

I ordered a mac & cheese side for the table to share. It was beautifully presented in a hot cast iron skillet. It looked better than it tasted. The funny thing was the server “warned” us it had bacon in it. As if we were somehow offended by bacon LOL. We assured her the more bacon the better. Oddly though there was not a speck of bacon in the entire dish! I don’t think they used any salt in the mac & cheese. It was quite bland and became a chore to eat the more we had. In fairness, the restaurant took our feedback to heart and comped the filet mignon dish. Overall an interesting and memorable experience. This is a place where it definitely depends on what you order. There were 5 star dishes alongside 1 star dishes which leads me to an overall 3 star rating for this...

Food: Did not eat, walked out, so can't comment. That's why I left 3 stars for that Atmosphere: For a place named "Stagecoach," we would have expected a southern, country, rustic look and feel, instead, it's cold, pretentious, and uninviting inside.

Service: Two employees were rude and patronizing to us upon minutes of our arrival. We asked a busboy if we could sit on the upstairs outdoor patio. He said sure go ahead. After we were seated I came down to use the bathroom and a middle-aged, overweight, long black haired female employee approached me. In a patronizing tone, she told me that we could not sit out there because of the clouds and monsoon etc. This was of course fine, but I was taking a back by her brusque manner. I responded "Okay, but we did ask a busser," not because I insisted on sitting outside, but because I wanted her to know that we didn't just go up there on our own volition. We did ask. She rudely stated "Well the busser's not the boss!" Incredible, right? These people are in the hospitality industry in a city that depends on tourism revenue, yet this is how this particular employee speaks to customers.

We decided to leave and go somewhere else. On our way out, the rude long black haired female was near the door and I stated to her "We were offended by the way you spoke to us. We're going to go elsewhere." A male employee next to her, I believe he was Hispanic, with an heir of arrogance stated to me "Okay sir Have a good evening!", it was clearly sarcastic and meant to indicate "Don't let the door hit you on the way out." So not one, but two rude employees.

We went to eat at Open Range in Uptown and it was much better, we got seated on their outdoor patio right away (no monsoon impediments there), they were all polite and friendly, and we had an overall great experience.

We're moving to Sedona soon, we're not tourists. It's unfortunate that the behavior of these two employees puts the Stagecoach restaurant on our list of places to not go to. People often ask us for recommendations, since there's not that many places in town. I'll tell them honestly, I can't comment on the food, but the employees at the stagecoach are rude to customers.

The manager, "John M.," will likely respond to this review trying to red herring it. He'll cite "safety" issues with the clouds and monsoon or whatever. How patronizing! That is not my point at all... we were fine with all that. Our issue was the abject rudeness of his employees, and rather than accept that, he'll try to distract from it by citing safety, or other negative reviews I might have left in the past. Classic distraction gambit. With this kind of service and mgmt, I would be surprised if this place stays in business. It was a ghost town when we went, now I...