Outback Steakhouse — Restaurant in Southfield

FOUND BEEF IN MY ICE CREAM AND PREVIOUS CUSTOMER'S CHEESE IN MY SOUP "CROCK" !

The Livonia Outback has similar problems with food cross-contamination. Apparently they leave all the food uncovered in the kitchen, allowing other foods to fall into the bins, along with bacteria and any other random foreign objects. They also left the previous customer's melted cheese in the bottom of my soup "crock", rather than wash it out properly (my soup didn't have cheese). Lowering them to one star now.

SERVICE IS INCREDIBLY SLOW.

I visited this Outback many times, and wasn't impressed. There's almost always a line of people waiting to be seated, even though hardly any of the tables are actually filled and it's mid-afternoon. This is due to an extreme lack of staff, apparently. I, for one, would much rather be seated immediately at an empty table, even if they can't find a waiter for an hour, than sit by the door.

There was nobody to greet me at the door, as they have at other Outbacks.

But then the worst part was how slow the service was. It took 11 minutes to get bread, 13 minutes to get a bowl of soup, and 18 minutes from when I asked to get the check. The entire meal took nearly 2 hours, which was twice what it should have taken. According to the waiter, the Outback chain decided to fire all their busboys, to save money. They should have hired more waiters, since they now need to bus and clean the tables, too, but didn't, so service is incredibly slow. And this was at 3 PM on Monday. If they are this slow then, I hate to think how slow they are during peak periods. The decision to fire their busboys was truly idiotic. You can pay busboys minimum wage, but have to pay more for good waiters, since they need to know how to read, write, and speak English, have a good memory, have people skills, and know how to handle food safely. Now they may pay their waitstaff less than minimum wage, assuming they will get mostly paid in tips, and thus think they are saving money. But this is a false economy. Making waiters do grunt work that slows service to a crawl will make them unhappy, and their tips will drop off, and the good waiters will go elsewhere, leaving Outback in a downward spiral of high turnover and poor service until they eventually go bankrupt.

There was also something gross that happened. I ordered my salad without croutons, but it came with them. I pointed this out, and they took the salad away, and brought it back with all visible croutons removed, but one was underneath. So, apparently they just picked out the croutons with their fingers. I hope they wore clean plastic gloves to do so, but somehow I doubt it. Well, picturing them picking through my food with dirty fingers was quite unappetizing. I'd rather they had left me the salad, and I could have picked out the croutons myself. I'd have given them one star based on the service, but the food was good, except for the water, which tasted rusty. Oh, and the soup is way too salty, but that's true at all Outbacks, as far as I can tell. I've noticed that super salty food is served at most mid-priced restaurants which serve alcohol, as they are hoping you will get thirsty and order expensive drinks.

On one visit I sat near the bar and had a booth with a ripped open seat cover. This is not only ugly, but food could get down there and rot. If they aren't going to fix it properly, they could at least put duct tape on it to cover the hole.

There was also a loud conversation between one drunk patron on one side of the bar and a woman on the opposite side. Nobody on the staff asked them to be quieter.

THEY WERE BETTER THE LAST TIME

Waiter was much faster, and, while they still didn't have anyone greet me at the door, somebody did show up in a minute to seat me. Also, they honored a generous coupon, as written, which the Ford Road (Canton) Outback did not. I will bump them up to 4 stars based on my...

See addition to this review further done in this box- Service was horrible. Waited 1.5 for our food my husband and I sent our food back only paid for our appetizers. Management terrible staff serving food in street clothing. Rap music blaring from the kitchen. Lights on all outside signs we passed it because it was dark when we left at 8pm the lights outside were still off. He ordered steak and I ordered ribs. We did all that and ended up at stopping at Wendy's. They need to close that place down and retrain everybody starting from the Management crew. Our waitress was terrible. Put in wrong appetizer then asked us how things were going my husband said it would be fine if we ever get the food she said oh yall ain't get yall food yet. Lady yiu our waitress how you don't know we ain't get the food yet. The best thing was the blooming shrimp. My ribs had no flavor the sauce was horrible. They gave my husband a 2 oz steak with 10 fries sent it back next time he got 3 Oz. No of staff were smiling. Manager had on a new era baseball cap. Staff Tony walking around he full street clothing. Manager shirt wasn't tucked No professionalism I can not stress the importance of proper management which this location does not have.

Edit to my original post my husband and I went back last night January 4, 2025. After Greta the owner reached out and offered us a dine in credit for our previous experience. We decided to try it again, with no notice. So our experience was a geniune experience. We popped up and we both agreed this experience was 97 percent better. They would have received 100 percent but the steak was a little tuff. But the atmosphere was completely different it was like a different place it was light, staff were on point. Staff were engaging with customers. Everyone was smiling. Everyone was in uniform. Music playing in restaurant was appropriate. Our server was fast, courteous. Our blooming shrimp, aussie fries, drinks everything was delicious 😋. My husband had the 8oz sirloin with blooming chicken. Blooming chicken tasted so good. His steak was,a little tuff. I had the alfredo with steak, shrimp and had them add chicken. That's was good chicken and shrimp were well season however the steak was a little tuff. Didn't care for the steak much. Other than that we were highly impressed and could not stop smiling. We did get to meet Greta while there also. Good lady you can tell she takes pride in her restaurant and it showed last night. Keep up the good work!! We...

This was a horrible dining experience. I could be long but just to be brief. I am writing this review because I wrote their corporate offices month ago and no email, call NO RESPONSE TO THIS FOOLISHNESS so I guess that’s why things were handled the way they were bc “corporate “ doesn’t do things timely or anything at all. Nevertheless, me and my family a party of four went to dinner just to have a great Sunday dinner we get there order our drinks waiting for a while for them to come while looking at the menu was informed that I don’t have everything to make the drinks that we ordered which is on their menu so we gave it another try try to order something else once again return after a while to tell us that they don’t have everything to make everybody straight, so will be like something else at this point it’s a no for some of us. We proceed to order our food. And while waiting for it to arrive, we ordered an appetizer that while we waited for at least 10 minutes was informed that they don’t have everything that we order for the appetizers will be like something else at this point it’s a no we decided that we would wait just for our entrées. After 10 more minutes, pass in our order is in a row waiting for our food The server returns to tell us that they don’t have anything to make a lot of the items that we order so we try to change for something else and we all did put our order again while waiting and brought us all burnt bread but was quickly retrieved once notify and brought out fresh bread. Still waiting on the 15 to 20 minutes they break out to people plates and tell us that the other two need to find something else because they’re out of what we order. At this point we decide we don’t want anything and the other two people were upset because we didn’t eat, but they were go ahead and eat or take their food with them. The manager was called to the table on more than one occasion his answer was things happen you know I don’t know I’ve been told her that we were out of these items they went back-and-forth. Just the worst experience ever took our drinks out the bill, but you wanted us to pay, for the meal was totally absurd to me, I just wanted a response and some type of compensation for this foolishness since I have a received a call from the office I don’t mind ever going to another I’ll be back but I will never return back to this one unless some changes are made with the staff. And it’s not even my servers it’s...