Badlands Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Tempe

I have been hearing about this location a lot recently with a lot of mixed reviews between google, yelp and word of mouth I decided to try it for myself to get my own opinion. I don’t like the idea of writing these styles of reviews myself for places but I felt it was needed if this place is going to be around and if I’m going to give it a second chance - the manager and owners should know as this place could have a lot of potential. It is true that when you walk in you can hear a bell. It does take time to be sat, however we were greeted right away by someone walking by with food so they must not have a host to be able to seat people so you’re standing there waiting for someone to come out and seat you when they’re not busy. Business appears to be either too inconsistent for full staffing or they don’t have enough staffing to keep steady business. One thing I noticed is their menus do not have calories listed. For those who need watch their calorie intake that portion of the menu is not calorie conscious. You’re guessing at how many calories are in each food item. I did order the tea aside from seeing a recent google review with another guest experience about theirs. I can concur the tea did not taste completely right. It tastes like it’s been kept over from the day prior. The atmosphere has country decor and mixed music between both rooms that you can’t really hear the music in one room but the next room over is blaring. There is a threshold between the two rooms you can trip over even though there’s a rug over it because you cannot really see it if you don’t know it’s there. The threshold safety hazard between the rooms and music can and should both be remedied. I was given a party catering menu when we were seated. I don’t understand why this should be a table side menu to be presented rather than posting a catering menu on your website and/or having a promotional sign to offer catering services. Rather, it gave the feeling like this is a dealership pressure style for sales rather than a relaxing bar and grill. This is on top of being upsold bottles of water. If you just put the bottles on your menu your employees don’t have to try and upsell every time something is ordered as simple as water. And the guest can choose to order it on their own accord. It was awkward for us and it’s probably uncomfortable for the waitstaff having to push it. We watched a long haired blonde woman waiting several tables between both rooms. It appeared that she was overwhelmed as we saw refills not being done and she seemed to give off a vibe that she was annoyed or irritated as she was talking to herself under her breath as she walked. I’m not sure if she was having a bad day or just doesn’t want to do the job or if it’s a combination of whatever is going on in this establishment but she wasn’t very mindful that other people can see how she’s holding herself when she’s not standing at tables she’s serving. The food is heavy portions so it is at least fair for the price. We were there for breakfast so there wasn’t any complaints or issues in terms of our food quality that we received. We’re conflicted of if we will return or not, if we do, maybe in a few months to give the owners and management time to remedy the concerns of myself and others and following up on current reviews for other guest experiences before...

The only good thing about my visit with a friend today for lunch at Badlands Bar and Grill in Queen Creek, was me being with my friend and the waitress was nice. We decided to get the twist burger which was a hamburger with cheese and bacon. The burgers came out and you could tell they looked like they were frozen patties because the beef did not even look that good and they were perfectly pressed. Both burgers tasted horrible. I asked the waitress if they were frozen pre-made patties, and she said they were not frozen but got the chef or owner to come out and talk to us. I asked this person the same thing. And she said that they are pre-made round patties from a vendor but they were having problems with a particular vendor. So if you are expecting groundround homemade burgers from this restaurant you can forget about it. They come pre made perfectly round and it was horrible. The meat looked nasty. The owner or chef did give us one $25 gift card that I guess we have to split if we go back there together. She should have given us a twenty five dollar gift card for each of us. We were still charged $10 for 2 drinks and I had tater tots and my friend had french fries. Note please do not order the iced tea which I had because it tastes dirty with a horrible aftertaste. We were asked if we wanted to order anything else after she removed our french fries and tater tots that we paid for but did not eat. And I thought Hey, let's try the chicken quesadilla. Wrong. This was light cheese with grilled chicken. No spices very bland. Served with sour cream, quacamole and canned salsa. Yes, canned runny salsa. The atmosphere needs music or some t6pe of pick me up. But I would start by hiring a good chef and get rid of pre made burgers. 80% groundround is n9t that expensive. Try blackened chicken and spices for quesadilla. Make...

So this is a new (to us) location. They use to have a location that was adjacent to a hotel that was spectacular. It had been some time since we had gone and while looking for a place to eat after running errands, my wife and I decided to check out what we thought was a second location. Right away, we knew something was different and questioned if we were even in the right place. We asked the waitress who informed us the other location had closed down. Ok, no big deal, we thought well the food was really good when we went so that’s what we are here for even if the environment was off. It went from polished and open to mid west dive steakhouse with one half being family and the other half being bar. It is reminiscent of the small restaurant/taverns you see in a small town that everyone goes too because there isn’t another choice. Again, no big deal because we came for the food. Service wise everything was great. Hostess sat us with a nice greeting and some polite banter. Waitress was the same. No issue at all with the service. So we ordered and what seemed a little longer than it should (we were ok with that because it was right at too of diner time) our food came. I have to be honest it was not the same delicious, high quality food that had coaxed us into returning. My wife had a chicken avocado wrap with sweet potato fries and I had a burger. I don’t even remember which one it was. With tater tots. My tots were cold. Not luke warm or cooled down they were cold like they hadn’t thawed out enough. Her food wasn’t cold but it lacked any form of flavor that we would crave one day in the future and have to come back. I’m not sure what happened but it Badlands has missed a step or more. Everyone was so nice and helpful but it doesn’t make up for the poor atmosphere and below...