Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen — Restaurant in The Colony

My wife and I went out tonight for the first time in a year since we have a new baby at home (left him home). It was also our 6th Anniversary! Cheddar's has been a long time favorite of mine...Although, this time the experience was a bit lacking.

We got in at 5pm, it had a 20 minute wait time. I do not think that we ended up waiting 20 minutes and it is a holiday weekend, so no complaints there.

The issue came with the food. We had the sampler appetizer and for the most part that was good. My wife complained that the spinach dip was off though and she couldn't quite put her finger on it (her fav). Then we got our main dish (while still eating appetizer), for my wife, both of her side dishes were messed up. She was given one side that was completely wrong, the other was a 'loaded' baked potato that was missing the 'load'. Her shrimp was a bit over cooked and rubbery, and her steak was in the same state as mine.

I ordered tenders and steak, the advertised special. I will give credit, the tenders tasted awesome, hence the two star rating. The fries were room temperature and my other side of seasoned rice was pathetic. The quantity of rice I got was likely able to fit inside two bottle caps. My wife had about 6x more of the SAME rice under her shrimp and that was not even an ordered side!! Then there was the steak...

The steaks were cooked to perfect temperature, but seemed to be slathered in cayenne and some other spice that really lingered and accumulated. I was only able to get two bites in before my mouth was on fire! I am happy to have a seasoned steak, and even put cayenne on my steak at home but this was a whole other level. My wife who has some Latin blood and eats spicy food at all times struggled with hers as well. She just happened to be too shy to complain as she forced herself to eat the food as to try to not ruin our first date in a year.

We only addressed half of the issues a few at a time to the waiter. I suppose he was a bit distracted as he had served us each others plates, never refilled our drinks without being prompted, and never noticed that the sides my wife ordered were well wrong. They even had a brief discussion about the sides when ordering. Talking about the 'load' on the potato and such. To his credit, he did go back and get her broccoli, although it did not appear to be steamed. As well, he brought the 'load' out for the potato later. For my steak, he brought it back to the kitchen to remedy.

The manager came by and apologized about the steak, and said he 'took care of it on the bill for us'. Apparently, this means he comp'd the one that was returned and charged me for a new one. IE. charged me for my entrée twice and comp'd one of them. When I asked about it, he took off the appetizer instead. No one asked my wife how her steak was either, although, she ate hers so that is somewhat on us.

Again, to the credit of cheddars, the replacement steak was well cooked and seasoned well. Sadly, it was too late for me to eat with my wife and we had to get home to relieve our babysitter.

My wife and I left feeling very disappointed and sadly feeling discouraged about a future return visit. Granted, these feelings are somewhat magnified because it was our...

Typical Saturday traffic but not the typical service. Average wait to be seated of around 20-25 minutes at 5pm but a down hill slide after that.

The waitress came quickly and took our drink order and a brought all but the alcoholic drink within 5 minutes. Twenty minutes later I stopped what I assumed was a manager and asked him about it. Five minutes later it was brought to the table by the waitress.

In the meantime we had ordered food, which was less than 10 minutes after we were seated. This is where the service really declined. More than 30 minutes later and still no food and not once had the waitress come back to even look at refills or updating is on our order. We flagged her down as she walked past our table again and she brought my wife a drink, but still no refills for the other 3 drinks on the table.

About 50 minutes in, a table that was seated 20-25 minutes after us was being served their food. Seeing this we flagged our waitress down as she buzzed by about 5 minutes later. She came back with refills maybe 5 minutes later and let us know our food would be out "shortly".

Just about the hour mark, our table was finally served. This is when it really turned! A plate of like warm fries and a 10 inch black hair cooked into the burger I'd ordered. Luckily, if there is such a thing in a case like this, it was in my first bite. Nonetheless, mission accomplished with ruining the entire experience!

What I assumed was a different manager was walking by and I flagged him over to our table. Before I could fully vent my frustration over chewing someone's hair he states that he could see what my issue was and removed my plate from the table as I spouted out the meal I wanted as a replacement.

Never have I seen this many issues in one visit. All this to say, I really see this is a management issue. Not once did a manager come to speak to me about the issue as I sat there another 25-30 minutes as the others at our table ate and my new order, not a burger, was made as a to go order. Comping my meal, a message related by the waitress is not the level of service I'd expect. If you noticed in my comments above, I only assumed that two men directing the staff were managers as no one identified themselves as such and never came to speak to me about the issue. Can't fix it but you are supposed to own it. Scoring them a 1 is too high a score...

Not sure if we caught the restuarant on a bad night but our experience was awful. I have not had an experience like this anywhere before. My family is honestly upset that this happened. They were not busy as other customers were getting food rather quickly.

We sat for 45 minutes until we got our food. The food was barely warm, my sons grilled cheese wasn't fully toasted/melted inside (how can you mess up a grilled cheese?), boyfriend's steak was rare when he asked for medium well, friends hamburger was rare which almost made him throw up! My steak was also pretty rare when I asked for medium but had it been warm enough I would have eaten it as I prefer it to be on the red side. We also didn't have all sides delivered after waiting so long.

Server only checked came to us 3 times. 1) to get our drink order. 2) To drop off drinks and take our food order. 3) To drop off food 45 MINUTES later when they were not busy at all.

We asked for a manager at the 35 minute mark which they never came, waitress brought our food around 10 minutes later and that's when we noticed everything else wrong. We had to walk around the building looking for a manager.

Manager did offer to re make all the food but everyone was too upset to get raw food that was barely warm after waiting so long. We decided to eat elsewhere.

Family that got there at our 30-35 minute wait mark got their food soon after we did, which was upsetting.

Son ended up shoveling half his grilled cheese down because he was so hungry. Paid for his meal and drinks. We did try to get someone over to us to ask for our sons meal but waitress always walked around us and was visiting other tables.

Previous times we have been to a Cheddar's we had a good experience which is why I am so upset this happened. I hope this experience does not happen to...