Outback Steakhouse — Restaurant in Town of North Hempstead

Even after calling ahead, we waited over 45 minutes for a table. Even saw large parties being seated before us. Our waitress, Meghan seemed aloof and not once came over to check on our table, we had to flag her down each time. We received no water and our appetizer came out before our drinks did. Our drinks were all sodas by the way. Again we watched as other tables received drinks. Once we did receive our drinks, we were given no straws and the hostess had to come by with some. The waitress didn't come by to apologize or even offer to clear any plates. Our empty appetizer plate and salad plates stayed on the table the entire time we were there. We waited an hour for our food to come out and when it did, my filet was so well done it was dry and sawdust like (I asked for medium). Another in our party received her prime rib basically raw (she asked for medium). They took back the dishes and the prime rib was back right away, but just as raw, my aunt took it home to cook it more so she could eat it. My steak didn't come back out for about 20-25 minutes and by that time everyone in the party had finished eating and I had lost my appetite. When the waitress walked by and noticed me just sitting there, she asked what happened and when I told her she said it was probably going to be right out, I told her to cancel it. As she walked away, it came out but with random vegetables on the plate. I had already gotten a salad as one of my sides and never ordered any vegetables. The waitress came back over eventually to bring the check and had said the manager was going to come by, but she had taken off both my meal and my aunt's. It was a nice gesture but unfortunately it doesn't make up for the almost 4 hours we were there to celebrate my mother's birthday with 2 small children. Sadly enough we didn't even want to stick around to get her dessert because we all just wanted to get out of there. In the past, a manager would walk around to see how the visit was going, but in my last 2 visits there with poor service and mediocre food, there was no manager to be found. Outback has always been one of my favorite restaurants, but not anymore. Unfortunately I won't ever be returning. After 1 visit that didn't go so well, ok maybe someone had a bad night, but after this; it's a no for me. I generally only ever write good reviews because I understand how hard people work, and it pains me to write this as outback was always a favorite I felt I had to because the #1 thing that hurts a business is not knowing what's going on. Hopefully they get it together before they loose more regular customers. UPDATE The manager from Outback in Westbury contacted me today to officially apologize and addressed every single concern with me as well as giving me vouchers to give them another shot. The manager was very kind and really listened to everything I had to say and assured me she would address my issues with her staff. Really turned a terrible situation into a better one. Kudos on great customer service. Will surely be giving them another shot and chance to make it up to...

I typically don't leave bad reviews. I fully understand how tough it is for restaurants in this era of Covid to find good quality workers but what happened yesterday at the Outback in Westbury was inexcusable. My wife and I arrived at about 3pm for an early dinner. The dining room was pretty empty, but there was a large group of people by the hostess desk waiting and the hostess seemed to have disappeared. No one knew where she was. Finally, she appears and seats the first group that was waiting, then she disappeared again. Then, came back to seat the next group and then, disappeared. We waited about 15 minutes to get seated which did not sit well with us because the dining room was about 1/4 full. Then, we waited about 20 minutes and not a single server came over to us to greet us or take drink orders. We were about to get up and leave, but we flagged down a waitress. Her name was Stephanie. We told her we were waiting for 20 minutes. She apologized and said she was the only server on the floor. To her credit, she stopped what she was doing and took our order. Ok, good, our drinks came and our wings came and things seemed to settle down. Then my steak came and even though I ordered it well done, it was served to me rare. I didn't bother sending it back since the service was so dreadful, I didn't know when I'd see Stephanie again. A woman at the table next to us also had her steak undercooked and had to send it back twice. To make things worse, when we got the check it was much more expensive than we expected. We looked at it and we were charged $8 for a glass of wine we did not order. We flagged down Stephanie and she actually said her manager added it to the check because he claimed we ordered a glass of wine which was absurd. We DID NOT!! Stephanie eventually took that wine off the check. She did as good of a job as she could, but our overall experience was absolutely horrible. We normally go to Texas Roadhouse for steak but we decided to give Outback a try. TR's service is always impeccable. We never have a problem there. I can't see us returning to Outback any time soon. I hope management reads my review and acts accordingly. Outback is too good for such an awful experience...

Sorry we didn't do this sooner! We came here for my uncle's birthday, and we've been here many times before. Service was, on average, really good. It wasn't the fastest, but we ended up chatting with the manager and waitress, only to find she was stuck covering for someone who had to leave. Suddenly, that "longer" time actually wasn't so bad. Not even out of pity - if you are only SLIGHTLY slower because you're doing essentially 2+ times the work, that's AMAZING. So to the waitress (which my smooth tiny brain can't remember the name of), you are AWESOME. Yes, we had to ask once or twice for some things, but you were ON TOP OF THINGS and it was fantastic. And I saw your little bit of annoyance when you realized that the kitchen didn't bring something out. Hopefully you didn't beat up the staff too much :P Silliness aside, again, thank you!

The food was great as well, as usual. Cooked well; I don't think anyone had any complaints - there was one issue - the baked potato - but upon bringing the issue to the server's attention, she got it fixed, and everyone seemed to enjoy their food. As always, the Bloomin' Onion is THE BEST :D

I do feel we could've been spaced apart a bit more that night; it would've been nice having one table between us and the other family, but it wasn't terrible, and I didn't feel overly crowded so that's a nit-pick on my part. Didn't harm the experience. And considering the workload, maybe it was easier on staff to keep people closer together? Dunno, but it's not a big issue, just something to note.

As for the end of the meal, there was some error when placing our payments - a gift card and my debit card were mis-charged, and the server and the manager did their best to aid in fixing it - he did a fantastic job and took care of us, and ended up comping part of the meal for the amount of time we had to wait - which absolutely floored me as I didn't expect that. Needless to say, any issues I might have had were squashed. I enjoyed my time, hiccups aside, and the staff here were absolutely fantastic. At this point, I only wish I wrote this review sooner, and I hope to come back...