Texas Roadhouse — Restaurant in Town of Wallkill

First off, will start this review in being that we've been here before, just not in a while. I used to not like it because there would be all peanut shells all over the floor. Good thing not anymore. Went here on Sunday October 27th 2024 with my parents for some much needed dinner. Got there, found a spot. Fair warning, it can get really crowded and may need to wait. If you have less than 10 people, you may be able to get on the waitlist online, which is what my mom did. And with our luck, our table was ready maybe 2 minutes after we got there. We were sat at a booth, near the outhouse. Our server was very pleasant and took care of us. I forget her name unfortunately. First, we ordered 3 waters, Then i ordered the Island Cooler Drink, and my dad got a Cowboy drink. They also have a bag of peanuts and buckets on the table to eat peanuts. Was also given delicious bread! The island cooler was very good and i enjoyed it. We also started with the Cactus blossom, which hit the spot and was very good. even tasted less greasy and more flavorful than the competition out there. For entrees, My mom ordered the 8oz Sirloin M with mash potatoes and String beans, I ordered 8 Sirloin M, with loaded sweet potato and string beans, and my dad got some kind of chicken with steak fries and house salad. kudos to the restaurant in which they brought out the salad first. Food came out in a timely manner. i liked my steak, although seemed more on the Medium Well side and dry, but i enjoyed it, and added steak sauce. i enjoyed my sweet potato, although was expecting for it to be loaded with cheese, and bacon. Good idea for any server to inform the customer- it is loaded with marshmallows, or add onto the menu that loaded sweet potato is loaded with marshmallows. Enjoyed the potato too and took it home. The String beans i did not like at all, tasted very smoky and had bacon on it, and again the menu doesn't say anything about bacon. My mom didn't like her string beans either. We didn't ask for any substitutions because we were okay and somewhat full from the appetizer, plus we liked our steaks and other sides. We paid with the server because we had a gift card, then paid the balance on the machine with a credit card. Left a cash tip, and gave it to our waitress, who checked on us, and made sure we were okay. Will definetely...

Solid choice for cheap steak. We went there tonight, large party for a birthday celebration.

It’s a chain restaurant that serves economic food choices. My review is based on that.

We were a large party, Texas Roadhouse does not accept reservations but one hour before you’d like to arrive. We called too soon and were not allowed to be placed on the waitlist. We waited again until an hour before and were placed on the waitlist.

We arrived 10 minutes after our designated time. Then waited another 10 minutes for the table to be ready. We were brought to the table and it wasn’t actually ready.

Our server was very nice and everything came out accurately. However, the server didn’t actually serve any of our food or drinks. She just handed them out to the people closest to her and expected us to figure out who got what. The tip reflected that we partially had to serve ourselves- for drinks, refills, appetizers, salads, soups, mains and sides. You are no longer a server if the whole table has to get involved in serving every item. You are only a deliverer of items at that point and can no longer expect a 20% tip if I need to wrangle full and empty items the whole meal. So I tipped a bit less than 15% when I usually tip 20% or more.

As I said it was a birthday, and I went up to the hostess area to ask about bringing the saddle. I was instructed to ask my server. This is not ideal as we are a large table. How am I supposed to discreetly ask the server? Thankfully another staff member offered to help make it happen bc at this point I was wondering if I was expected to also do this myself. And actually asked, what are you all doing to provide some service?

Food was decent. My porterhouse did have a ridiculous amount of grizzle and fat running through it. But otherwise the food was tasty and what you would expect at this price point.

So if you bear in mind that this is a cheap steak option and have low expectations, you can get a solid 3 star meal...

Normally when we go to Texas Roadhouse we have no issues. I've had birthday dinners here with large groups of friends and family but today we seemed to not be a priority. We called hours in advance to give them notice that we would be having a party of 18-20 people. We were looking to arrive around 7:30PM We were told that we would need to be there a hour early to be able to be seated by 7:30! No idea why thats a thing but members of our party did comply with this request and were there an hour early. The rest of our party arrived at 7:30 but were weren't seated until 8PM. When we were seated we were give three booths but one of the booths were separated by another booth away from the other two booths. I am not sure why this was done. If we called ahead with a party of 18-20 people why would we want to be sitting away from each other? Once we were seated I asked the waiter if he could ask the couple across from us to switch seats. Instead of asking them he walked away to ask a manager. Out of confusion we simply asked the couple ourselves if they would mind switching seats. They were kind enough to swap seats with the members of our party. But here's where it starts to get weird. Our waiter comes back and is like no we can't do that and thats when we advised him we simply asked the couple at the table and they said they didn't mind. For the remainder of our time there we watched management come out and apologize and ask that couple if everything was okay. Almost as if we didn't matter or the dining experience we were to have was less important to them. Management didn't speak with any of us and event when the couple left staff apologized as if something wrong had occurred. If this restaurant can't accommodate parties of 18-20 people then they should say so instead of ushering us in and expecting us to sit wherever they see fit. I'm not sure this will be a place we bring our friends and family to...