Red Robin Gourmet Burgers and Brews — Restaurant in Upper Providence Township

I visited the Collegeville, Pa store on Saturday 9/23/17. I've been to Red Robin in Exton, Pa and Harrisburg, Pa a few times and was very satisfied. This visit would not be the same. When I arrived alone, no one was at the bar, I was offered a menu and a beverage, but I wasn't "greeted" by the bartender. While reviewing the menu a couple sat at the bar. They were greeted, offered menus and received table ware. The bartender left for a moment and we all looked over the menu. When the bartender returned she asked for the order of the couple, entered it in the POS. She came back and asked if I wanted a beverage, I ordered an ice tea. When it was served I ordered a cup of clam chowder and a burger, heavily toasted, with a lot of raw onion, tomatoes and mayo on the side, with fries. The bartender asked if I wanted a regular burger or an angus burger, I opted for the angus and she asked if I wanted pink or no pink. I asked for pink. I fished the lemon wedge from the bottom of the glass with a straw and squeezed it into the tea. I had to call the bartender back for a napkin, which she brought with flat ware. The chowder was delicious, served with garlic toast, crunchy, brown and sweet. It was good! My burger arrived and I found a few pieces of raw onion under the fries. I had to call another server over to ask for more onion. She wanted to take my whole plate, I asked for a separate dish with onion. She walked away and then I lifted the bun. It was lightly toasted and the fries were mushy. Let me say aNtoasted bun makes the burger. Toasting bread caramelizes the sugars and makes the bread sweet. I think Red Robin understands the importance of a toasted bun or they wouldn't serve it as a standard. My immediate impression was that I wasn't an important customer to the bartender. My requests were not heard, ignored or not valued. Your employee, representing the good Red Robin name, did not deliver on the promise that name stands for. She didn't care. There was no pride in the service she was delivering on. At least not for a single customer.

A manager making the rounds, Maurice I believe was his named, asked how everything was, and I said I didn't get what I asked for, tried desperately to appease me. But...the ship already struck the iceberg. There was no way to save this experience. I had already taken two bites from my burger. My burger wasn't a mistake, it was not cared for. My ice tea glass was almost empty when the bartender removed it and replaced it. I was not asked, or offered a fresh tea, she just did it. I think Maurice had a chat with her. She asked if I wanted anything else and I asked for just my bill, which I signed without a gratuity. I remarked , "when you learn to take an order, I'll learn to leave a tip." On my out the bartender exclaimed rather smugly, "thanks again for coming in, have a great night, come back and see us soon." These were not sincere comments, but were delivered to satisfy herself that "I did all I could and was nice. The customer was just a jerk." Completely failing to appreciate the fact I selected Red Robin to serve me, to spend my money, to experience the promise of the Red Robin brand. That decision meant nothing to this server, or does not understand the value of quality service and that's now what I think of Red Robin.

Thank you,

Danny Limerick, Pa

We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose...

We've just made our final visit to this franchise. From the get-go, things weren't quite right this afternoon during our visit. We arrived at 12:34, and were seated by the bar even though we wanted to sit in a booth, and there were at least four of them available on the left side of the restaurant alone.

We were made to sit directly next to employees taking their break, which wasn't the most spectacular choice on their part, but I could have forgiven it. I also could have forgiven the watered-down soda, which is a staple of every visit we've made to this location. It's everything that happened subsequently that concerns me the most.

My girlfriend ordered her burger in a gluten-free lettuce wrap due to a severe gluten allergy. The waitress, a woman working at the bar and wearing black-rimmed glasses with curly black hair (never told us her name) took our order, but didn't write anything down. When our food arrived, my girlfriend was presented with a hamburger with a regular bun. When she pointed this out to the waitress, instead of simply apologizing and replacing the burger, she asked whether my girlfriend was allergic to gluten, implying that if she wasn't allergic, that she'd better sit there and accept the incorrect order and eat every bite of it. First of all, why would someone order a gluten-free product if they didn't have a gluten allergy? Secondly, when someone tells you they have an allergy and you don't write the order down, that makes you liable. This afternoon could easily have ended with a trip to the hospital.

My girlfriend ordered sweet potato fries but received regular fries instead. So, a few minutes later, the shift manager (we thought he was a cook due to his unkempt appearance,) came out with sweet potato fries that were ice cold in order to "correct" the problem. A few minutes after that, he emerged with another burger, this time wrapped in lettuce. My girlfriend bit into it and it was basically raw. She had ordered "no pink" and got something that was entirely pink. She was so hungry by this point that she didn't send it back, since that would have taken even longer.

As for my food, the fries had the distinct taste of food fried in oil that hadn't been changed in AT LEAST a month. They were completely unsalted, which was not a huge deal since there was salt on the table, but come on.

So you would think that after all of this hassle, the manager would have comped the meal, or at least my girlfriend's half of it, but nope. In fact, we were charged for the replacement burger as well as the original burger. The waitress then responded by saying she didn't have the authority to remove the charge. I heard reports that Red Robin has done this to people in the past and has even refused to remove the charge when prompted. In this case, the charge was removed, but as I said, they offered us NO discount for our inconvenience. Personally, I think they did it on purpose and waited to see if we would notice the charge.

We are NOT happy and you can expect lasting ramifications for your gross incompetence. If my girlfriend had taken a bite of that hamburger, she'd have been in real trouble because she can't afford the EpiPen she needs. You've put my...

The hostess did not ask us, but instead stated "you're both over 21 right", and then immediately brought us back to the bar area to be seated even though we were there for dinner. The service was exceptionally SLOW... All of our food was brought out cold. We ordered an appetizer which came out cold, not warm or hot. We sat in that building for almost 2 hours, and that's with us deciding not to finish our meal, which we packed up the rest and just left instead. The person who was serving us was also tending bar, but we weren't seated at the bar. We were seated at a table beside the bar. So this person was not only tending the bar items and her customers at the bar, she was then also having to leave the bar to come over and take care of us. I do not know why the hostess chose to seat us there but the couple that was seeded after us had the same complaints. The space was narrow and we were having our chairs run into constantly by the wait staff and customers as they tried to push through the bar area when people would stand at the bar and they were just shove our chairs. There was no excuse for our food to be cold out of than the fact that the waitress was not getting it on time and it sat in the back for who-knows-how-long. Our appetizer took 54 minutes until we received it. In that time period our entire meal should have been able to be completed. The only thing from keeping this from being rated lower is that after we paid for our COLD meal and asked for to-go boxes, we told the waitress that it took way too long... The manager came back over and gave us a dessert to go. I know that this is not the normal service of Red Robin, we generally we go to the one in Exton. This one was closer to our end destination this time. Hopefully this was a...