Red Robin Gourmet Burgers and Brews — Restaurant in Virginia

Went to Red Robin at the Patrick Henry Mall in Newport News on Sunday 09/10/2023 in the evening. Our server's name was Kelly. Kelly did a very poor job as our server. She did not give us any silverware or napkins. My wife saw some napkins just sitting on the bar so she got up herself and grabbed them. When Kelly came to us, she asked if we wanted any appetizers and we said no, and then Kelly took the pay tablet and took it upon herself to pull up the appetizers menu after we already said we didn't want anything, like she was trying to upsell us. Kelly asked what we wanted to drink and we just got water. Kelly wasn't the one that brought us our waters, it was some other girl and it took 10 minutes for the waters to be given to us. After another little while, Kelly came back and took our order. We got entrees with bottomless fries. Kelly did NOT put in orders of bottomless fries as an "appetizer", which is why we didn't get an appetizer in the first place. Even on the in-house survey it asks if the server put the bottomless fries as an appetizer. But Kelly did not do that.

Kelly was again not the server that brought us our meals, it was the same other girl that brought us our waters earlier. We had to ask that girl to go ahead and put in another order for the bottomless fries because at this point we did not trust Kelly to check in on us. Which she only did one time after about 20 minutes or so. During this interaction she asked if we wanted another round of fries. We said yes. We waited around 10 minutes and still had not received this order of fries, and by now we were already done eating the rest of our food and we ran out of water because Kelly never refilled them. So we just paid on the pay tablet and left. But we never got a chance to do the in-house survey because the pay tablet ran out of receipt paper and wouldn't let us get to the survey because of the receipt paper error.

And on the way out, I checked to see if I could see Kelly anywhere, and she was nowhere in our section, she wasn't behind the bar, I didn't see her anywhere else in the restaurant on a quick glance, and I didn't see her in the kitchen on a quick glance. I was checking to see if I could see her anywhere in case she may have been coming with that order of fries as we left.

Keep in mind that it was not busy at all when we went. Part of the reason I think the issues occurred is because Kelly was preoccupied with other things other than being our waitress. There was one guy sat at the bar that Kelly was chatting it up with, and a table with 3-4 children that she kept looking after that took her attention away from her job. But this was by far the worst experience we have ever had at any Red Robin and Kelly may be one of the worst servers I have personally had from any restaurant that I can remember. I'm trying to think of a worse server than Kelly right now and nothing is coming to mind.

Also someone who looked like a manager (I'm not sure if they actually were the manager but they just looked like they were) walked past us multiple times and never said a simple hello. My wife says he gave a head nod but I didn't see that.

The actual food we got was good though when we got it. And the girl that brought us our food and waters was nice and smiling and I wish we would have gotten her name because in the 2 small interactions we had with her she was pleasant.

It's not like we won't be back though because other servers besides Kelly have been fantastic and we pretty much always like the food. But I just hope we never get served by...

June 2025* Again, we tried this restaurant because my daughter loves the strawberry lemonade. I cringed when she asked to go here for our date day. Because I've never experienced a clean restaurant or bathroom here, we ordered for pickup so we could eat somewhere else. (The music is also obnoxiously loud). I received notification that our order was ready for pickup, so we arrived at the restaurant and no one was at the reception area. We quickly decided to use the restroom, it actually wasn't very bad this time. When we returned, we literally waited for 10-15 minutes just to be acknowledged that we were waiting. Literally no one acknowledged us before this time. Also, they are extremely understaffed. They took their phone off the hook and left it so (I'm assuming) no one could bother to call. Pictures of that included. When the lady came to bring us our food, she was unenthused. I felt as if our presence was a bother to her. I actually felt bad for her, how sad to hate your job so much. Again, we wasted so much time here WAITING. I thought I could get around it by ordering to go, but I was sadly mistaken.

May 23' *I wanted to share an update from my most recent visit. I took my daughter out for a date day and she chose to go here after I told her how yummy all of the food was. There was no wait to be seated. The waitress was kind and attentive. It took almost 30 minutes to receive our food- literally a burger and fries and corn dogs with fries. Nothing special. We had to use the bathroom and upon opening the door to the restroom, we encountered the most disgusting stench of smoke (we don't smoke so I don't know if it was cigarette or other). It was so bad,y 4 year old tried holding her breath and my pregnant self tried to hurry as fast as possible to get out. The bathroom floor was so sticky I couldn't move my flip flop at one point. I asked to talk to management about the nastiest of the bathroom and they apologized but I never saw anyone do anything about it while we were there finishing our meal and waiting 10 minutes for the waitress to bring us boxes. We wasted so much time here for our special day out, definitely skip this place and try one of the many other options around.

I love that Red Robin in general offers so much for those that have allergies or sensitivities to particular foods/ingredients. Their website offers ways to remove certain foods from their menu which makes it so much more...

Not Great For First Time Visit. This may be my first negative review ever since I always look for the positives. My wife and I drove from Williamsburg to eat here because we had received a gift card some time ago. We were there at 3:00 on a Friday. Plenty of parking, and the outside was inviting. We were seated quickly and menus were brought to our table just after we sat down. Our server took our drink order and we both had our normal waters. The waters were brought out promptly and the waiter said he would be right back for our orders. I told him that I was looking forward to the Bottomless Steak Fries that I had heard about. I decided on my burger, and my wife selected her burger too. After waiting for about 10 minutes and finishing my glass of water, I went to the bathroom and my wife was ready to order for me if needed. I got back and no order yet. She went to the bathroom and I was going to order for her. She returned and still no order. At this point, we were both a little disappointed. Only about 10 to 12 people in the restaurant, and there were at least 3 different servers. We finally got to order, and the food was out in only about 10 minutes. Great! My burger was ok, but the fries were really good. My wife loved her burger. We shared the last bit of ketchup. I received a refill on my water finally, after finishing all of my food. I was asked if I wanted more fries and I quickly said yes. My wife asked for more ketchup since the bottle was empty. Another server brought out the fries in about 10 minutes. ..no more ketchup though. No offer for more fries for my wife either. She got a bottle of ketchup from one of the many empty tables close by. We finished all the food, and waited 15 minutes more before the server came back. We were both out of water, and had been looking forward to another order of fries (orders are not very big), and the server asked if we wanted anything more. ..I replied that we had wanted more water and fries earlier, but not now. ..we did not mention the ketchup either. I'm sure glad that I didn't order one of the "$15 burgers" and that we were paying for the food with a gift card. We were there for over 1 hour for...