Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen — Restaurant in Wichita

Management where are you? Visited the 13th St. Location on 02/27/22 at 1830. The food was ok. I've had several better steaks in Wichita than the flat and chewy ribeye I had. I recommend getting the chicken fried steak instead. However, the appetizers and sides were good. The service was as good as it could be at 1830 (6:30p.m.) on a Sunday since they were seemingly short staffed. I'm not sure if it's a management or competitive wage issue. But, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess management. We had a party of 12. Was told they could accommodate us with no problem. But we would have to wait. As understandably they don't do reservations. They completely failed to mention however that we would be sitting at 3 different tables as they only have one table that seats more than 6. And a party of 9 on the list before us rightfully was seated there. I'm assuming they had to of known that we couldn't sit together before telling our party of 12 they 'could handle us but it would be a 45m wait'. Which is upsetting since family traveled from states away to meet up for a parent's 60th birthday. To not be able to sit at the same table and visit is infuriating. Our waitress bless her heart. Was clearly newish. Extremely overwhelmed from working so many tables. I'm not sure how many she had. but it was over 20m before we could even see her to get a drink refill. We still tipped her generously well over 25%. Since it was obvious that it was not her fault. Clearly management was at fault here. There were 5 hosts manning the seating station when we arrived and was seated. Even though I only saw 1 other wait person besides ours. Except when they brought the food out when there was magically 5 of them. And never once saw any management type person anywhere in the 1hr and 50m there. You will be hard pressed to ever get me to even recommend this Cheddars location after this. Maybe after a lot of heavy lifting on their part. Not short of slight remodeling. Having only 1 table to handle parties over 6 people is just flat out ridiculous. You're literally the only place I've ever known that doesn't have tables that can be pushed together to manage these situations. Which is amazingly short sighted. And that's being as nice as possible after you nearly ruined someone's 60th birthday.

Adding to this after looking through other reviews you do have some tables that push together to allow for large groups. Which means your host staff LIED!!! Changing my review from...

The business was not busy at all. The food was…” okay” at best! The wait staff was Horrible our waitress informed us that the reason it took her so long to get to us was because she was “in the bathroom waiting on the front desk staff to get her toilet paper and then went on to tell us how incompetent they were.” ((TMI- I should have asked — did you wash your hands?) She took our drink orders and it took another 20 minutes for her to return with them. After taking our food order 30 min later we finally got our food but it was not what we requested- gravy was not on the side and the fettuccine didn’t have extra sauce and the “loaded” bake potato came with a teaspoon of cheese - no bacon bits no butter no sour cream. Our waitress proceeded to bash the kitchen staff. After we ate and asked for Togo boxes and it took another 30 minutes for her to return. Waited on the ticket and was mad when I paid with a gift card and didn’t tip her!! Very unfortunate experience!!! And a waist of two gift cards!!! Should have gone to one of the restaurants listed on the card!!!

05/18/25 UPDATE: My daughter and grandkids visited on WSU graduation weekend and had a MUCH better experience! The restaurant was incredibly busy but the wait staff was nice, and efficient and even stuck us back in a quiet corner with our kiddos so we could talk without the hustle and bustle. The food was a little better the ribs were the most tender and meaty I've tasted in years and the server willingly brought more sauce for the fettuccine but the "loaded" baked potato still fell drastically short of expectations with only a teaspoon of shredded cheese and no bacon bits, chives or even sour cream. Our server was older this time and TREMENDOUSLY better - there is a huge difference between someone who is working for a paycheck and someone who is working IN the SERVICE industry!!! She did an excellent job of refilling drinks and bringing more napkins and "dipping sauces". And was even very understanding when a peach tea spilled and we left a sticky seat. I am hoping this is more the standard for this restaurant and our other visit was just a fluke visit.

After this visit we are definitely willing to try them again! After all who can say no to those AMAZING HONEY...

I almost NEVER leave reviews but the customer service at this location was SO terrible that I will NEVER come back, and will let everyone I can can know to avoid this location. We called a day in advance to let the restaurant know we had a group of 15 coming to celebrate my 40th birthday the following evening. They informed us that reservations are not available but that they have a waitlist system and recommended joining that about 45 minutes before the party. Tonight my husband called about 45 min before our arrival to let them know we would be coming. The person who answered the phone asked what time and said “okay, just check in when you get here,” leaving us under the impression we were on the waitlist. We checked in at arrival and they let us know that several large parties arrived before us and it would be a significant wait. We I asked about our call ahead, they told us “that didn’t count, because you have to be here to join the waitlist” (which by the way makes no sense because you can join the waitlist online supposedly). Frustrated but resigned to the fact, I did let the hostess (Joanne) know that they may want to let the person answering the phone know that they should make this fact know when we called ahead. We could have sent someone over 30 minutes before and have them already waiting had we known we weren’t on the waitlist but we were not given that impression whatsoever. We had young children in the party, which makes waiting for long periods of time already very difficult, combined with the fact that it was later in the evening. Joanne proceeded to shake her head at me and in a very snarky way reply “yeah, I’ll be sure to do that.” SO RUDE. Because the wait was so significant some of our party members ended up having to leave. I am just so frustrated that a fun night out was ruined by poor communication and an extremely rude host. We haven’t even sat down to eat yet (at this point, I’m fairly sure it’s been longer than we were even quoted) and honestly if we could get in somewhere else on this short of notice, we would just leave but at this point we’ve already waited so long, but I guess we will just stick it out. Also, the floor is filthy, trash everywhere, and food in areas where food is not even...