Red Robin Gourmet Burgers and Brews — Restaurant in Willoughby

My son took us here the other day for dinner. We drove an hour and ten minutes to get to this location. We had tried a different location years ago and enjoyed it. This occasion at this location was a different story. Hostess did not greet us with a hello or welcome to Red Robin...just asked how many? Placed our drink and appetizer order, which took quite awhile to receive. We did not get any sauce for the pretzel bites, alerted the waitress when she walked by...waited...nothing. We flagged her down again and she seemed surprised no one had brought it...by the time we got it we had nearly finished them. Entrees took even longer to arrive, though there were many empty tables throughout the restaurant. The fries were old and barely warm...not appetizing and the portions were pretty small. My chicken sandwich was decent, but my husband and son's burgers were on the small side. We didn't get the pickles we asked for until near the end of the meal. We were never offered refills on their big draw of bottomless fries...so we asked for another order each. We tried to eat our sandwiches slowly so we could have some fries on the side, but they never came. We all finished our meals and still no fries. Our waitress did deliver extra fries to a nearby table however. At one point she said they were just a couple minutes from being done, but still they never came. My son finally just asked for the check and told her to cancel the elusive fries, which prompted a visit from the manager. Meanwhile my son used the restroom and stepped outside to smoke and came back in and found the manager at our table. As she was making excuses for the kitchen being slow, the waitress showed up behind her carrying the fries with to-go boxes! It had easily been over 20 minutes since asking for our only refills. She begged us to take them home, we declined. Thankfully, the manager gave us half off the $60 bill...but even that didn't make up for the huge disappointment. We would never return and we would not recommend this place, we would...

Visited on Sunday (3/24) at 3pm and from the parking lot it looked busy which was affirmed when we , as well as the couple in front of us , weren't greeted in a timely manner and were informed that a table for two would be a 20-25 minute wait with at least three other parties in the lobby waiting. They choose to sit at a high top table in the bar where we sat at the bar. We were greeted by Sarah (sorry if I spell your name wrong) promptly and she is mostly the reason for the three star rating. She was informative and engaging and the tip left on our bill total would be indicative of her hard work. We both liked seeing Carol ( again , sorry if misspelled) go behind the bar to help her employee during the rush. Didn't dole out commands and outright take over but worked seamlessly and communicated effectively. Our drinks were very good. That's about it for the positives. Perhaps "gourmet burgers" with pink are meant to be served the way I got it , but it was cold. Like barely browned and for the significant wait for our food to arrive totally unacceptable. I'm not one to send food back so I ate my Banzai burger. Heck , with grilled pineapple and a grilled bun there should have been some warmth of some kind. The small basket of "bottomless fries" Sarah got for us while waiting was lukewarm as well as what was served during main meal. The last basket was hot. She got the chophouse and asked for no A-1. One guess as to how it was served. Unfortunately for the two of us we have had a string of not so good fortune in our dining experiences lately , now adding Red Robin to that list. We don't visit often and pretty sure that our experience hasn't deterred us from coming again despite the sound of this review. Neither of us is looking for freebies or a handout. I decided to leave this review just to say that surely you are...

If I could give them less than a 1 star I would. My wife took her daisy girl scout troop there. She called a few days ahead of time to reserve a table for 13 individuals. Their response was they do not take reservations days in advance that you would have to call that day. So today they called ahead after the girls were all excited about going and they told my wife that they do not take parties over 6. So my wife said that is fine can you divide us up regardless of how many tables you need to seat us at. She was not even concern if they were in the same section or if they had to be divided into 3 or 4 different tables. The fact that the 6 and 7 year old girls were excited about going to Red Robin was all my wife cared about. Their response was no madam we can not seat you all. So my wife preceded to ask for the manager who she spoke with. Her name was Tiffany and she refused to give anyone her last name. Tiffany was down right RUDE and told my wife that if they all showed up at once that they would seat half the party and make the other half wait 45 mins to an hour to be seated ! She then blamed it on the fact that their kitchen could not keep up ! Now I was in the restaurant business for 15 plus years as a cook! If you can not manage a 13 top half being children then you might as well shut your doors for good ! This party was no different than if 6 separate tables came in all at once. Luckily my wife found a LOCALLY owned restaurant that was more than willing to accommodate them a mind even bought girl scout cookies off the girls ! WE WILL NEVER EAT AT THIS ESTABLISHMENT AGAIN AND WE WILL MAKE SURE CORPORATE NOWS HOW THEIR RESTAURANT IS TREATING THE COMMUNITY AND...