Nadeen S.
Yelp
We have been doing a fair bit of traveling of late and eaten out more than usual. We have had the fortune of having great service, incredible wait staff and some memorable meals. After a very long day in Raleigh, we headed for Outback, if no other reason than we wanted a known quantity, a hot steak and an adult beverage. Here our streak of good service came to a screeching halt in every way imaginable.
My partner ordered a beer and I contemplated what I wanted. Our server came back with his beer and I pointed to red cabernet on the menu and said I wanted the Cabernet from Australia. Our server replied "that would be a white wine for you?'. My finger was still poised on the menu on the red wine so I corrected him and he apologized. Meanwhile we ordered dinner and salads. It took three tries of him not listening before he finally got our identical orders down. Fifteen minutes later, when my glass of wine had yet to appear, my boyfriend went to the bar and explained what we were waiting for. The bartender pointed to a glass of wine sitting there and explained it had been there waiting for quite some time. As my boyfriend brought it to the table he passed our waiter who apologized profusely.
The salads arrived then - mine with the wrong dressing. The salad person asked if I wanted it anyway and I politely declined and asked the right salad be delivered. I suggested my boyfriend not wait because I was getting a feeling things were not going to go well. Our steaks arrived with our sides of mushrooms swimming in broth. This was all good until we suggested a spoon would be nice.. The person who delivered the meal agreed and promised to be right back with spoons. We waited and then fished them out with forks. Spoons never arrived. As we finished our steaks, my salad made its appearance and the woman delivering rightly guessed I probably didn't want it any more. We asked to speak to the manager... the second in command arrived. We explained our dissatisfaction in great detail and she agreed the service had been subpar. When we found out the manager/ owner was on site we asked to speak to her... she must have been with the spoons because she never arrived either. However when we left we correctly surmised the woman talking to the hostess was the manager and my boyfriend told her exactly how unhappy we were ... I was too disgusted to be honest. On the plus side, they did comp our meals but we won't ever be back.
You can overlook it when one thing goes wrong but everything does, it speaks of really poor management. Incidentally, we couldn't help but overhear our waiter apologize to the tables on either side of us for forgetting about them.