Texas Roadhouse review: Waitress service

My name is Michael and my wife and I visited the Texas Roadhouse restaurant in Kirkwood Missouri on June 24th 2023 at around 3:15 pm. Texas Roadhouse is by far one of my favorite restaurants. I love the food and have always had very good to excellent service. So I take no pleasure in relating this to you. The waitress we had was named Nikki. She had stated that she had served in the Marine Corps so that is all that I know about her.

She took our order and that was about all we saw of her until it was time for us to pay. She did not bring our food, and I understand that sometimes someone else will bring it to the table. When the food arrived we told the lady that we had asked for some A1 sauce, some lemons for my wife's broccoli, and a refill on my iced tea Our waitress Nikki, brought the sauce and the tea with 4 lemon slices in the tea. We told her that the lemons were for the broccoli and she did not offer to bring more lemons or another tea. We wound up digging the lemons out of the tea to put on the broccoli and I just drank the tea with lemon juice in it (not my fav) Not the best service. We did not see her again until my wife was finished eating and had went to the restroom. She came by and I told her she could bring the check and that I was retired military and to please apply the discount. There were empty dishes all over the table and she did not clear any of them. Up to this point I would say that the service was not what we were used to at Texas Roadhouse, but we still would have left a tip because we did not want to be jerks about it and had never left a restaurant without leaving some kind of a tip even when the service was not real good.

That changed when Nikki returned to the table with the check. I looked at it and asked where the military discount was. I believe the bill was around $46 and there was a subtraction of, I believe $1.35. I told her this was wrong that it should be around $4.60. She informed me that the discount was for the military member only. I told her that any other time I had been to Roadhouse that 10% had been taken off the bill, but I thought maybe the policy had changed and I told her it was still incorrect because she had taken 10% off of my wife's meal and not mine. My steak cost right at $25 and my tea would have brought the total close to $30. She took the receipt from me and was gone quite awhile before she came back. She still had not removed a dish from the table. She returned and handed me the check and said "here is your other dollar" her tone of voice was very sarcastic, and could be interpreted as meaning "here is your other dollar cheap [censored]". I believe that is when we decided that we were not leaving her anything. I did not look at the ticket and handed her a $100 bill. She returned with the change and it was exactly to the dollar, no coins, which I thought was odd but not impossible. I didn't say anything and she did not provide me with a copy of the receipt so I still wasn't sure if it was correct. At that point we just wanted to leave.

I wish the story ended there, but we got into my truck and she followed us out to the parking lot and to our truck wanting to know why we had not left her a tip since she felt she had provided good service. We told her we did not feel the service was good and the sarcastic remark was completely unnecessary. She told me how disappointed she was because we had both been in the military and how hard she worked and that she could not believe I left her nothing.

I have never had a waitress follow me out of a restaurant into the parking lot and approach me at my truck. My wife felt threatened by it and wasn't sure what the girl might do next. Thankfully she turned around and left.

I do not take pleasure in reporting this because I realize people have to earn a living but this girl is not waitress material. My wife said she will not return to that particular restaurant if she thinks that girl is still working there. Please do not allow Nikki to have my name or any of my contact information.

Michael [protected]@gmail.com, [protected]