Outback Steakhouse

I just couldn't let this stuff go. I'm a professional in the hospitality industry.

On New Years Eve my family arrived at 5:45pm and were seated immediately, so many empty tables we were allowed to choose. They offered our six-top a table for 10 but we declined in favor of the smaller table thinking it would be better for everything. Maybe this is what triggered our server to treat us terribly, I’m not sure. We have no clue why she was so angry and rude… she refused to even make eye-contact with us. She neglected to offer a friendly greeting and this was 15 minutes after we sat and waited for a server to even arrive to our table. Finally, she took our drink order and the women all ordered Martinis. We waited 15 minutes for them to even arrive. The manager actually brought the drinks to the table. I’m assuming they were “dying in the well” and the bartender was likely waiting for them to be picked up by a server who didn’t show up. Grateful for the drinks but unfortunately they were spilled all over us! Spilled on the table and on our clothes and ZERO APOLOGIES! How can a server watch this happen and not offer a napkin to help us dry up? How does a server, let alone a manager not feel obliged to apologize? And that’s just the beginning of this atrocious dining experience. She seemed to forget about us until finally another server had to ask her to take our dinner order which she did begrudgingly… “ready?” Is all she said to us. So we ordered our food and waited AN HOUR! No food arrived to our tables as we watched tables around us who arrived after us being served food. We were totally ignored this entire time until finally we decided to just forgo our meals and pay for our drinks and leave! When our rude server sees us standing up to leave she rushes over and says the food is coming out now and to just wait a couple more minutes. We asked for a manager at this point. We were informed that they were “out of potatoes” and that’s why our meal wasn’t served timely. This is at 7pm on a night when you’d think basic sides like potatoes would be stocked appropriately… it’s NYE! We said “we would’ve picked another side if it meant we’d be served sooner” we were HUNGRY! Finally the food arrived and it’s beyond sub-par. Much of our food was cold but the most egregious meal was the almost raw filet! It was ordered med-rare and was not edible. We asked to have it fixed and again it came out pretty gross and we didn’t enjoy this at all. At no point did the server check on us or stop back to see how the food is tasting. At no point we’re we offered comps from a manager who knew we were continually disappointed and unsatisfied by this experience. A round of drinks or maybe comp the one meal that was a disappointment would’ve been customary. I’ve worked as a food server in Las Vegas for 20 yrs and I’ve never experienced anything remotely close to this level of or lack there or service standards. I know exactly how this whole thing works bc it’s all I’ve ever done and this was bottom of the barrel service all the way around. It didn’t improve when we received our bill and our server never once tried to gain our appreciation at all. She was clearly angry to be working that day and showed this to us the entire time.