Lord Manners.com

Today we visited the Outback Steakhouse in Sandy. Our evaluation areas were: Quality and presentation of food, cleanliness of restaurant, hostess service, wait service and manager’s service.

FOOD: In the food category, although Outback doesn’t serve anything truly out of this world amazing, they have a tasty menu and with sufficient choice to make it interesting. They are currently celebrating 20 years of being in business and have a special menu for that occasion. We always enjoy the food there.

CLEANLINESS: The Outbacks we have visited are always clean.

HOSTESS: The hostess greeted us in a friendly manner and complimented us on our co-ordinating attire. We explained it was quite by accident that we were wearing the same colors and that we actually hadn’t noticed. She said her parents do it as well. She was friendly without being too familiar. My husband told her it was his birthday and she wished him in a very genuine manner, a happy birthday and said that dessert would be on them tonight. She was pleasant and attentive and let us set the pace to reach our table, which we appreciated. Sometime we feel we have to jog to keep up with the hostess, to reach our table, at our age that is disconcerting.

WAITER: The waiter came, he was pleasant and all started out well; he brought our drinks, we placed our order, eventually he brought our bread and all seemed to be going well until the salad arrived and the dressing, instead of being on the side, had been poured over it. O.K. we are all allowed one mistake but when the sweet potato came with the brown sugar and butter on top and not on the side, I felt a little disappointed. I realized it was my fault. I usually remember to ask it to be served plain. My server hadn’t thought to ask me if I wanted the honey butter. He offered to replace it but that takes time so I just scooped it off and we enjoyed our meal. When the bill came there was a charge we didn’t understand and came to find out that, although we could have two sides and my husband had only one and soup as the second side, there was an extra charge we hadn’t been told about. The waiter’s style we decided, was so laid back in his service that he failed to pay attention to details that would have made our dinning experience not just average but excellent. Attention to detail when we serve others is what makes the entire experience exceptional. An example of this came at the end when he returned the bill. The bill came to $31.55. I gave him $40. When the change came back he missed returning the 45 cents. When I mentioned it to him he looked at me blankly and gave no apology or explanation. Another failure to attend to details.
MANAGER: The manager came round to the tables (for which she received a plus), asking if everything was all right. We said it was and then asked if they had a seniors discount. We were a little surprised not so much by her answer which was in the negative, but in the disdainful way in which she answered us. Usually when we ask, people are only too happy that we have, even if they don’t offer one. In fact, Outback is the first restaurant we have visited, to not have one.

In conclusion our experience started off in a positive way with pleasant service, good food, nice atmosphere and the manager visiting our table to check on us added to quality of service. Where they fell down was in the lack of attention to details from the waiter and the wrong change without an effort to correct the problem. Over all Outback in Sandy got 7 out of 10.