I’ll be honest with you, one of the reasons I like Texas Roadhouse is because I think they’re pretty good for the price point. If I ask for a medium steak it typically comes back to me with a warm pink center. In fact, wait staff typically asks, “That’s a warm pink center, is that okay?” when I order. Though this is probably the first time I’ve ever gotten a steak that was underdone.
One(me)
At least.
I’m the salad eater at steak restaurants. Some reason it pisses people off.
My son can grill a steak I can eat. He knows it must be done.
FWIW, I’ve never made a fuss about my food cooked poorly but just delay eating it and bring it up when the server asks how the food is/“Is everything good?”. The delay is mainly so I can point out that it’s not “okay” versus eating it and complaining later that it was cooked wrong. Pointing out that the “rare” steak is uniformly gray is a pretty easy task.
That said, I don’t think anyone should apologize for politely pointing out when they didn’t get what they ordered. The cost of eating out has risen significantly in the past years, plus the rising proportional tip, and getting food that’s correctly cooked (and service when it’s not) seems like the ground floor for expected service whether it’s a high end steakhouse or casual dining restaurant.
True and I agree. I may not have been clear though. There’s a difference between, as you said, and as I gave examples of, indicating problems you’ve had with the food or errors in an order, politely, and making a “fuss”.
Perhaps I should have used stronger language, like “making a scene”. I’ve often commented to a server where something was wrong, or left out of an order, and normally it was resolved with all parties being reasonable. But there are people who do make a scene at some slight or mistake, and it makes the situation uncomfortable for the other diners. Thus the final clause of the sentence you quoted:
No argument there. And, as has been pointed out, giving the server a sceneful of shit for the kitchen’s failings doesn’t do anyone any good.
Agreed. It’s not fine dining, but it’s not priced like fine dining. They do a decent solid job for what they charge.
Or not. Maybe things have changed, but years ago when the wife and I used to go out to eat with a small baby in tow, and the wife asked the wait staff if they could warm the baby’s milk bottle in the microwave, it was surprising how many restaurants simply didn’t have microwaves. They were usually very accommodating and offered to warm the bottle in hot water, but microwaves they had no use for. I’m not talking 1960s here, more like early 90s.
As I noted above, good restaurant kitchens are more likely to have appliances like professional salamander broilers rather than microwaves. The idea being that they want to make stuff with flavours and textures that you wouldn’t easily reproduce at home. Microwaves are more like this style of home cuisine: 
I would shocked if any literally didn’t have a microwave. It’s generally discouraged to warm bottles in a microwave (hotspots, etc.) so maybe they were telling a bit of a white lie.
My grandmother demands hot soup and it isn’t hot enough about 75% of the time. I’m certain that it goes into the microwave every time. And there’s no problem with that.
The Texas Roadhouse by us had for a while laminated photocards that showed what doneness all the way from rare to well-done looked like along with text, cool red center, hot pink center, etc.
I’d bet they still got complaints.
That is a staple story at notalwaysright.com
Sometimes the inevitably called managers say, “You ate it; you pay for it.” Sometimes they cave.
Didn’t we have a thread about microwaves in restaurants…? Ah yes, I think it was this one I was thinking of (and you participated):
When I was a cook it was very common to get a steak sent back to cook more when they had ordered a medium rare and got a medium rare.
That’s a shame because TX Roadhouse is usually very consistent and reasonably priced for what you get.
Did the server repeat the temp back to you and describe what it means when you ordered?
As a former bartender/server/FOH manager, I see two mistakes on the part of the waitstaff. The person who delivered your food should have waited for you to cut into it to confirm the temp. Also, someone should’ve checked back with your table in a timely fashion to see if you were enjoying everything.
I worked in fine dining, casual, and sports bars. If there was a low temp issue with a protein (except for chicken) then all of those places would cook the original protein up to the diner’s requested temp.
Personally, I always liked to manage customer expectations without oversharing. Everyone is usually much happier when they have a general idea of what’s going on. I can only think of one example off the top of my head, about a temperature issue with steak.
“Terribly sorry about that. I will take this back to the kitchen so that we can fix this for you. It should only be a few minutes.”
At this point the customer asked, “The same steak? No, I want a new one.”
I told them “No problem at all! It will take x minutes for us to re-fire a new steak for you. If you’d like, I can box the old one up for you to take home as well? Can I get you another drink or side (based on what the customer actually ordered) while you wait?”
This was true where I worked. Once the food hits the table it’s either going home with the diner or it’s going in the trash. If the orders for tables 63 and 36 were misdelivered, then we’d refire both tables and let the diners keep the mistakes.
I agree. I think it’s an excellent value. I can get a TX Roadhouse ribeye for $25-$30, a $75 ribeye at the Capitol Grill or $90 at Peter Luger’s. The Roadhouse steak won’t be quite as good as the others, but I could get 2 or 3 of them for the money. It’s just one meal, there’s a limit to how good a steak can be. I’ve spent the extra money on some special occasions, but most of the time I’d choose the Roadhouse or similar restaurant. Those other places don’t just charge more for their steaks, everything costs more too. So at the end of the night you’ve spent a lot more money for some improvement in just a portion of the experience.
I never, never, EVER send food back in a restaurant because you never know what happens to complaining customers food when it’s out of sight. If I get a garbage meal I just don’t eat it and try to get it comped.
Gugafoods did a review of Texas Warehouse and one of the things they pointed out was how thin the steaks are and how you will never get consistency in your steak temps with steaks 1/2" thick.
My very first job was working in a restaurant, buffet pizza, and I never saw anyone mess with the food. As long as you treat the staff with respect, I don’t think you have much to worry about.
Can you expand on this? I don’t understand this at all. Let me post two scenarios.
A:
Two raw steaks are put on the grill at the same time and both taken off when cooked to well done.
B:
Two raw steaks are put on the grill at the same time. One is taken off before the other one. The second is cooked to well done.
Are you saying you’re ok with A and not B?
I’m not sure I understand this. Unless it’s actually cold in the middle, how can it be undercooked?
Same. Worked fast food kitchen and never saw anyone messing with the food (or did it myself). I guess I could see the temptation if someone was screaming at me from the other side of the counter but if someone just needed a burger without onions, who cares? Just one more burger out of the hundred I’ll be cooking that shift – get it done and move on.