Outback Steakhouse
Mr. Pug and I say that the name of this place is the answer to the question of where you should hurl after eating there.
“Outback, mate!”
My family ate at an Applebee’s in Washington DC a few years ago. We waited for about an hour and fifteen minutes to be seated, all the while standing in their foyer while the door kept opening and closing and the coldass air kept coming in. We were finally seated in the darkest little corner of the restaurant, only to wait another 30 minutes before the manager (!) came to take our order. The food was the usual–boring and bland. Then, when we got our bill, some chick who we’d never seen before brought it and had signed it, “Thanx! -Kristy” As if we were going to tip ole Kristy, who did nothing to make our already shitty experience a little more tolerable.
Wow - we must have the best Applebee’s in the world here in Indianapolis!! There’s one five minutes away from me, and I have never had a problem like the ones you guys have mentioned. In fact, we were just there on Friday night. There was a little mixup - supposed to be no potatoes, add a salad - but they fixed it immediately and with a smile.
And personally, I LOVE the Smothered Chicken (no mushrooms)!
Meh on Cracker Barrel. Outback Steakhouse is the true chain-restaurant goodness.
What creeps me out is how the hostess opens the damn door for you.
It always throws me off. I’m walking up to the restaurant when suddenly the door swings open, so I quickly step aside so that the people leaving ('cause that’s why the door would swing open, right? Someone must be leaving.) can get by. But no, it’s not somebody leaving, it’s some chick in a green polo shirt and suspenders, waiting for me to come in while partially blocking the door.
Boy howdy, that’s customer service, alright.
And then they pull the same crap when you leave–rush in front of you so they can hold the door.
Christalmighty, I’m a full-grown adult with no physical handicaps. I can open my own damn door.
sigh The hubby likes the Santa Fe Chicken salad, so I go. Oh, quick Applebee’s tip: If you don’t like the salty-saturated-fat goo that comes on the vegetables, order your entree with the seasonal vegetables, not the seasoned vegetables.
Here’s a script for guidance:
Me or You: And I’d like that with the seasonal vegetables instead of the seasoned vegetables.
Waitron, every single time: Confused. But, the vegetables come with seasoning on them.
[What she means is, they come out of the bag from the freezer with the salty-saturated-fat goo on them, but that’s not a very appealing picture to present to the customer.]
Me or You: No, I want the seasonal vegetables, like the ones the come Low-Fat Tilapia with Mango Salsa[sup]TM[/sup].
Waitron: Oooh.
They have no beer. They have no business from me.
Anywho, I have only been to one Applebees, though a couple times. Food was good, service was moderately slow. No big.
A Chile’s opened near us only a couple months ago and we really like it. 'Course, I was never to a Chile’s before, but it suits us for our “go-out-for-some-good-food-once-a-month” thing.
I was a waiter at an Applebees for about two months in 1991. During the time I was there I had one guy at a table distract me with stupid, unanswerable questions while another guy untied my apron (with all my money in it) from behind. Then the first guy grabbed the apron and sprinted for the door. A couple of weeks later, one of the regulars was sitting at a table with some friends when he suddenly pulled out a gun and shot himself in the head. When the restaurant reopened, I did not return to work. I won’t even tell you about the time the management decided it would be a good idea to paint the ceiling of the kitchen on a Friday night and I kept getting food with white paint in it sent back all night.
Applebees sucks. Don’t eat there.
I’ve never gotten really bad service at Applebee’s, but I’ve had some really terrible food. I had first eaten at one in Worcester a couple of times and it was ok enough, not a place that I’d suggest for a Big Night Out but not a place I’d turn down if it was the only thing in the area or if someone else wanted to go. Then when I moved in with my ex, we went to the one near him twice and both times my meal (a chicken wrap and I forget what I got the second time) was wretched. I refused to ever go again - there was a Chili’s right up the road and at least they have a couple of dishes that I like. Then last year I was volunteering for a political rally and we had a planning meeting at the Applebee’s in Plymouth. Since I know I hate everything else they serve, I decided to go with the fish and chips. I didn’t expect it to be good, mind you, but I thought at least it would be the same exact frozen battered cod you get at any of those restaurants, and therefore predictable enough to be palatable.
Oh no. I got little squares of something vaguely resembling pollock, encased in sheetrock. I shall never eat at Applebee’s again, for any reason.
I don’t really mind most of the others, although I was very disappointed last time I went to Bugaboo Creek. I have no opinion on the Outback since they never let me in. I’ve gone when they were just opening and I could see that all the tables were clearly empty and they still tell me it’s a 2-hour wait. I mean, I dress neatly and practice appropriate hygiene, but not one single Outback location has ever let me through the door. Definitely the best restaurants are the little local neighborhood places though, the chains are best reserved for when you’re in an unfamiliar place and just want something relatively quick and predictable, with the exception of perhaps Legal Seafood and Naked Fish, both of which began in this area and are a notch above the Thank God There’s 99 Olives on My Chili or whatever anyway.
Here you go! Here I am
Uncle Moe – thank you, ma’am!
This’ll be a treat:
Uncle Moe! Here I am, while you eat!
I feel I must step in and defend Romano’s Macaroni Grill. I’ve never had a bad experience there. Probably because I always order at least one glass of the house chianti, which comes in servings of approximately sixty-four ounces. And they bring you a loaf of hot bread glistening with olive oil, which I always enjoy. Macaroni Grill kicks the Olive Garden’s ass.
But I agree about the others. Applebee’s, TGI Friday’s, Bennigan’s, Uncle Mo’s Family Feedbag… mostly mediocre.
Why would any given Applebee’s necessarily have worse service than the Houlihan’s down the block? They hire from the same pool, right?
Is this due to some sort of deficient central policy? Different pay? Better hours?
Or is it pretty much a crapshoot depending on location?
But what about the Flair?
Thank goodness my brother and I are not the only ones using that great Simpsonism. Great allusion and completely accurate.
My wife’s and my collective luck at TGI McScratchy’s is very poor–between bouts of food posioning to looks of mutual disgust at trying to find something not deep-fried.
I would add the Lone Star Steakhouse, Outback, Bennigans and Olive Garden to the rogue’s gallery of Down-Home McChains.
The commercials…ARGH! The Italian immigrant who wants to celebrate his citizenship at … the Olive Garden. Hilarious.
Jesus! What ghetto were you working in?!
That’s so crazy it’s almost unbelievable.
I like Chili’s- mostly because you can make any burger a veggie burger. All the other places blow though. And I wouldn’t be caught dead working in any of them when I was a waitress. The service is shitty because the management treats the waitstaff like shit.
And the nazi’s had little peices of flare that the made the jews wear…
Any excuse to say that line… 
FTR, guys and gals, TGIFriday’s eliminated flair over a year ago. Now they just wear black polo shirts. (I used to work at TGI’s, before the black polo switch; I didn’t like talking about my flair either. :D)
And as for why some chain restaurants suck, and others don’t…each restaurant is an island, whether it’s corporate or franchise, and it all depends on the management. And once a restaurant begins to go downhill…once they lose their good servers and have to replace them with somebody…it’s very rare for a restaurant to come back from that, regardless of management, because you’ve got morons breeding morons, basically.
Which means that a good server won’t want to work there, or won’t work there very long; the only people who stay at a restaurant that sucks are people who don’t really give a flying fuck; these are people far too lazy to get a better gig b/c they don’t mind sucking.
So please don’t give a restaurant like this a second or third chance; let it die. You’ll be doing the world a favor.
And what’s with you guys, anyway, eating at chain restaurants so much to begin with? 
Support your local mom-n-pop restaurants! I’d much rather give my hard-earned money to the community than give it to The Big Corporate Cheese Machine, who’s always based in some other city and usually some other state.
And somebody mentioned all the “artifacts” at TGI’s; believe it or not, each store has to have certain artifacts, like the stop-light by the restrooms, the boat somewhere on the ceiling, etc., and the reason they have these artifacts is to give their diners something to look at while they’re waiting for their food. (And a surprising number of these artifacts have stories behind them.)
In other words, they’d like you to be so distracted by all the cool stuff everywhere that you forget that you’ve waited 20 minutes for your fried mushrooms. Time, in a restaurant or not, is all about perception.
Just thought you might like to know. 
Years and years ago, my husband and I got a sitter and went out for dinner - it might have been an anniversary or his birthday, or just a night out. We decided to go to Applebee’s because it was close and previous visits had been pleasant.
The waitress came over, sat down at our table, and proceeded to chat while taking our order. It’s as if it never occurred to her that we wouldn’t want her to join us. GAH!! She came back frequently, always chatty. It was a horrible evening out.
I have no problem with friendly wait staff - be cordial and professional, but don’t try to be my friend. If I’m out with someone, I want to be talking to that person. If I’m out alone, I want to be left alone. I suppose under different circumstances, we might have become best buddies, but you’re at work and I’m not. Let’s keep that line clear, 'k?
The original one in the Plaza is now a California Pizza Kitchen. 
I had that happen at Bennigan’s once. She came over and sat down, and was all like, “Hard day, huh? Ready for some great food, I’ll bet,” and then she kept calling my mom “Mom.” Like, “What two sides would you like with that, Mom?” It was weird.
Sorry Anth, I have to stick up for Chili’s. I have gone there at least 25 times, at least 8 locations in three or four different cities, and probably never had a bad meal. (Sounds like damning through faint praise, but I consider that quite an accomplishment.)And the service is always average to average plus.
My friend and I are going to open up a bar/restaurant in a few months. We are franchising, and while narrowing down the possiblities we went to some orientations at different corporate offices to listen to their pitch. One thing that struck me - when the corporate guys left the room and we started talking to the other franchisees, eventually the subject of “What else are you looking at?” came up. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE had an Applebee’s horror story. Even the corporate folks at several chains wondered aloud at how Applebee’s stays in business.
This only confirmed my own personal experience, which has been that of the “TGI McScratchy” variations, Applebee’s is on a level all by itself - at the bottom.
Well sure, generalizations are generalizations, whether I or anyone else make them. There are always occasional installations of these restaurants hidden away somewhere where the food is good, the tables clean, the servers treat you like a human being, flair and crap on the walls is kept to the bare minimum. There was once an Applebees west of Scranton, hidden away in the woods, run entirely by an Amish family of 16 - imagine, 5 generations of one family serving you. It had the redeeming value that all of its “flair” and crap on the walls was hand-crafted. And Jakob, the owner, ran the store with an attitude of grim stoicism that eliminated any and all giggling at the menu. Of course, they served no beer and couldn’t take credit cards, but hey…
I heard of a Chi-Chi’s once, down in Texas. It somewhere near Larado, and it was run by the most beautiful woman - Mercedes was her name, though’ she drove an old Ford 100 pickup. She was decades from being a giggly girl, but still young at heart, and she could easily captivate the eye of any straight male or woman so inclined, such as myself. Each night she would do this dance with her partner, Consuela, called “The exquisite caress of the orchid”, which would make you soon forget all about the stuffed armadillo wearing a teddy on the wall, as you shoved handfull after handfull of Cajun Cheese Fries into your mouth…
And then there was the Olive Garden in Colorado Springs run entirely by lesbian vampires wearing Catholic schoolgirl uniforms. That was worth visiting.
So you see, there are exceptions.