Outback Steakhouse Service Decline

I don't know if any of the rest of you like Outback Steakhouse or not, but Leah and I have been fans for quite some time. It's always seemed to us that it's a fun, reasonably priced place to get a pretty decent steak. Then came our last two visits. I'm pretty sure that there must have been some significant changes at a corporate level in the past couple of months because the food quality and service quality have declined significantly. Honestly, we gave them a break after our first bad experience since it was Valentine's Day, but after going through the same thing last night, I've got to say that I probably won't ever go back without some guarantee that things are back to normal. Let me know if you've had a similar disappointing experience at your local Outback, and read the letter that I just posted on their feedback site below:

To Outback Steakhouse:

I have been a longtime fan of Outback Steakhouse. My wife and I have considered the cheese fries to be the best available for at least the last 10 years, and we have always enjoyed the quality of your salads and steaks. Really, it's the little things that matter to us when we visit Outback, like the unique taste of the croutons in the dinner salad, the salt on the baked potato skin, the seasoning on the steak, and the crispness of the cheese fries. As fairly frequent patrons to the Outbacks in Garland, Plano, and Dallas, I can say that we've almost never been disappointed. Almost never.

Our last two visits have been to the Garland location and the Dallas (635 & Greenville) location and while the service and quality were consistent in both visits, it was noticeably lower than in any past visit.

Initially, I excused the service and food quality at the Garland location based on the fact that we were dining on Valentine's Day and the restaurant was very crowded, but after the exact same experience with the exact same order at the Dallas location, I wonder if there are not changes at a corporate level that are pulling down the quality of the chain.

Specifically, my family and I ordered cheese fries that we would normally expect to find hot and crispy. Ours were soggy and covered in rubbery bacon bits. For our meals, we ordered our usual Outback Special which is generally a great value for steak. It might seem nitpicky, but one of the things that I look forward to in the Outback salad that comes with this meal is the unique taste of the croutons and ranch dressing. Neither of those were present in either visit. Sure, there were croutons and ranch dressing, but they were both just plain, not all the way they should taste at Outback. As a matter of fact, I was so disappointed that I didn't even finish mine. Next up, the steaks. First they were delivered incorrectly. Mine to my wife and hers to me. Not normally a big deal, but what are the odds of that happening twice in a row and at two different restaurants? Next, they were cooked incorrectly. Mine was way too overdone and hers was not done enough. In both cases we ordered medium rare for me and well done for her. In both cases we got two medium well steaks. The only way that we knew the orders were placed on the table incorrectly is that we had different condiments on our potato. Speaking of which, what happened to putting cheese on the baked potato? Outback has never been big on loading a potato full of cheese, but I've at least been able to tell that there was some in there. In these past two visits, I've searched and searched to find only the tiniest bit buried under a small dollop of butter in my mini potato. Because one visit was on Valentine's and the other was squeezed between two meetings, we did not send our food back for fear that it would take another 45 minutes before we were able to eat. In the interest of time, we just slathered on the A-1 (a detestable thing to have to do to a steak) and finished our meal as best we could.

Thinking that I may have been alone in noticing these changes, I have asked other family members and friends if they noticed any changes at Outback Steakhouse in recent months and nearly all of them have confirmed the same experiences and disappointments with no prompting from me. Please note that your former customers have noticed the changes and we are not pleased. Honestly, I'm happy to see a Texas Roadhouse being built a few doors down from the Outback in Garland so I'll have a new place to find a reasonably priced steak dinner.

Company Man

I was sick and in bed all day yesterday, but I dragged myself up the stairs to watch this one show. It took all of my energy to stay up for that one hour, and I am so glad that I did. By far one of the best, if not the best episode yet. This is what Heroes should be like every week. I loved it. Highlight below to read more:

I've said it several times before on this blog, and I'll say it again. I'm not convinced that HRG is evil. I think he really does love Claire, and I think that this episode proves it. He was willing to die to protect his family, and he didn't try to play any games about it. Sure, he tried to bluff early on and pretend like he didn't know Matt and Ted, and then he made one calculated move by leading Matt and Ted to the bookcase so he could grab a pistol, but once he was disarmed, he did everything that he could to protect his family. From that point on, he warned Matt about his actions through his thoughts, brought Ted his file, and told Matt and Claire the truth. I hate to say it, but I could really start to like the guy.

It's funny how being a father changes a man. Mr. Sulu (Mr. Nakamura) said something like that to HRG as he was holding the baby Claire in his arms. I think this episode really showed us how it changed HRG from a straight company man recruited into a shadowy organization into father determined to balance his work against protecting his daughter from his work. At first, HRG didn't even want a kid, then he took her as an assignment, and finally he couldn't give her up. At least now we know why he kept erasing his wife's memories of Claire's ability, why he destroyed the tape that Zach made, why he erased Zach's memory, why he erased the quarterback's memory, why he erased Lyle's memory, and why he tried to erase Claire's. He didn't want the word to get out that Claire had an ability because he didn't want to have to give her to the people that he works for. It was because of his job, but not because she was the job, because he didn't want her to be the job.

Some interesting things showed up in this episode, too.

First off, they found Claire at the Deveaux (I was misspelling it in previous posts as Devereaux) building. Why does that building seem like ground zero for so many of these "heroes"? Claude hides out on the roof taking care of pigeons. Simone's (who may be special based on the preview for next week) dad (who may also be special as we've discussed here in the past) seems to have been the owner given the name of the building, so it there a connection there? Isaac paints it and spent time there with Simone regularly. Claire's birth mother started a fire there to escape HRG and Claude (or so it seemed in this episode, although, I really thought that the fire had been in Texas based on past episodes). Claire was found there. Peter is training there. What's so special about this building?

Second, Mr. Nakamura seems to be ultimately in charge of the organization HRG works with. So, does Mr. Nakamura really know about Hiro's abilities and was just playing dumb when the two of them last met? Does he, like HRG, not want the organization to find out about his child? Heck, is Hiro even really his child? I want to know more about Mr. Nakamura and Nakamura industries.

Next, what's the deal with Claude? He believes that HRG is a good man after working with him and he believes that he should be helping "his people." So, why did he have so much trouble getting around to helping Peter? Why has he been in hiding, growing more and more bitter, all of these years? Was he really that disillusioned when HRG actually pulled the trigger? Which, by the way, it seemed to me like HRG accidentally pulled the trigger the first time based on the way he jumped and the look of surprise on his face, and only once he realized that he had started down the path did he get the resolve to try and finish the job. Of course, another question, there is whether or not Claude was hiding someone. HRG was ordered to kill Claude because he was hiding one of "them." Based on next week's preview, could that be why Claude is always hanging out at the Deveaux building?

And we can't leave out the Haitian. Obviously, HRG has some way to signal him that we don't know based on the fact that he told Matt that he had sent out a signal for help. And apparently, the Haitian is good at not talking since basically everyone thought he was mute, including HRG, right up until this episode. Everyone except Claire, at least. But who is the Haitian really working for. I'm not sure that I got the quote exactly right, but I thought that he told HRG, "I answer to someone who's orders supersede yours….In your daughter's life." What does that mean? Who is he talking about? Finally, when he first showed up to reboot Mrs. Bennet the first time, who really believes that that went off without a call to 911? An upper middle class housewife sees a black teenager walking into her bedroom in Odessa, TX; I'm telling you, she at least tried to dial to 911 as soon as she got a glimpse of his dark skin.

Ted and Matt are now back in custody (so to speak), too, but where was Hana throughout this whole ordeal? She sent them on this fool's errand and then hid in a corner somewhere? She could've downloaded the info off those computers by just thinking about it, so why wasn't she with them? Matt apparently, is going to be let free to partner with HRG. Perhaps he'll be the replacement for Eden. Ted, on the other hand, is going to be kept for observation. What is this organization really up to, though? Why are some kept and some freed while a certain few are recruited to work for them? I think Matt working with HRG will bring out more good in HRG than it will bring out bad in Matt. But what's the deal with the new "hero" that was in the room with Matt when HRG and his supervisor (Eric Roberts) walked in? I wonder what kind of power she has.

Finally, HRG himself has been shot and memory wiped so that the Haitian can hide Claire and give him plausible deniability. That means that they will be after both of them soon, and HRG may not remember that he doesn't want to chase her. How will that change his character? And what is going to happen to Lyle and Mrs. Bennett, they both know the truth about Claire again. Have they been wiped again, too? I think it was a really great moment when HRG finally realized that he couldn't give Claire to the company, but that it would cost him to continue protecting her. I don't think that a little memory loss and a bullet wound are quite all the payments he's going to have to make on this deal, though.