Where there’s smoke...
Restaurant visit reveals job not well done
What’s eating investors in Outback Steakhouse? To find out, The Post recently paid a visit — and came away with a plateful of complaints.
The Manhattan location of the nation’s biggest steakhouse chain — whose corporate parent Bloomin’ Brands has lately come under fire from an activist investor for its lackluster sales — certainly doesn’t seemed geared toward New Yorkers in a hurry.
It was 1 p.m. when we arrived at the location on West 23rd Street in Chelsea last week — peak lunch hour, that is.
Maybe the rainy weather explained why the place was almost completely empty when it should have been packed, we thought.
Soon, however, the worries began to stack up like a pile of unwashed plates. Although we were quickly seated at a nearby booth, it took a full 10 minutes for our server to arrive and take our drink orders and ask us if we wanted bread.
At rival steak-and-potatoes chain Texas Roadhouse, it’s a completely different story, according to Barington Capital, a New York hedge fund that is now prodding Bloomin’ Brands, to make Outback a better place.
“When customers sit down at their table at Texas Roadhouse, a server immediately presents them with warm, freshly baked bread,” Barington’s James Mitarotonda wrote to Bloomin’ CEO Elizabeth Smith last week.
“We believe this high level of service delights customers and also offers them immediate value,” he added.
Back at Outback, meanwhile, it took another 14 minutes for our appetizer — the chain’s signature, deep-fried Bloomin’ Onion — to arrive at our table. It was another 20 minutes before our steaks arrived — again, at a restaurant that was basically empty.
Our lunch — a six-ounce sirloin — came with mashed potatoes that tasted like they had been frozen. The steak, which we ordered medium, had no pink in the center, which didn’t surprise us given the wait time. On the other hand, the mac and cheese — not something most people associate with Outback — was surprisingly decent.
At another table nearby, a woman sent back her steak-and-lobster combo, complaining it had arrived cold. It came back 10 minutes later, greeted with silence from the customer.
Last week, a Chicago-area customer named Sharon told The Post that she rarely visits her local Outback anymore.
“If only there was a restaurant that would treat you like they wanted you to be here instead of, ‘Can we get you in and out of here in an hour?’” Sharon said.
We’d agree, except that it took an hour and four minutes for us to finish our lunch.