Address: | 13010 Middlebelt Rd, Livonia, MI 48150, USA |
Phone: | +1 734-525-2476 |
Site: | outback.com |
Rating: | 3.8 |
Working: | 11AM–10PM 11AM–10PM 11AM–10PM 11AM–10PM 11AM–10:30PM 11AM–10:30PM 11AM–9PM |
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Stuart B
MUCH BETTER THAN SOUTHFIELD OUTBACK. Ive eaten here many times. They generally do a good job. A few problems Ive had: 1) They have a (male) manager there, Calvin, who is a real pain. He made up his own rules (what happened to "No Rules, Just Right" ?) for what was and wasnt an entree for the purposes of coupons, and basically nothing short of a steak or lobster would qualify (not a burger and fries, for example). 2) They also had this weird habit of making you wait to be seated when many tables were open. I asked them why they did this and they said they make you wait until staff is available to serve you. Well I, and just about everyone else, would rather be seated at a table, even if we have to wait to be served, rather than sit by the door where cold air and cigarette smoke comes in each time the door opens. And if they could give us bread and water, while waiting for the staff to show up to work, that would be even better. 3) One waitress disappeared for a long time and came back stinking of cigarettes. I havent seen her in a while, so hopefully shes gone. 4) If you order the unlimited soup and salad (only available at lunch) they get cheap on you and only give you a tiny cup of soup after the first bowl. However, the soup is so incredibly salty (except the chicken tortilla soup), I couldnt stand more than one bowl anyway, as my blood pressure would soar. They are good with the salad, though, with full-sized refills on that. I order it without the trans fat-laced croutons. 5) There are trans fats in many of the foods. Go to their website to view the nutrition info, to avoid this poison. 6) I suspect that they are cheating the customers on steak size. I realize there will be some shrinkage after they cook it, but their steaks seem too small, even accounting for shrinkage. Hard to prove, of course. So, with all these negatives, why did I give them 4 stars ? A) Well, the food is tasty, and the service is usually excellent. B) Apparently Outback corporate told all locations to fire all their busboys to save money, and have the waitstaff bus tables instead. This caused massive problems elsewhere, like the Southfield Outback, where you can expect long delays, as your waiter is too busy cleaning tables to serve you. But not here. Im not sure what they did differently, whether they hired extra waitstaff for the extra workload or just kept the busboys despite the order from HQ. But, they not only have enough staff to serve the customers, they also have them wait by the doors to open them and greet you as you go in and out. C) The bread is excellent, unlimited, and free. They also give me extra bread with my leftovers I take home. Thats always appreciated. (BTW, get melted honey butter for a real treat with the bread.) D) Even though they replaced their former generous Tablemates rewards program with the stingy Dine Rewards program, if you join their email list and go through the newspaper coupon supplements, you will find lots of good coupons there. Typical coupons are for 15% off entire bill, $5 off 2 dinner entrees (or $2.50 off one), $4 off 2 lunch or take-away entrees ($2 off one), or a Bloomin Onion with any purchase, most Mondays (that Bloomin Onion is the most unhealthy thing in the restaurant, though, by far, so you might want to order it raw, like I do, instead of deep fried). One pricing oddity is that the Outback Special is actually a better deal at dinner, when it costs $1 more and you get an extra (normally $3) side. If they would just eliminate the trans fats and the salt overdose in their soups and some other foods, I would up them to 5 stars.
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Carl Vest
On August 13 of this year my wife and I were celebrating our wedding anniversary and were looking forward to a nice evening out for dinner at this location. However, that morning we awoke to water gushing in our basement just to discover that our water heater had busted. Later that same day it began raining very hard and the roof in our kitchen suddenly began leaking. Needless to say our wonderful planned dinner out was off. So I decided to order carry out from here. Because my mind was in so many different places from the day that I had, I inadvertently ordered the food from THIS location but ended up driving out to Red Lobster in Novi by accident. By the time I got to this Outback location approximately one hour, fifteen minutes to one and 1/2 hours had gone by. Because I was so late, when I arrived at the carry out, ( I know you are supposed to stay in the car), I ended up going inside. I had to go into the restaurant area because no one was in the drive through section, and a lady, soon followed by a man came in. I spent almost $50 and neither one of them said "thank you". Of course, to be fair, them not knowing the day I had they were not aware that something as simple as a "thank you" would have meant so much to me that day. However, courtesy should not have to come with a reason. To make matters worse I went online and sent a survey to their corporate offices and they never got in touch with me AT ALL.
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Tori Sanderson
The service was good. But that was the only good thing about my experience. I ordered a burger with fries and added bacon. The fries were not fresh. They were barely warm and soggy. The burger looked great but did not have the bacon as i ordered. When i told the waitress she was great and said she would get it made right and a manager would bring it out. They swiped the old fries off the plate and replaced with fresh ones. They simply added bacon to the top if the burger. Now my burger came back barely warm as it sat in the kitchen while they cooked the bacon. I know it was the same one because i had put bbq sauce on the bun. When the plate came back i was missing one of my sides of bbq. And the asparagus i ordered was also cold as if it had been cooked and then sat in a warmer or the just sat on the plate before it came to the table. The manager was rude when she came to the table and just said "anything else" as she sat my plate down. I look young and maybe that is why but i feel like maybe she thought i was trying to get something for free. That is not the case. I am a manager of a restaurant and there is no way i would ever treat a customer like that. I paid full price for our meal and left an exact 25% tip. This was my first time eating at Outback and it will definately be the last.
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Daniel MacRae
Went to an Outback for the first time in years, and will not be returning any time soon. I was extremely disappointed with what I was served, especially choosing to have lunch there because even though I had not eaten at one in quite a while I was sure that it was a safe bet to enjoy a great steak, based on my past experience in many locations around the country. I work a short walk away from this location, and went their with some colleagues. I ordered the ribeye meal and the piece of meat they gave me was awful. It barely passed for steak, never mind a pricey ribeye. I did not even finish it, which is unusual. Not sure if this was a fluke, but having recently sampled the ribeye at nearby competitors, I can honestly say they were far superior than the Outback. Service was good, but the meal cancelled it out.