Outback Steakhouse

bearmtnmartin said:

should call their restrooms steak back outhouse.

One of my old friends at church called the restaurant by that name. 

newrider3 said:

In reply to ShawnG :

That's like saying to order more from Amazon because they employ people who live in your community. 

Not at all.

I'm not saying order more, I'm saying boycotting any place that employs people in your community is short sighted.

It used to be called "cutting off you nose to spite your face".

ShawnG said:I'm saying boycotting any place that employs people in your community is short sighted.

It used to be called "cutting off you nose to spite your face".

 

Not if you're doing it for the other reasons he mentioned (and the reason I eat in few chain restaurants)

Every town has local restaurants, that have way better food, better staff, and you're putting money into your community. berkeley the chains, support small businesses. I can't remember the last time in a decade that I've had chain restaurant food and been anything more than disappointed.

In reply to ShawnG :

So even if they put E36 M3 on bread and serve it up, we should patronize them because they're "local"? No thanks.

In my restaurant working experience, from a McDonalds in a mall to "best in the county" restaurants, the majority of the people who work in national chain joints are barely capable of breathing on their own, hence why they work places it's almost impossible to get fired. 

"But they're consistent around the country". Consistent garbage is still garbage.

I'd wrestle a kangaroo right now for a blooming onion. Love those things. The outback local to us got destroyed in a flood and I've had to go without. 

My favorite part of Outback is mocking their "nine ninety five" pricing in an Australian accent. 

A little bit of levity for our socioeconomic impacts discussion about chain restaurants and national retailers.

Outback, Longhorn, Olive Garden, they have their place. Their place is a random town in the middle of nowhere; you've stopped for the night at a hotel and you see that there is one of the above walking distance from said hotel. You go there, get a burger/bloomin onion/whatever, it tastes more or less like food, you take a blood pressure pill with your beer(s), walk back to the hotel, and go to sleep to continue on in the morning.

You know exactly what you're getting. You leave satisfied in that it was exactly what you were expecting: slightly overpriced, mildly disappointing brown food. For the time you were there, you forgot if you were in St. Cloud, MN, Panama City, FL, or Logan, UT. You were just in America, eating American food, knowing that you could have had a better steak or better Italian food at the Taco Bell, but they don't serve booze and they don't have wait staff. 

Now, why they're always packed on Friday through Sunday nights by locals confuses the hell out of me, but not my problem. As long as no one wants to take me there, I won't begrudge them. 

My only interest was pooping there but clearly you all have much bigger issues with them.

Longhorn makes a dang good steak though.

In reply to Peabody :

You have a point.

We very seldom eat at chain restaurants for the same reasons. 

mtn (Forum Supporter) said:

Outback, Longhorn, Olive Garden, they have their place. Their place is a random town in the middle of nowhere; you've stopped for the night at a hotel and you see that there is one of the above walking distance from said hotel. You go there, get a burger/bloomin onion/whatever, it tastes more or less like food, you take a blood pressure pill with your beer(s), walk back to the hotel, and go to sleep to continue on in the morning.

You know exactly what you're getting. You leave satisfied in that it was exactly what you were expecting: slightly overpriced, mildly disappointing brown food. For the time you were there, you forgot if you were in St. Cloud, MN, Panama City, FL, or Logan, UT. You were just in America, eating American food, knowing that you could have had a better steak or better Italian food at the Taco Bell, but they don't serve booze and they don't have wait staff. 

 

Now, why they're always packed on Friday through Sunday nights by locals confuses the hell out of me, but not my problem. As long as no one wants to take me there, I won't begrudge them. 

As somebody who travels for work a lot (or at least did before Covid)... THIS. 100% this. If I've just spent all day towing a trailer or sitting on a plane, I'll take the guaranteed good-enoughness 100% of the time and know I'll be back at the hotel ready for bed exactly 45 minutes later. When I'm traveling at a more-leisurely pace I love finding local places, but arriving in a strange town at 8 p.m. with a wake-up time of 5 a.m. means I head directly for the nearest Outback. 

I'll personally try extremely hard to avoid them even while traveling. I'd rather have White Castle, Culver's, Cracker Barrel, or the Awful Waffle if I'm going to a chain. But they definitely have their place. 

nocones said:

A little bit of levity for our socioeconomic impacts discussion about chain restaurants and national retailers.

one of the best steaks I had came from outback.  Sort of.  I worked a gala for Kean University up in Union NJ.  They were celebrating all the money they raised for scholarships.  The head of the alumni group was the current CEO of Outback.  He brought in his best people with the best steaks to do the catering.  These were the only outback steaks I ever had that did not need a knife to cut. They were perfect!