Customer Satisfaction... A thing of the past?

We went out to dinner this past weekend, much as we do many weekends, hoping to have a good time, good dinner and good service.  Apparently this is getting too much to ask for. 

We hit up Fridays, over by the Woodland Mall since we happened to have been out that way already, and couldn't wait to get our food even before we got in the door.  We love the food here.  Maybe not at this location inparticular, but at Fridays.  We almost always get the same thing for an appetizer, their JD Sampler.  (For those that don't know, JD = Jack Daniel's).  And like usual we ordered this up.  Now the last couple times we have ordered this item, the ribs haven't really been prepared very well, however this time they were done well and tasted fantastic.  The shrimp and chicken were great as well.  With this start we were really hoping for some great dinner. Especially since the waitress was on top of everything, she was filling our drinks right as they were going empty and always asking how things were.  She wasn't ever too far if we needed something else.

Dave ordered the JD Flat Iron, Medium.  I of course splurged and got the three course meal they have going for 16.99.  This included Green Bean Fries, Angus Flat Iron and Oreo Madness.  The green beans came out pretty quickly as expected and tasted like old fry oil for the most part, but I didn't say anything.  Just went on with life and picked at them a little until our main courses arrived.  Once the steaks arrived at the table it only took one look for me to see they were going to be undercooked.  I asked for medium as well on mine and both our steaks were oozing red juices.  After cutting open the steak, sure enough Dave's was underdone quite a bit, but mine was borderline mooing.

Don't get me wrong, I like a pink tender steak, but it needs to be pink, not red, and I even ordered according to their menu, Medium like I said, because that states in writing Warm Pink Center.  This was not what I got.  Instead I got this.

To me this is maybe a medium rare but you are pushing it a little.  This isn't what I ordered at all and this was according to their description of how the steak would look cooked they way I ordered.  Of course, when you get food not prepared the manager comes out and tries to make everything ok.  This manager was a froot loop of a lady let me tell you.  She immediately offered to take the steak back and re-heat it.  Because we all know that makes everything better, when you re-cook a steak in which all the juices have already leaked out all over the plate.  Even if they were able to achieve the look of a medium steak, by the time it does it's all dried out now and the tenderness is dramatically gone.  So just as I suspected she brought it back out and it was over done and dry.  She then offered to immediately get me a new steak.  I told her I didn't want it but she insisted that the kitchen manager do so himself and this would ensure that I get the steak the way I ordered.

Of course!  That's what needed to happen, the Kitchen Manager needed to prepare it.  Wait!!  If the KM was going to prepare it to make sure that it was cooked to order, why isn't he cooking all the steaks?  That makes it seem pretty apparent that she didn't feel her kitchen staff could pull it off.  You would think to save money they would just make the KM do it all, I mean according to her that was the only way to make sure it was right.  Right?

This is what I hoped for.

(I couldn't include a picture of what it looked like
when they finally got it right, because they never did.)

So come to find out, even the KM can't cook a steak Medium because it came out red as rare can get again.  Go figure.  At this point I am ready to leave.  I can't take any more.  I'm full from the Fries that came with my steak and the extras she brought me with the next one, and of course I did eat half the appetizer and some of the green beans, so it's not like I am starving and desperate for the steak.  I am about to make the decision to leave, when I recalled that I ordered the "Oreo Madness". 

So the manager brings this out to me and I couldn't believe that they actually labeled this dessert, Oreo "Madness".  Who were they trying to kid?  Have you seen this dessert?  If you took an oreo, and stretched it to about double it's size and same thickness on the actual cookie part, you would have the size of this dessert with about an inch thick of so called cream filling, which is really bad tasting ice cream or frozen actual oreo cream.  Either way, if it wasn't for the chocolate and caramel they smeared on the plate to make it look "pretty" with a strawberry, it would have been horrible.

(Shown actual size.)

Needless to say, Fridays is slowly making their way on to my list.  I just don't know when or if I will ever go back.