Saltgrass Steak House

12/15/08

Horrible Service -- Not for a party of 8

by tskubala at Citysearch

We had a small party of 8 at the SaltGrass......NEVER AGAIN...... When you have an 8 person party the waiters know the gratuity is an 18% given no matter how bad the service is!!!! And believe me the service was atrocious. First the young people there couldn't understand the party was for 8.... they tried to seat us with 5, next try was for 6 then finally a half hour later we finally found someone who could count to 8. Once seated and the menus handed out....another interminable long wait for a person to serve us drinks. There were about 3 empty tables around us at the time we sat down....while we were waiting for service people were seated at those tables, received their drinks AND their food before the waiter even took our order!!!! Then it took another life time to get the food.....evidentially my shrimp and chicken had gotten cold waiting for the rest of the meals to be made because they saw fit to nuke the meal back to warm....nuking shrimp and chicken turns the meat into rubber!!!!! I had asked for some ketchup to try to disquise the foul chicken but the waiter took so long bringing it to me... I didn't receive it until we were ready to pay for the food. Disgusting horrible place to pop over $200 and 3 hours. If you have a holiday crowd....do yourself a favor and find someplace else to eat.....these people in Round Rock, Texas are pathetic!!!!!

• Pros: There are NO pros
• Cons: Bad service, terrible cold rubbery food that had been nuked to warm up

11/24/08

Best steakhouse around, period

by garytexas at Citysearch

I'm surprised at the number of negative - or less than stellar - reviews on this restaurant. I've been here numerous times, with my wife, with and without our adult daughter, with friends, even solo, and I've never once had a bad experience. The food - steaks, specifically - are routinely spectacular, the salads, while simple, are absolutely fresh with wonderful dressings. The Shiner Bock beer bread is fresh, hot, and delicious, and the dessert choices are great (if you have room - if not, get one to go!) The choices of sides are plentiful and good. I have found the waitstaff to be consistently very, very good to excellent. I had one minor issue about something - I don't even remember what - on one visit, and it was immediately made right by the manager. Even though I've come to expect great service, it has been over and above often enough that I've sought out the manager to commend a particular waiter or waitress. Our favorite steakhouse in Central Texas, hands-down.

• Pros: Outstanding steaks, great salads, great waitstaff
• Cons: Can be quite busy at dinnertime, call-ahead barely better than just showing up

10/03/08

Excellent!

by Sunshine513 at Citysearch

My husband and I have eaten here numerous times and have always been pleased. The food is great and so is the service. The Ranger Rattlers is our favorite appetizer. The house salad and chicken tortilla are very good. Of course, they have excellent steaks. If you have room for dessert, I highly recommend the Margarita Pie. The menu doesn't list it has a cheesecake topping and drizzled with fresh strawberry sauce. I consider this "a to die for dessert" and my 12-year-old daughter loves it too!

• Pros: food and service
• Cons: haven't found any yet

07/06/08

Good, but still looking for a great local spot

by julesjac24 at Citysearch

My husband and I went to Saltgrass last night...

We started with the chicken tortilla soup (him) and the house salad with ranch dressing (me). He seemed to like the soup, but said it was thicker than he had expected. The salad was fresh, the croutons were very well seasoned and crunchy, and the salad dressing was phenomenal - definitely NOT your Hidden Valley variety of ranch.

For mains, he had the chicken fried steak and I had the chopped sirloin steak. I am SO glad I didn't order chicken fried steak. At first when it came out, I was a tad envious. But for only a second. Until I realized that the outer 2 inches all around the chicken fried steak was only crust! Additionally, when my husband went to dip a piece of bread into his cream gravy on top of the steak, there was a 'skin' that had formed on top. The meat inside was very tough and dry. My chopped sirloin (medium rare) was very good, as were the mushrooms on top - extremely flavorful. The onions could have been cooked a wee bit more - they were still crunchy, which was a bit of a turn off. We both agreed that the mashed potatoes were very nice, but they were plain. Fortunately, I had enough gravy to top mine, but there wasn't enough gravy on top of the chicken fried steak to also top the mashers.

We decided to order a dessert to share, and we asked to see the dessert menu. This being our first time there, we weren't aware of the rather pretentious manner in which the "dessert menu" was presented. Regardless, we settled on the chocolate cake. It was rich, very chocolatey and decadent. Even though after eating about halway through it we were both ready to stop, after seeing the check and seeing the price of the cake, we were resolved to finish it!

Overall, I'd say Saltgrass is a nice place to go, but this is definitely not the hometown local steakhouse I was looking for last night when planning our night out. I guess I'll keep searching!

05/20/08

Great Food, and Fabulous Customer Service

by TXSweetPea at Citysearch

I went to the Saltgrass Steakhouse in Round Rock today (May 20, 2008) for lunch with six other gals. They got a table ready for us right away. I ordered their Gulf Shrimp and 8oz Steak combo. It came with soup or salad...I had the Tortilla Soup. It had corn in it which I thought was unusual, and lots of cheese. It could have been hotter, temperature wise, but It was very good, and I would order it again. I was given three choices of shrimp....either shrimp scampi, coconut shrimp, or grilled shrimp. I chose the coconut shrimp, broccoli as a side, and my steak done medium. They brought out plenty of beer bread for us while we awaited our orders. We did not have to wait long before we were served. My coconut shrimp and dipping sauce was excellent., however, my steak was well done. The waitress came over to me shortly and asked if everything was ok. I told her my steak was overdone, and she was very appologetic, and immediately removed it, and within minutes I had a new steak which was done to perfection. The cook had even come out and asked me specifically how I wanted it grilled, and he even offered to add some mushrooms, which I declined. He also asked me if I would like steak sauce. He was very, very nice, as was our waitress. I did order the steak sauce, but the steak was so good and flavorful, that I didn't want to spoil the taste with the steak sauce, so I didn't use it. The onion rings that topped the steak were some of the best I've ever had. Normally I don't eat a large lunch, so I had half of my lunch left over. Our waitress brought several of us a to-go box. Everyone at my table enjoyed their lunch, and we all agreed that we would definately make a return trip. Two of my friends ordered the Grilled Hickory Chicken smothered in cheese and mushrooms. They both thought it was superb. It was mouth-watering! Made me want to come back and order that dish next time.