Outback is open in Assembly Row!

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

I just got back from my first trip to Outback Steakhouse in Somerville's Assembly Row.  Good food, standard "Outback" fare.  I really like it.  They apparently opened last Monday, so it's been just over a week that they've been open.  Parking is getting weird, the big lot outside of Sports Authority/ACMoore/Bed,Bath,Beyond is getting difficult to park in, as it fills up.  Expect it to, since they put meters on the sidewalk about 6 feet from the curb (!) so free parking in the large lot is likely to go poof as soon as more folks decide that it's easier to park for free and closer than to pay to park further from the restaurants.

Comments

[ceo]

Note that the parking garage is free for the time being, including the upper levels after 6 or so.

I haven't been to Steakback Outhouse in quite a few years.

[bex77]

Glad to hear more people are discovering it! So wonderful to have it open again close by. We went last week. Here's my report. http://bex77.livejournal.com/172822.html

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

I read your report, yay for another Outback lover! One item of note: you said you didn't like the management of the Burlington Outback. I spoke with the Assembly Row Outback manager who said that the Burlington one closed in a manner akin to the old Medford one - issues with the landlord. Apparently the landlord there wanted them to do a full restaurant redesign/redecorate AND also double their rent. Outback was willing to do one, but not both. Out they went, in June. As a result, the Assembly Row Outback has about half the staff that were at Burlington, alongside new people. It's good to have experienced staff, however you just have to hope that only the best people were kept.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

Yikes. I never cared for the food there, even pre-dating my move to MA.

[madrigal.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's hard to get excited when there are much better options in that area for food.

[keithn.livejournal.com]

What do you recommend for steak houses at Outback's price point? The only one I've been to in the area is Frank's Steak House, and it wasn't very good. I'm not sure if Outback is any better but I'd be surprised if it is worse.

I really like Flemmings and Ruth's Chris downtown, but those aren't casual and are not cheap.

[teko.livejournal.com]

Frank's is sadly not very good at all. At that price point, you can get a very decent steak at Jimmy's Steer House in Arlington, Grassfield's in Waltham, or even the 99. Outback isn't exactly a top flight steakhouse, but for the price, you have a decent selection of cuts of meat that are nicely seasoned and cooked the way you want, which is all I'd look for in a casual steak place.

[pywaket.livejournal.com]

With you on this one.

Yay, another boring chain that I can find in a half dozen strip malls within 15 miles.

[teko.livejournal.com]

My friends and I gave it a shot a few days ago. They're definitely still in their opening-phase jitters. We had at least three managers stop by, multiple times, to ask if everything was going OK. Our salads arrived just a few seconds after our appetizers, which was no big deal, but the nervous manager made it seem like it was. Our orders were a little mixed up, which only took a few minutes to fix, but another manager apologized profusely. Dozens of servers milled around, many with "training" badges on. They're in that "please don't give us bad early reviews on Yelp" phase of their opening. All that said, the steaks were cooked nicely.

[secretlyironic.livejournal.com]

What a shame. I know it's a mall, but it had felt like a better one than totally generic Outback.

[pch1.livejournal.com]

While it may be loud and crazy at times, and definitely has a chain feel, we've always found the steaks at Texas Roadhouse to be good quality, well cooked and seasoned and very well priced.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

This might not matter to most people, but that Texas Roadhouse also has a really good track record of staff reading my gender properly and unobtrusively, in a way that tells me they're at the very least familiar with visibly queer folks - and I usually go with my male life partner, which in many contexts gets me read as female because heteronormativity. (Most sit-down restaurants around the area vary from awful to meh at this, with the exception of the Not Your Average Joe's at Sullivan Square also being good at it.)

[pch1.livejournal.com]

While it may be loud and crazy at times, and definitely has a chain feel, we've always found the steaks at Texas Roadhouse to be good quality, well cooked and seasoned and very well priced.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

My one recent outing to Texas Roadhouse (with in-laws, no less!) gave me a "WTF is this?" feeling... If I wanted to eat in a western cowgirl circus, I'd do that. But I didn't want to do that. The food was okay, but the atmosphere was too chaotic to enjoy the food. (For the record, Outback rates as just okay on a different axis -- they over-season everything. The food is decent quality but most of the meats are so salty I can barely tolerate them.)