Youngstown Eats: Texas Roadhouse

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Texas Roadhouse - Alliance

Yippee-i-o-ki-yea! Get your horse and lasso your sweet gal Sal and mosey on down the trail called Route 62 to Alliance and the Texas Roadhouse for some steaks and “Q”! Well, at least that’s what I did last night…the coldest night of the year…drifted over roads…am I nuts or what?

I had heard about this place so we thought we would give it a go. First I had to figure out how to get to Alliance…a 30 mile drive down Route 62 will do it. It turns into a very busy road filled with red lights on the north side of Alliance as you drive past Mount Union College. At any rate, it is an easy drive taking about 40 minutes from Canfield. Whether you want to drive it or not is another story.

I looked the Texas Roadhouse up on the internet before I gassed up the Buick. It is a national chain with numerous locations in Ohio. I had some knowledge of it…but that was it. We obviously have steak places around here, with Longhorn and Outback being the most obvious. We lost the Lonestar next to the Poland Inner Circle a year or so ago.

What struck me about this place was the pricing. It seemed low. Most steak places these days start their pricing at $18.00 plus with many in the mid $20.00 range. Texas Roadhouse pricing started a few dollars less. My steak and rib combo dinner last night cost $16.00. So I was a tad skeptical as to the quality of the meals being served here. I couldn’t figure out how they could do it. After I got there, I knew.

This place is HUGE. The parking lot was jammed with cars and we thought we would be in line for an hour. We waited about 5 minutes at 6:00 on a Friday night. As you walk in the door, ladies are behind a glass window baking their homemade dinner rolls which you can make a meal from alone. They are outstanding I love good carbohydrates!! Next to them is a case showcasing the meat, which is plentiful!! Lots of meat!! The hostess calls your number. The waitress who will be serving you grabs a basket of rolls and leads you to your table, all the while telling you how great the rolls are with the served cinnamon butter…and she is right about that!

Here is the good stuff. The food here is very good. Steaks are above average quality. They know how to cook the steaks so beware. Medium and medium rare means just that. Don’t under order thinking the griller will turn medium into well done. The accompaniments are terrific. Loaded sweet potatoes are sinful. The Caesar salad is cold and crisp with lots of cheese and croutons. We had a brownie dessert which was enough for three and will solve my chocolate craving until March. All are reasonably priced. You can’t complain.

Or maybe you can. This place makes its money in volume…and I mean lots of volume. They moooo-ve you in and moooo-ve you out. (How’d you like that? I thought about that line all the way home!) This place raises moving tables to an art form. From the minute you sit down, they press you to order quickly, and get the hell out. We didn’t even have our coats off, and the waitress started on drink orders, and was insistent. Before we even opened the menus she demanded to know what appetizers we wanted. We ordered drinks, and she immediately wanted the main course order…and the food came out pronto!!! She dumped the check on us before we could order dessert and coffee. I finally had to tell her we wanted coffee and dessert, and to slow down because we weren’t leaving until we were done. We were there less than an hour, and I am not making this up, the tables next to us and behind us turned over twice. These poor kids sat down, ordered a burger, and were out in less than 30 minutes.

The noise level is off the charts. Like I said, it is huge. I walked to the back of the restaurant to use the “outhouse” and it looked like a Fellini movie, pretty much all elevated booths jammed with people. Ours was by the bar so there was a degree of privacy, but in the main space…Oh My!!! All the while, there was the obligatory country music playing over the speaker system; but it was continually interrupted by the hostess shouting “Now seating ticket number 29!!” I kept waiting for her to say “Your fish is ready.”

By the time we left, what would have otherwise been a pretty good meal was sitting in our stomachs and we had indigestion for the rest of night. But…we were out of there at $44.00.

If I ever go back to the Texas Roadhouse, I might try it on a weeknight, or in the middle of the afternoon when the pressure to turn tables over would be less compelling. I would avoid this place on Friday and Saturday nights. And you have be in the mood for the over top Texas motif, which can be a lot of fun if that is what you are looking for.

In the meantime, until I try it again, it gets a strong 4 meatballs for the food, but an overall 3 meatballs for the bum’s rush service. All that was missing was the Soup Nazi screaming no soup for you!