Introduction to this place, Meetup group, & my health update:…read more
I thought I finished my America 250 series when I finished with the states on Tuesday, 8/18 review, but I'm adding one more I just went to last Tuesday, 8/25. It's got American in the title; so I wanted to include this. I had heard about this place from Meetup groups and wanted to try this at some point. A Meetup group was meeting here, and I was like I should go because I wanted to try this place.
This Meetup mostly does stuff in the Annapolis-Severna Park area but occasionally goes to western AA. The 3 Meetups I attended with this group in 2026 were all less than 10 miles from my home 2 in Arundel Mills area & 1 here. Further, I wanted to be social as times will be very difficult in the fall as I will be having to do High dose chemo with stem cell replacement. So, it's possible I have 0 Yelp reviews in October-November time period. My first Meetup of 2026 was on January 3, and then January 5 I found out about major surgery related to the metastatic cancer occurring with standard chemo in summer 2025. The other Meetup with them in 2026 was a Circus, which wasn't that good. If I could summarize 2026 in a word, I think Circus is a fair choice.
Experience with restaurant:
This place was a mixed bag. It's got a Texas Roadhouse kind of vibe. But in summary, I'd choice Texas Roadhouse any day over this although this had some good aspects. Service was a bit slow, but we were a large group, so it wasn't anything unreasonable. My issue was that they were disorganized. They were asking around who had this side salad or that side salad. They should've figured who was sitting where in a table to give the individual the correct item instead of asking 25 or so people in our party.
I got the 12 oz Sirloin steak with comes with one premium & one regular side. For premium side, I was between one of the 2 salads and the chili. I read that the chili was kind of sweet plus I already was getting 12 oz Sirloin.
I asked the difference between the Wedge & All-American salad. He said Wedge has bacon, blue cheese, etc., and All-American has cheese, tomato, & croutons. I did NOT want bacon and preferred standard cheddar over blue cheese. They were trying to get a couple of the salads out. They said House salad, which I assumed was the All-American salad. I said no, that has bacon on it.
So, we finally figured out after several more minutes that it was that. Why did the server FAIL to mention bacon was on that?! I would've still gotten the All-American salad and said no bacon or possibly tried to switch out with a different ingredient. So, I was incredibly annoyed. I picked the bacon out with my fork setting off on the side of the plate.
Very shortly after we figured out salad situation, my sirloin & sweet potato came out. So, I finished my salad. Then, I was starting on 2 bites of the sweet potato, which I will say was great. But I decided I better get to the steak before it got cold and then come back to the sweet potato afterward since that was hot and more insulated to stay hot.
While the steak had a pretty good flavor, it was just semi-warm. It still should've been hot as it wasn't that long after I was still eating my salad where they failed to mention bacon on it. I sure as hell wasn't going to eat my steak before finishing my salad. It was maybe about 5 minutes after the steak arrived by the time I got to the steak; so it should've been hot. My one friend would've taken it back, but I don't want to waste time, disrupt my flow of eating, not to mention server never came around to ask how things were. So, I enjoyed the steak well enough for the flavor, but the lukewarm made it not as good. Texas Roadhouse, Outback, & LongHorn is far superior in terms of steak. But I wanted a steak since it's All-American STEAKhouse, not All-American Burgerhouse, Philly Cheesesteakhouse, Saladhouse, etc.
Another thing that was bizarre & disorganized was that while in the middle of my steak & people's food in general, the dinner rolls came out. Normally, dinner rolls come out before the meal not in the middle of it. The dinner rolls were delicious; I had 2 of them with lots of butter. This was my favorite thing I ate here. But as great as the rolls were here, Texas Roadhouse is superior once again in terms of rolls.
I'm not a big drinker, but I noticed on their daily special Tuesday $3 wine. That was so low, I decided I'll take advantage of that getting a Chardonnay. I had low expectations for $3, but it was surprisingly good.
In summary, the great food items were rolls & sweet potato. Steak was kind of weak especially considering lukewarm. Salad was good, but they failed to mention bacon. I wouldn't necessarily go back, but if I ever I did, I'd try the Philly cheesesteak (now that I had their steak), which the guy across from me said he enjoyed and ideally it'd be a Tuesday $3 wine night.