Longhorn Steakhouse

Went for a bit of a family celebration and the experience pretty much ruined the party mood.  Yes, it's a steakhouse, but my sister and I ordered the Fried Shrimp.  When it arrived, it was immediately apparent that it had been cooked to death.  It was so dark that the grease on the plate, and there was a *lot.* of grease and the plate, was dark brown.  It was difficult to bite into the shrimp because it was fried so hard.  There was no shrimp flavor because of the burnt taste of the breading.  The shrimp inside the breading was a little hard thing.  It had a rancid "old grease" taste to it.  When we were finally able to track down our server, she said she would bring the manager.  It took long enough for him to arrive that we had eaten our entire baked potato and our spouses had eaten their entire meal.  The manager, who appeared 7 feet tall, stood at our table, glaring down at us, unsmiling.  "You have a problem?"  We explained.  He just stood there.  Finally, "Do you want something else?"  My sister ordered the trout, I ordered the Mushroom Bordelaise Sirloin.  He gave us each a little plate and told us to save our empty potato skin.  After a bit, our food arrived.  My steak was SQUARE with hard edges and there was grease floating around in the sauce. The meat had a southwest spice on it that did not go with the wine in the sauce.  Nasty tasting.  Our poor little server tried to salvage the fiasco by offering complimentary dessert.  We are dessert fans so normally we would have been ecstatic, but we opted out and left.  We won't go back. BEWARE!

We've been twice, and we think this is one of the better casual dining spots in Springfield. I happen to love their Wild West Shrimp appetizer - we can get that, a couple of salads, and call it a light meal easy. Add the Chicken Tenders dinner (accent on the CHICKEN - lots of it - and TENDER - very moist and NOT greasy), and you feed two people comfortably-full real easy. It's been a while since I've had meat there - but the Prime Rib used to be pretty tasty, too. Ask 'em if they have it smoked; it was great when we had it in Ohio.

We had good service, good food, and reasonably quiet (unlike Cheddars, which seems to believe that ear-blasting music and crowd noise is "ambience").  Lots of booths, not many seating set-ups that we could see for big groups.

Overall: Higher priced than some, but a much better rounded experience.

The 7oz Flo Filet steak was outstanding and one of the best steaks I have had out.  My wife thoroughly enjoyed her chopped steak with mushroom red wine sauce and sweet potato with butter and brown sugar.  The honey wheat bread is also outstanding.

That being said there were several small issues that lead me to only an A-OK review.
I ordered iced tea and there was not a spoon in with the silverware nor was one presented when the glass arrived.  A spoon should be available and not need to be requested.

While the restaurant overall was very clean some of the plates, particularly the bread plates had lots of water spots and one had a crusty material on it.  Not exactly what a diner wants to see.

The salad was just okay and was a routine mix of greens and vegetables that appeared to come out of a bag.  The fresh seasonal vegetables appeared to have been frozen and lacked flavor.  Some butter and/or garlic and/or pepper was needed to add flavor.  Serving these drizzled with the red wine mushroom sauce that came with the chopped steak would be awesome.

The atmosphere was sluggish and lacked the good vibrant energy of people enjoying their jobs and serving others.

In the end the outstanding steak was only an average value especially when considering the average sides.