There’s something deeply personal about a bad steak. You get dressed, drive somewhere, sit down, order a $30 or $40 plate of beef, and then it arrives looking like it was cooked out of spite. The texture is wrong. The flavor isn’t there. The waiter vanishes. And you sit there cutting into what should be one of life’s simple pleasures, thinking, “I could have grilled a better steak at home for eight bucks.”
America has nearly 16,000 steakhouses, and a lot of them are chains. Some are great. Many are fine. But a handful have developed reputations so rough that online reviewers sound like they’re processing genuine grief. Based on customer reviews, rankings, and the kind of Reddit threads that make you lose your appetite, here are the worst steakhouse chains in America — ranked from disappointing to genuinely depressing.
Ruth’s Chris Steak House
Ruth’s Chris isn’t a bad restaurant. Let’s be clear about that. But it lands on this list because it charges like a world-class steakhouse and sometimes delivers like a place that just learned what USDA Prime means. The chain has been a heavy hitter in the upscale steak world for decades, and that reputation still draws people in. The problem is what happens after they sit down.
On TrustPilot, the word “disappointing” pops up constantly. On Yelp, one reviewer said they walked in wanting to love the place and walked out wishing they hadn’t bothered. A Reddit thread calling Ruth’s Chris “terrible” described an incredibly disappointing meal that came out to $400. Four hundred dollars! For a bad time! At that price point, the steak should be life-changing, and for too many customers, it’s just not.
Saltgrass Steak House
Saltgrass proudly claims to serve certified Angus beef steaks, which sounds impressive until you actually eat one and wonder what went wrong between the cow and your plate. The chain is owned by Landry’s Hospitality group (more on them later — they keep coming up), and complaints go straight to the quality of the meat itself.
One Redditor summed Saltgrass up perfectly: “It’s the best of a bunch of bad chain options.” That’s the kind of compliment that should keep management awake at night. A one-star Yelp reviewer tried to find something positive and landed on: “The bread was really good.” As far as everything else? “Severely disappointed.” When the bread is the highlight of your steakhouse, you’ve got a steak problem.
Logan’s Roadhouse
Logan’s Roadhouse describes itself as serving “quality steaks, a kickin’ bar and upbeat dining experience.” Customer reviews describe something else entirely. Based on one deep analysis, Logan’s was named the worst steakhouse chain out of 13 researched, landing a 3.86 out of 5 on Google Reviews — not horrifying on its own, but the lowest of the bunch.
The chain has 119 locations, mostly in the Southeast. Founded in 1991, it offers a signature 11-ounce sirloin, a 22-ounce porterhouse, and a 12-ounce ribeye among other options. The most common complaints? Overdone steaks, slow service, and long waits. One reviewer at a Huntsville, Alabama location said their sirloin reminded them of dog food. A customer in Peoria, Illinois found both their steak and their dining partner’s to be undercooked. So the chain can’t seem to figure out how to cook meat to the right temperature — which is, you know, the main job.
Outback Steakhouse
This one hurts because a lot of Americans grew up loving Outback. Founded in 1988 in Tampa, Florida — inspired by Crocodile Dundee of all things — Outback became the king of casual steakhouses through the ’90s and 2000s. Cheap juicy sirloin steaks, those legendary Bloomin’ Onions, the whole experience. But those days are gone.
When one major poll asked readers which steakhouse had the worst steak in America, Outback got the most votes at 23%. A former server explained that Outback uses USDA Choice beef while premium steakhouses use USDA Prime — the grade with better marbling, more fat, more tenderness. That explains why so many people complain their Outback steaks are tough and dry.
According to industry reporting, Outback hiked prices too fast, relied too heavily on promotions, and cut costs so aggressively that food quality tanked. Table service slowed. Restaurants got dingy. Competitors like Texas Roadhouse and LongHorn Steakhouse swooped in, offering better value with bigger steaks and slower price increases. One longtime fan named Richard Mathis — who celebrated his high school graduation at Outback — said the chain is “consistently disappointing” now. “When I go into an Outback now it feels sterile and cold.”
Employees on Reddit have complained about steak quality from suppliers for years. One customer said their steak was “the worst I’ve ever had” and compared it to rubber. In a comparison of chain ribeyes, Outback came in dead last. The chain got a new CEO in 2024, Mike Spanos, who announced plans to remodel stores and simplify the menu. They’re reportedly reworking the entire cooking process and retraining employees. That feels like an admission that the problems are real.
Claim Jumper
Claim Jumper was founded in 1977 in Los Alamitos, California, with a fun Gold Rush theme. These days, the name is almost too fitting — reviewers feel like they’ve been robbed. The chain has filed for bankruptcy twice since 2010, and it shows.
The usual complaints of bad food and slow service are everywhere, but what really jumps off the page is the pricing. Even people who actually liked the food said they’d never pay those prices again. Their 20-ounce Porterhouse is big, sure, but reviewers say it has little flavor and the texture of an old gym shoe. At one Henderson, Nevada location, both the mahi mahi sandwich and house salad were “flavorless and overcooked.” At a Tualatin, Oregon location, customers slammed the steaks and the low-quality vegetables. One reviewer watched their food sit under a heat lamp for 10 minutes before anyone brought it to the table.
A Yelp reviewer in San Diego wrote: “It’s not like the Claim Jumper of 10 years ago with a large dining room and a line out the door. It feels old, worn down and out of place.” That about sums it up.
Bonanza Steakhouse and Ponderosa Steakhouse
These two are owned by the same parent company and are, for all practical purposes, the same restaurant wearing different hats. Both try to combine traditional steakhouse dining with an all-you-can-eat buffet, and both fail at it in the exact same way.
Instead of getting steakhouse quality at buffet prices, you get steakhouse prices at buffet quality — and that’s as grim as it sounds. If you’re forced to order off the menu, the advice from reviewers is simple: order anything except the steak. The steak is the worst of the worst. Oddly enough, the best value might be the salad bar. When your steakhouse’s best feature is lettuce, something has gone very wrong.
Sizzler
Sizzler has become, in the words of many reviewers, a steakhouse that doesn’t know how to cook steaks. The chain used to differentiate itself with its buffet, but even that doesn’t pass inspection anymore. One Yelper said the buffet food “all looked gross” and nothing at the salad bar was fresh.
A Facebook review put it bluntly: “The worst steaks we’ve ever had in our lives. We vowed to never go back and we didn’t.” That’s the kind of review you can’t spin. Sizzler once meant something in the American dining landscape. Now it’s mostly a punchline.
Western Sizzlin Steakhouse
Western Sizzlin features an all-you-can-eat buffet, which should be a red flag when we’re talking about steak. One reviewer in Rocky Mount, North Carolina found their steak “visually repulsive and overly watery” — already bad — and then noticed flies in the buffet’s dessert station. When they showed a photo of the flies to a staff member, the employee casually replied: “That’s why I don’t eat here. I don’t see how anyone does.”
When the employees are openly telling you not to eat there, you should probably listen.
Sirloin Stockade
And here we are at the absolute bottom. Sirloin Stockade, the Oklahoma-based chain that operates across Texas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Missouri, ranks dead last in just about every national steakhouse ranking you can find. The chain can’t decide if it wants to be a steakhouse or an all-you-can-eat buffet, and that identity crisis makes everything worse.
The reviews are something else. One Google reviewer said the steak was “the size of a baby shoe and just as tough.” Cottage cheese at the salad bar was spoiled. Rolls were hard on the bottom, like they’d been sitting out for days. In Round Rock, Texas, a TripAdvisor user wrote a seven-paragraph review that built to a crescendo, calling the desserts “the absolute worst, most fake, hideous, meal-ruining and upsetting desserts in all of the state of Texas.”
At the Oklahoma location, a Yelp reviewer described steak that tasted rotten, slimy cucumbers, and — this is the kicker — a mold-covered vent above their table. They posted a photo. At the Kentucky location, a diner watched an employee dump a tray of fresh beans on top of old ones that had been sitting on the buffet for who knows how long. Multiple locations have more one-star reviews on Yelp than any other rating.
Rotten steak, moldy vents, flies in the dessert, employees who won’t eat their own food. If you’re looking for the single worst steakhouse chain in America, Sirloin Stockade wins that prize going away. Save your money. Buy a cast iron skillet. You’ll thank yourself.
