The Outback Restaurant changes its theme
Apr. 20th, 2012 08:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsThe power went out last night. Desperate for a hot meal and no power with which to cook it, we let Kouryou-chan choose a restaurant. We ended up at the Outback.
The Outback was, once upon a time, a cheesy thematic restaurant, with Australia as its theme: it sold a variety of mid-quality steaks and a desultory selection of other things for the family members who didn't dig steak, while one sat amidst ads for Vegemite, pictures of kangaroos and koala bears, and reproduction roadsigns pointing to Sydney, Darwin, or Melbourne. It was bright and desperately cheerful despite the patheticness of it all. Service was pretty good, most of the time.
They've had a refit. Now, you don't get much service: instead, there's a tablet at your table, and you can order off of that. It has a credit card slot, so you can pay with the tablet as well. A server does bring you your food and drinks, and if you still want something not quite on the menu (Kouryou-chan typically wants a pussyfoot with extra cherries from the bar) you can flag down the server for it. The tablet has some miscellaneous trivia games because, you know, people have lost the fine art of conversation, and need something to prevent themselves from becoming bored.
The kitsch is entirely gone. Now, tasteful photographs of desert landscapes dot the walls. Those could be from anywhere on Earth. The low walls separating different parts of the bar have been raised to give diners the impression of being even more cut off than before. The bar is bigger and more spacious, and half the omnipresent sports TVs have been repurposed to 10-foot UIs "informing" and "entertaining" passersby.
The food was unremarkable and unchanged. I've made better steak at home.
I strongly suspect that the upgrade was in response to price pressure. Meat is expensive, and a dinner for three at the outback can run upwards of $70 before alcohol. For that much money, the place had better look more sedate, more responsible, not quite so ridiculously kitschy.
I would have avoided this dining out experience altogether if I could have. I would rather have stayed home and cooked something, with our household rule of no gadgets at the table. Now, when you go to a restaurant, if you didn't bring a gadget they give you one.
The Outback was, once upon a time, a cheesy thematic restaurant, with Australia as its theme: it sold a variety of mid-quality steaks and a desultory selection of other things for the family members who didn't dig steak, while one sat amidst ads for Vegemite, pictures of kangaroos and koala bears, and reproduction roadsigns pointing to Sydney, Darwin, or Melbourne. It was bright and desperately cheerful despite the patheticness of it all. Service was pretty good, most of the time.
They've had a refit. Now, you don't get much service: instead, there's a tablet at your table, and you can order off of that. It has a credit card slot, so you can pay with the tablet as well. A server does bring you your food and drinks, and if you still want something not quite on the menu (Kouryou-chan typically wants a pussyfoot with extra cherries from the bar) you can flag down the server for it. The tablet has some miscellaneous trivia games because, you know, people have lost the fine art of conversation, and need something to prevent themselves from becoming bored.
The kitsch is entirely gone. Now, tasteful photographs of desert landscapes dot the walls. Those could be from anywhere on Earth. The low walls separating different parts of the bar have been raised to give diners the impression of being even more cut off than before. The bar is bigger and more spacious, and half the omnipresent sports TVs have been repurposed to 10-foot UIs "informing" and "entertaining" passersby.
The food was unremarkable and unchanged. I've made better steak at home.
I strongly suspect that the upgrade was in response to price pressure. Meat is expensive, and a dinner for three at the outback can run upwards of $70 before alcohol. For that much money, the place had better look more sedate, more responsible, not quite so ridiculously kitschy.
I would have avoided this dining out experience altogether if I could have. I would rather have stayed home and cooked something, with our household rule of no gadgets at the table. Now, when you go to a restaurant, if you didn't bring a gadget they give you one.
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Date: 2012-04-20 04:49 pm (UTC)It's not that I can't enjoy such places, either. I've been to the Islands chain several times, and had decent experiences all of them. Surfing videos tend to be less noisy and more relaxing to watch, and hamburgers can be made at decent quality without having to charge four-star restaurant prices. But if I was to find that they've made similar changes to their locations, I doubt I shall be going to them again.