We were all ready for a great Father’s Day dinner.  The five of us piled in C’s car and off we went to the Sagebrush Steakhouse in Morganton, NC.  C and I had eaten there about a year and a half ago and the food had been good.  The In-Laws had eaten there a few times since, but they had not been in the past few months.

I know that Father’s Day is nowhere near as celebrated as Mother’s Day when it comes to restaurants, but people still go out to eat with their dads.  The parking lot wasn’t very crowded.  Okay, well it was around 8 so maybe that’s late for dinner in this part of the world.  There was no host/hostess so we had to wait to eventually get seated by some of the waitstaff.  No biggie.

We get seated.  There is a family at the table behind us.  I don’t know how long they have been there, but it looks like it they are nearly done.  We watch the table across the aisle from us get bussed.  The busboy literally wipes the food from the table onto the floor.  I watch a half eaten carrot roll under the table.  He walks away.  I’m hoping that he will come back with a broom to finish cleaning, but he’s never seen again.

Here are the scenes from underneath our table and from the table across the aisle:

Under our table

More under our table

The rear of our seats at Sagebrush

Under the table across the aisle at Sagebrush

Yes, under our table those things are lettuce, what may be either a carrot or a crayon, some half eaten bread, and chewed up globs of meat.  In the seat are peanuts and french fries that have hardened.  Under the other table is another myriad of filth.

The busboy saw us taking these pictures and was unfazed.

According to a report from the Burke County Health Department linked here, Sagebrush apparently got a 96 rating in February of this year.  How this happened, I just don’t understand if what we saw today is any indication of how things were back then.  If this is the kind of things patrons see, imagine what goes on behind the scenes.

We really should have left right there and then, because things just went downhill from there.  We ordered our food.  Cheese fries for an appetizer, steaks all around for the rest of us with various add-ons, and some spaghetti and french fries for Enzi.  I ask the waitress to put in the request for Enzi’s food with the app so that he can start eating.  We went through an average of 2.5 drinks per person before the cheese fries came out.  The cheese had previously been melted, and was hardened, and the fries were not very hot.  It looked as if it had been sitting on the pass for several minutes.  It tasted okay, but would have been better if it had been brought out correctly.  No sight of Enzi’s food.

A long while after we were finished eating the appetizer, the entrees come out.  Mom-in-law’s prime rib had a sheen to it.  That meat had either been previously frozen for so long a time that it now was full of freezer burn, or it was old and should not have been passed onto a consumer.  Either way, not edible.  She had ordered mushrooms to go along with it, these were delivered about 10 minutes after the dish was served..and tasted dirty and gritty as if they had not been cleaned.  Dad-in-law’s steak and potato was in  similar state.  Both C’s and Dad-in-law’s shrimp didn’t look quite cooked through.  Both my and C’s steaks were put on the wrong plate, and were tough and cold, and my baked potato was also cold and dried out.  I had ordered onions rings as a side and these came after Mom-in-law’s mushrooms and only after a reminder about their request and the request of Enzi’s fries which also didn’t show up.

Worst of all, though, may have been Enzi’s spaghetti.  When it came out, it looked like it had been sitting on a plate for over half an hour.  The noodles were cold, stuck together, and were beginning to harden.  The sauce was cold and congealed.  I couldn’t let my kid eat that.  In the middle of this “meal” C got up and took Enzi to McDonald’s- and he ended up with the best meal of the night!  Fast food better than a steakhouse…. who would have guessed!  We then overheard the family in the booth behind us that they had been waiting for over an hour for some of their food, including a baked potato.

I wish I had taken pictures of the food to show, but I was so disgusted that I just couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t.  Only about 15% of the food had even been eaten and most of it was just in tasting and grimacing.

When the waitress came with the checks, she automatically came with boxes.  When she asked if we wanted said boxes, she was met with a resounding “NO!” and we told her that this was possibly the worst meal we have ever had.  Honestly, the meal was in such bad shape that it should have been comped.  It wasn’t, and only a 10% discount was granted.  The manager didn’t even come out to get our feedback.

An email is being sent to the contact us section of Sagebrush’s website.  I am not linking to it here because it is just that disgusting!  I am also just letting the health dept there know what’s up.  Maybe it’s time for a reinspection…a surprise inpection… and NOT by the same person who previously inspected them.