This mom went to Longhorn Steakhouse looking for a short reprieve from the world. She wanted a bit of solo time to be with herself, have a yummy meal (that she didn’t have to cook), and drink a margarita.
Instead, she left with a manager’s apology and a very firm decision never to return again.
Longhorn Solo Date Gone Wrong
In a viral TikTok with more than 8,600 views, mom Reairabre (@beautifiedbyre) walks through what she describes as a cascade of problems during an afternoon visit to Longhorn Steakhouse in St. Louis.
“Something told me to go to Cooper’s Hawk,” she says. “They would have never treated me like this. Never.”
She says she arrived around 3pm on a slow day and was seated in an empty section. The bartender, she says, immediately flagged that it would be 10 minutes before she could come over, which Reairabre said was fine. Then came the first wrinkle—a wait on margaritas because she was told there weren’t enough margarita cups.
“I’m looking around, like, ain’t nobody in this motherf—–,” she says. “Why is there a wait on margaritas?”
Her appetizer, spicy shrimp, came out and was good, she notes. But when she reached for her water, she says she noticed black specks floating in the glass. She flagged it, got a replacement, and found the same issue in the second cup. She says she didn’t say anything further about it and just waited for her entree.
Nearly 20 minutes into waiting for her margarita, she says the bartender came back to ask if a regular cup would be fine, which the mom was fine with.
But then a white man and his daughter came in, apparently knew the bartender and within minutes had both margarita cups for their drinks and bread on the table, neither of which they had to ask for.
“I don’t look at everything as race,” she says, “but the f—.”
Reairabre says she had to specifically ask for bread, as none was given to her at the table like is customary.
The entree—parmesan chicken and mac and cheese—was the final straw. When it finally arrived, she says she started cutting into the chicken and immediately noticed it was pink throughout. She says she kept cutting to check the whole piece.
“Pink, pink, pink, pink,” she says. “The only part that wasn’t pink was the thinnest part of the f—— chicken.”
A staff member, she says, offered to bring a new one or cook it further. But by then, it was 5pm. She had to pick up her son. There was no time to wait for a whole new chicken while everything else on her plate went cold. The manager eventually came over, apologized, and offered to comp the meal.
“It’s not just the chicken,” she recalls telling him. “I had stuff in my water. I didn’t have a margarita cup. I had to ask for my own f—— bread.”
He told her he hoped she’d come back and to find him if she did, she continues.
“I’m not coming back. I don’t ever want to go back to another f—— Longhorn,” she tells viewers.
“Count your days, Longhorn,” she added in the caption.
What To Know About Undercooked Chicken
Here’s something that might surprise you: pink chicken isn’t automatically unsafe, and white chicken isn’t automatically safe.
According to the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, color is not a reliable indicator of whether poultry has been cooked to a safe temperature. Oven gases, hemoglobin in the tissue, and even the age of the bird can cause fully cooked chicken to appear pink. The only way to know for sure is with a food thermometer. And the USDA says that number needs to hit 165 degrees Fahrenheit.
That said, the stakes of actually undercooked chicken are real.
The CDC estimates about 1 million Americans get sick from contaminated poultry every year. Raw chicken can carry Campylobacter, Salmonella, and Clostridium perfringens. And if the bird hasn’t hit that internal temperature threshold, none of those bacteria are guaranteed dead.
Symptoms can show up anywhere from a few hours to a few days after eating. They can range from stomach cramps and diarrhea to fever and vomiting. For young kids, elderly people, and anyone immunocompromised, it can be serious enough to land you in the hospital.
Commenters React
“At first i was gonna defend the bartender because they do have a lot on their hands. the bar, to go orders, and a section. but this bartender just seems to not care and i’m sorry you experienced this that is definitely not longhorn standard!” a commenter wrote.
“As a fellow bartender at Darden (longhorns restaurant chain) i will say we we truly only have like 8 margarita cups at my restaurant (which is INSANE) but idk why she would tell you it’s a wait? I would’ve offered another cup right away and If it was busy and then the other ppl got the right cup i could understand maybe she just got some cups back from other tables – but if it was that slow it seems weird that she ran out already? Even with limited cups i usually only run out on a busy weekend night, ppl drink fast and i just make sure the busser brings me those cups ASAP super weird,” a person said.
“That was crazy. Longhorn can count they days,” another wrote.
BroBible reached out to Reairabre for comment via email and TikTok direct message and to Longhorn Steakhouse for comment via email.