Avoid The LongHorn Steakhouse Crowds: Here's The Best Time To Dine

Americans love a chain steakhouse. This slice of the restaurant industry makes quality, cooked-to-order meats more accessible to the masses than individual steakhouses in notable locales. But with the masses come crowds, and sometimes the sheer number of your fellow diners can be an eating out turnoff. This is especially true at popular chains like LongHorn.

As with many restaurants, the best time for the crowd-averse to dine at LongHorn Steakhouse is right when it opens, usually at 11:00 AM. Crowds are unlikely to appear until you're almost done eating. But since LongHorn doesn't close in between lunch and dinner service, those off-hours after the lunch rush but before dinnertime — approximately 2 to 6 PM, especially on weekdays — are also a good time to dine in relative seclusion. 

The professionals at LongHorn will of course do their best to accommodate guests even during the busiest times, and a well-run restaurant shouldn't leave diners waiting for food too long even at the peak of service. But anyone who's worked in the industry knows that a slammed service can be stressful. Sometimes things fall through the cracks. It's less likely to happen if there are fewer customers there.

One of the things that make LongHorn's signature steaks so good is that each cut of fresh, never frozen steak is cooked to order however you like. This is certainly possible during busy times — the business model wouldn't work otherwise. But when dining off of peak hours, the kitchen is not nearly as swamped with orders, ensuring more attention is paid to your plate and reducing the odds of an incorrect cook.

As an extreme example of this, in 2020, LongHorn became America's favorite full-service restaurant chain. Rival chain restaurants suffered greatly during the COVID-19 pandemic, but LongHorn remained relatively stable thanks to its unyielding quality of service. The drastic reduction in dine-in guests meant an end to tables that ask for more food after ordering or send items back, allowing a greater focus on cranking out good dishes.

Another benefit of dining off-peak is product availability. LongHorn sells more ribeyes than any other cut of steak, so this option is clearly in high demand. If you go to a packed restaurant during dinner service, they might sell out of popular cuts like these — a particular peril of trying to avoid crowds by eating after the dinner rush. But there should be plenty of ribeyes at 3 in the afternoon.