The dinner-only restaurants serve moderately priced entrees such as seasoned steaks, prime rib, chicken, seafood, and pasta. The chain's signature, however, is an appetizer, the 'Bloomin' Onion.
The enterprise--originally called Multi-Venture Partners, Inc. By the late s, all three men were anxious to launch a new endeavor. Despite conventional wisdom, which said that Americans were moving away from meat and toward healthier, lighter food, Gannon, Sullivan, and Basham observed that restaurants specializing in steak, from inexpensive eateries such as Ponderosa to high-priced restaurants such as Ruth's Chris, were doing well.
All the partners needed was a theme that would give their restaurant concept a memorable identity. At the time, the movie Crocodile Dundee had recently been released and become a big hit. Despite the fact that none of the restaurant's founders had ever been to Australia, the trio decided to give their venture an Australian theme.
In this way, they would be tapping into the traditional 'western' association with steak, but with a twist. The Outback was kind of the wild, wild west of Australia. So there you go for the western theme. But instead of United States western, it's Australian western.
Initially, the group had modest plans for their venture. Rather than planning nationwide expansion, they hoped to open half a dozen outlets, and earn a nice living.
However, opening night for the first Outback restaurant, in March in Tampa, Florida, did not look promising. In keeping with the Australian theme, the restaurant's decor featured boomerangs hung on paneled walls, kangaroo posters, shark jaws, stuffed koalas, and surfboards.
The menu, however, was free of Australian influence, containing all American food, with specially seasoned steaks as its centerpiece. This split was deliberate, as was the group's refusal to visit Australia in the course of developing the restaurant's theme. The company was not selling either on Outback's debut night. We had to call people over for dinner. No one had ever heard of Outback except our friends. And they were our only customer base.
Business began to pick up as the partners increased promotion--including cooking at radio stations and other local events--and as they received favorable reviews from restaurant critics. Outback's timing coincided with growing interest in more traditional, so-called 'comfort' foods such as beef.
Within 15 months, five more restaurants had been opened, and the chain was off to a fast start. Outback's quick takeoff attracted the notice of other people in the restaurant industry.
Take your choice. Faced with this kind of interest, Outback's founding partners agreed to an expansion of their concept. Through franchise agreements and joint ventures, Outback's founders introduced their restaurant idea to areas outside Tampa in the late s and early s. By the end of , the company was operating 23 restaurants. Outback Steakhouse was started in Florida in by three very experienced restauranteurs named Robert Basham, Timothy Gannon, and Chris Sullivan, none of which had ever been to Australia.
The founders claim they decided on the Australian themes because Australians are fun-loving, gregarious, and laid-back, which was the kind of atmosphere they wanted for their restaurants.
This was right about the time when the movie Crocodile Dundee II was in theaters and Paul Hogan was still having his 15 minutes. Turns out they knew what they were doing. In a time when the country was turning away from beef and moving towards chicken, they were able to start not only a successful chain of steakhouses, but one that soon became the sixth largest chain in the country.
This success cannot be said to be owed solely to the theme, of course. The Bloomin Onion, in case you were wondering, was not invented by Outback and it is most definitely American in origin. The amount of revenue that actually comes from Australia can probably be ignored, since, at the time of this writing, there are only seven Outback Steakhouse locations in Australia.
But with the introduction of fast-casual dining and other new trends it seems like more and more people are heading elsewhere, unfortunately for Outback. But if you're looking for a place where you know what to expect, where coworkers and friends can get together after work for a few drinks and some appetizers, Outback might be your place. There's no denying that's largely because of the Bloomin' Onion, their flagship dish that's more popular than their steak ever was — even though it's in their name.
It's just the right amount of crunchy, and it's so bad for you that you'd better be sharing it. Let's talk about Bloomin' Onion secrets, and some other things you didn't know about this chain. There's good reason for that. Outback Steakhouse was founded by four Americans in , and they were Americans who had never even been to Australia. They were inspired by Crocodile Dundee That's like a group of Australians founding an "authentic" American restaurant after watching American Pie When those founders were developing the idea, they specifically chose not to head off the the Land Down Under, because they wanted to cash in on the kitchy stereotypes Americans had about Australia.
So instead, they scrounged things out of antique and junk stores that they thought sounded sort of Australian-ish — like sheep shears and bullhorns — and opened their first restaurant in a South Tampa strip mall. According to the Tampa Bay Times , the founders knew more about the business plans of restaurants like Benigan's and Chili's, and that explains a lot.
Since the founders of Outback Steakhouse didn't actually want to be influenced by the real thing and instead made their restaurant a sort of stereotype of Australia, it's not surprising there's nothing about the food that's authentic, either. Shrimp on the barbie, along with Toowoomba pasta, and Bloomin' anything. Burgers, onions Not Australian. She got a piece of chicken, baby back ribs, and coconut shrimp, which wasn't at all what she expected.
When your order a Mixed Grill in Australia, you get something very different: sausage, liver, and bacon. When one Quora user asked for native Australian opinions on Outback, one native answered, "Pizza Hut is more authentically Italian than Outback is Australian.
How do you season your steak? Chances are good it's pretty minimal, in order to let the taste of the meat be the main star. Seasonings, rubs, and spices should be the supporting cast, after all.
Even Jamie Oliver recommends keeping it simple with salt, pepper, and a dash of garlic and rosemary, but Outback Steakhouses season their steaks with a secret recipe of 17 herbs and spices. That's an insane number of ingredients, and seriously, when is the last time you made anything that took 17 ingredients? Cooks on the internet have, of course, tried their hand at deconstructing the seasoning recipe, and most have managed to make copycat recipes with only a fraction of the ingredients.
The Taste of Aussie has one that many seem to agree on, and it's a combination of salt, paprika, ground black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, ground coriander, and turmeric.
Outback advertises their rub as being pretty incredible stuff, but that raises the question of what, exactly, is in it? And more importantly, is it all necessary? Order a steak, and you'd like to get some steak flavor, too.
Let's be honest: if you're still going to Outback Steakhouse, you're probably going for the Bloomin' Onion. It's just the right amount of salty and crunchy, and just how they made it used to be a major secret. There are 24 "petals" to each onion, and getting those even is the key to an even fry. That's intimidating and might make you think you shouldn't bother trying to make one at home, but you absolutely can.
You can even pick up the same gadget Outback uses, and while their is called the Nemco Easy Flowering Onion Cutter via The Daily Meal , there are plenty of other versions out there that do the exact same thing. And thanks to food hacker Todd Wilbur, you can get the taste right, too. Bloomin' Onion creators boasted about the 17 spices in the onion and 37 spices in the dipping sauce, and while Wilbur cracked the code, you'll have to buy access to his secrets.
Social media is tricky sometimes, and restaurants need to deal with a ton of complaints, disgruntled customers, and keyboard warriors. Sometimes it's all in good fun, and in Outback found themselves in the middle of a weird conspiracy theory that was retweeted over and over again. Proving they have a sense of humor, they played along. The original Tweet from from eatmyaesthetics, a Twitter user who posted photographic "proof" that Outback Steakhouse locations in a few cities could be connected on a map to form a pentagram.
The association was clear, and several keyboard warriors jumped to the conclusion that they must be supporting either witchcraft or Satanism. The Huffington Post says it was retweeted hundreds of thousands of times, and Outback Steakhouse responded with a cryptic image that showed their Bloomin' Onion hovering over a map Florida, and the comment, "If the Bloomin' Onion is evil then we don't want to be nice.
When Outback Steakhouse celebrated their year anniversary in , they had around locations worldwide.
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