7 Menu Items To Avoid Ordering At Red Robin

When you're craving a burger but want a meal that's a serious step up from your favorite fast food cheeseburger, then Red Robin may be the ideal place to go. This place is known for its gourmet burgers, often adorned with some not-so-expected toppings. But there are plenty of other menu items to choose from at Red Robin that go far beyond burgers, so it's a great place to eat with the whole family ... even if you have some picky eaters in your midst.

While a lot of Red Robin's offerings are solid — especially on the burger front — there are many other menu items that simply aren't that good. By consulting various Static Media reviews of Red Robin menu items as well as reviews from around the internet (and some taste-testing of our own), we've come up with this list of dishes that you'll probably want to avoid ordering from the chain. Once you eliminate these from your mental list of menu items to try from Red Robin, you'll more easily be able to select what you actually do want from the menu.

Let's face it: Red Robin is a burger place, and even though we appreciate the attempt that it has made to offer a seafood option on the menu, this really isn't the best place to order fish. It shouldn't come as a huge surprise, then, that the chain's grilled blackened salmon isn't particularly good. The main reason? It tends to get quite overcooked. Salmon can be finicky to work with, and cooking it even just a bit too long can result in a dry, bland piece of seafood. All the seasonings in the world can't fix that dryness. One reviewer complained about how fishy the salmon was. Considering that salmon tends to be a notoriously un-fishy fish, that's a red flag in our book.

Plus, the presentation just isn't that impressive. You'll get a side of garlic Parmesan broccoli that tastes like the broccoli you'd find at basically any other chain, along with an additional side. There are better and more interesting options to choose from on the Red Robin menu, so you should seek those out before resorting to this less-than-appetizing seafood dish. It's a Red Robin menu item we'd never order.

We love a cheeky dessert just as much as the next person, and ordering the Cinnamon Sugar Doh! Rings from Red Robin is a surefire way to make the whole table ooh and ahh when the dessert first comes out. Once they take a bite, though, the reaction may be a bit less favorable, considering that this dessert just isn't that good — in fact, it came in the very last place in a ranking of Red Robin's desserts.

First of all, the donut base is basically flavorless, even when it's covered in all that sugar cinnamon. This style of donut should still be somewhat flavorful on its own. The accompanying sauces — fudge and caramel — add some flavor to the dessert, but they're not that good either, and therefore don't do enough to elevate these donuts. Some even say that ordering this dessert is a mistake. Luckily, there are plenty of other desserts you can try at Red Robin that aren't so blatantly lacking in flavor.

We did the hard work of ranking 10 different Red Robin burgers, tasting our way through some of the chain's most iconic burger dishes. And out of all the different varieties we tried, the Smoke and Pepper burger was our absolute least favorite of the bunch. It has a beefy patty, crispy peppered bacon, along with lettuce, pickles, cheddar cheese, and a special smoky, peppery ketchup that's meant to elevate the sandwich. Sounds pretty good, right?

Wrong. In reality, you don't taste that much smokiness in this burger at all. There's a hint of smokiness there from the ketchup (and arguably from the bacon as well), but otherwise, there's not a lot more going on in this burger than you might expect from a more typical burger. One reviewer claimed that the burger itself was thin on one visit and that it had a strange sweetness to it from the sauce. Ultimately, this sandwich just can't live up to expectations, which is why we'd encourage you to skip it altogether.

Ever wished that you could eat a burger that was smothered in a sticky-sweet sauce? No? Well, in that case, you're probably not going to want to order Red Robin's Banzai burger. According to a Mashed survey, a whopping 24% of respondents said it was the worst burger at Red Robin — the highest percentage out of any of the burgers listed in said survey. With so many expressing their distaste for this very specific burger, we can't help but think that it's a menu item worth avoiding at the burger chain.

And to be honest, this combo of ingredients and flavors seems kind of weird. There's the teriyaki-glazed patty, which, if you ask us, is a sin against burgers everywhere. There's literally no need for a burger to be covered in a layer of teriyaki sauce. Then comes the slice of fresh pineapple, which also has no place on a burger (although it arguably does on pizza, according to Alton Brown). Even if you do like these flavors, you might be disappointed, as one customer complained that the pineapple slice was way too thin and that the teriyaki flavor was barely even perceptible. The popular burger toppings of lettuce, mayo, cheddar, and tomato, which you'll find on the burger, are fine, but don't reflect the madness of the other ingredients included on the sandwich. It's definitely safe to skip this strange menu offering.

For diehard avocado fans, there's no dish that a few slices of avocado can't improve. It shouldn't come as a surprise, then, that many restaurants are rolling out avocado-topped burgers. Red Robin is not an exception, as evidenced by its Smashed Avocado 'N Bacon burger. Since avocado provides mostly fat and not a whole lot of flavor, you may think that it's a fairly innocuous addition to a burger. That being said, it really does not yield a particularly enjoyable sandwich.

Yes, there are some positives here: Texturally speaking, the crispy bacon pairs very well with the creaminess of the avocado. However, on the flavor front, this burger is just lacking. The avocado tastes — expectedly — bland, and the bacon feels like a lazy copout, an opportunity to make a more interesting burger that was not taken. If the chain had used guacamole instead of plain avocado, maybe this burger would have worked better. As it stands, though, it's a supremely skippable menu item.

We've already covered the worst dessert on the Red Robin menu, but what about the second worst? The Shortbread Chocolate Soufflé Cake may be a step up from those cinnamon sugar donuts, but it's still far from the most delicious menu item you'll find at the burger chain. It's kind of a strange hybrid dessert. The base of the treat is a shortbread cookie topped with a chocolate soufflé cake. If those sound like they should be competing textures to you, you're not wrong, but they're actually hard to distinguish from one another. 

Then comes the hot fudge and whipped cream. It's all finished with a generous sprinkle of powdered sugar, served with a scoop of ice cream. Even though there's so much (arguably too much) going on here, all of these disparate ingredients don't yield a particularly flavorful dessert. And that's just how it tastes when it comes prepared correctly. One customer didn't even receive any ice cream on their cake and claimed it was somewhat raw as well. Choose any of the other desserts on the menu, and you'll be better off.

One of the most famous items on Red Robin's menu is the bottomless steak fries. After all, how many restaurants offer essentially unlimited fries? They're thick-cut (so none of those shoelace-thin fast food fries here) and seasoned with a special Red Robin seasoning blend. Although that seasoning blend is solid, we've found that the fries themselves aren't very good. Steak fries tend to be too tender, without any of the crisp you'd want from a good fry, and that's certainly the case here.

Worse, though, is the fact that, depending on the Red Robin you go to, you may not actually get unlimited fries. There are reports across the internet of Red Robin locations being stingy, coming up with excuses about why they can't actually give you more fries. And if you order this side dish with the expectation that you really can eat as much as you want, it's going to be disappointing to be told no.

Most of the menu items that are on this list are here because they were ranked poorly in a Tasting Table taste test, although we also relied on personal experience and comments from various review sites. Generally, the items listed here just aren't very flavorful or feature a strange combination of ingredients that don't work very well together. Some of the dishes — like the shortbread chocolate soufflé cake — also miss the mark on the texture front.