Outback Steakhouse Catering Guide: Menu, Prices & How to Order for the Office

Outback Steakhouse spent thirty-four years as one of the largest casual-dining steakhouse chains in the country without ever running a national catering program, then launched one in April 2022 at four hundred eighty-one locations on the same day. Outback’s catering program covers Buffet Bundles, Party Pans, Individually Packaged Meals, Build-Your-Own Cheeseburger and Loaded Baked Potato and Grilled Chicken Sammie Bars, a Gluten Friendly menu published online, honey wheat bread in every box, and a four-hour minimum notice on every order at participating locations. This guide walks every format with 2026 prices from a real store, how the catering portal works, why the Bloomin’ Onion is not on the catering menu, and what to order when the office wants a steakhouse experience without booking a white-tablecloth restaurant.

Founded on March 15, 1988 in Tampa, Florida by Bob Basham, Chris T. Sullivan, Trudy Cooper and Tim Gannon, Outback built its brand on Australian-themed American steakhouse cuisine and grew to more than six hundred US locations and roughly a thousand more across twenty-three countries. The parent company, Bloomin’ Brands, renamed itself in 2012 after the Bloomin’ Onion appetizer and now owns Carrabba’s Italian Grill, Bonefish Grill, and Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse and Wine Bar alongside Outback. The chain’s catering program is its newest off-premise channel and its first national catering push in brand history, putting it about a decade behind the established casual-dining catering incumbents but with a clear advantage on the steakhouse positioning that LongHorn and Texas Roadhouse share and Carrabba’s, Bonefish and Fleming’s do not.

Outback Steakhouse menu, pricing and availability vary by location and change over time. Confirm current offerings and live quotes directly with the catering portal at the participating Outback nearest your office before ordering.

Outback Steakhouse Catering Prices (2026)

Outback prices catering by location, so every figure below comes from one store: the Outback Steakhouse at 2805 Mannheim Rd in Des Plaines, just northwest of Chicago, on its ezCater catering menu in September 2026. A second table at the bottom prices the same items at a Phoenix store on the same day. The item list itself comes from Outback’s official national catering menu, which you can download from outback.com/offers/catering. Ordering direct for pickup usually lands under delivery pricing, and a $30 delivery fee sits on top of every total here.

The one thing worth knowing before you order: a Buffet Bundle is a Party Pan plus exactly $55.00, on every single entree. Not roughly $55. Exactly. The bundle adds a salad, a side and a dessert, and a House Salad ($22.50), the cheapest side ($20.00) and five cookies ($12.50) cost $55.00 bought separately. That held on all nine bundle entrees at this store, from the $107.50 pasta to the $172.50 filet, and it held again at $100.00 flat on the ten-person size. There is no bundle discount. You are paying the menu price for the parts and getting the convenience of one line item.

The short version: boxed meals run $11.99 to $26.49 a head with a ten-box minimum, a Party Pan feeds five from $52.50 and ten from $100.00, and the cheapest hot thing on the menu is the Loaded Baked Potato Bar at $6.00 a head. Delivery needs a $100 subtotal. Outback asks for four hours of notice, not the day-before lead time most chains want.

Buffet Bundle Prices

A Buffet Bundle is the entree plus a shareable salad, a shareable side, a shareable dessert and honey wheat bread. Small feeds five, Large feeds ten. The included side choices are seasoned rice, seasonal veggies or homestyle mashed potatoes; loaded mashed, bacon mac and cheese or parmesan creamed corn cost $5.00 more. The included desserts are thunder brownies or chocolate chunk cookies, and the dessert platter costs $2.50 more. The salad is a House Salad with one of three dressings, or a Caesar.

Steak bundles take a doneness choice, and slicing the sirloin or the filet costs nothing, so ask for it sliced if the team is serving itself from a tray.

Party Pan Prices

A Party Pan is the same entree with no salad, no side and no dessert. Honey wheat bread is still in the box. This is the cheapest way to put a hot steakhouse tray on a table, and you can add a side afterwards for $20.00 or $25.00 if you decide you want one.

Work the $55.00 rule from here. If your team does not want cookies, a Center-Cut Sirloin Party Pan at $135.00 plus a House Salad at $40.00 plus homestyle mashed at $35.00 comes to $210.00 for ten. The matching bundle is $235.00. The $25.00 gap is the ten cookies, priced at the menu rate. Skip the sweet and you have saved exactly what the sweet costs.

Boxed Meal Prices

Individually Packaged Meals carry a ten-box minimum and you can mix and match across the list to hit it. Every box holds the entree, honey wheat bread and a required choice of side. The side options are Aussie Fries, a loaded baked potato, a sweet potato with honey butter, homestyle mashed potatoes, seasoned rice, seasonal veggies, a House Salad with your pick of nine dressings, or a Caesar. Yes, Aussie Fries travel: they are the first side option on every box.

Dessert is not in the box. Outback’s own menu line is “add an individual dessert to any box … for an additional cost”, and that cost is $2.50 for a thunder brownie or a chocolate chunk cookie. A bottle of water is another $2.50. Ten sirloin boxes with a brownie each is $189.90, or $18.99 a head, against $164.90 without. Budget for it or tell people there is no pudding.

Two boxes break the pattern. The Walhalla Pasta box and the two plain salad boxes come with no side at all, and the salad and pasta boxes default to no protein. Grilled chicken, crispy chicken or shrimp on a salad costs $2.50, and sirloin costs $4.00. A House Salad box with sirloin is $15.99, which is within a rounding error of the actual steak box at $16.49.

Build-Your-Own Bar Prices

These three are the catering-only formats, and the potato bar is the cheapest thing on the menu by a distance. Each one includes honey wheat bread. The build-outs below are the whole build-out: there are no topping options in the ordering flow, so anything extra goes in the special instructions box and is down to the kitchen.

Note the bacon in the potato bar. It is in the standard build and there is no bacon-free option in the ordering flow, so a vegetarian table needs a written request rather than a menu click. The cheeseburger bar takes a doneness choice and can send the cheese on the side.

Aussie-tizer, Side, Dessert and Drink Prices

The Aussie-tizers category is two things: wings and ribs. Wings come in mild, medium or hot with blue cheese and celery, or as separate Buffalo Ranch and Sweet BBQ items at the same price.

Dessert is the one category with no volume break. Ten cookies is $25.00, exactly twice five cookies, and the large dessert platter is exactly twice the small. Every other category shaves a few dollars off the Large: a large Party Pan of sirloin is $135.00 against $140.00 for two smalls, and a large potato bar is $55.00 against $60.00. The savings are small, but they are real everywhere except the sweet trolley.

Gallons come with cups and ice, and sweeteners on the side if you ask. At $0.80 a head the tea is the cheapest thing you can add to an order. The chafing dish is worth the dollar a head on any lunch that runs past forty-five minutes, because the wood-grilled proteins are the part of this menu that suffers most from going cold.

What a Real Order Costs

Six complete orders at the Des Plaines store, before tax, tip and the $30 delivery fee.

The $60.00 burger bar does not clear the $100 delivery minimum, so that one is a pickup order or it needs a gallon of tea and a side bolted on. Everything else clears it comfortably. Cancelling inside 24 hours of the event costs 25 percent at this store, and changes have to be in six business hours ahead, which is tighter than the four-hour ordering window suggests.

How Far Prices Move Between Markets

Outback catering pricing is set store by store. A Phoenix store at 4715 E Cactus Rd, checked the same day, came in dearer on every single item, and the gap is widest on the cheap lines rather than on the steak.

The $55.00 rule survives the move. Phoenix charges a flat $71.50 on top of its Party Pan for eight of its nine bundles, and $71.50 is exactly what a Phoenix House Salad ($28.00), a Phoenix side ($25.50) and five Phoenix cookies ($18.00) cost there. The shape of this menu is national even though the prices are not, so read the structure here and check your own store’s numbers in the ordering portal before you commit a budget.

Outback’s Catering Menu

Outback structures its catering menu around four formats: Buffet Bundles for shared casual events, Party Pans for buffet service, Individually Packaged Meals for distributed and hybrid teams, and Build-Your-Own Bars for events that want a self-serve setup. Every shared format sells in exactly two sizes, one that serves five and one that serves ten, and every one of them includes honey wheat bread. Most office orders combine one workhorse format with an Aussie-tizer and a side.

The four catering formats at a glance

Signature catering picks

Most Outback catering orders rotate through a short list of brand-pillar items that no other casual-dining steakhouse replicates at the same scale. The list below is the complete entree lineup, with the Center-Cut Sirloin and Alice Springs Chicken as the two workhorses. Most of these sell in all three formats, so the pick is the format rather than the protein.

Why the Center-Cut Sirloin is the workhorse: Outback’s wood-grilled program is the chain’s central kitchen capability, and the sirloin is the most forgiving steak format for catering at scale. Asking for the pan sliced, which costs nothing, eliminates the doneness problem (every guest gets medium-rare-to-medium with a wood-grill char), the protein holds heat through a delivery window better than a chicken breast, and the leftover portion reheats cleanly. For larger events, a Center-Cut Sirloin Party Pan and an Alice Springs Chicken Party Pan, both Large, feed twenty for $255.00, or $12.75 a head, and give the team a recognisable steakhouse spread. Two Large Filet Mignon Party Pans feed the same twenty for $440.00.

Aussie-tizers & the Bloomin’ Onion Question

Start here, because it is the single most common wrong assumption about this menu. The Bloomin’ Onion is not a catering item. It is the in-restaurant signature that the parent company literally named itself after, one whole yellow onion cut into roughly two hundred petals, hand-battered and fried, served with bloom sauce. Outback’s official national catering menu does not carry it, and neither did either store we priced for this guide. If you want the brand cue on the table, the Aussie-tizers that Outback actually caters are Kookaburra Wings and Outback Ribs.

What the catering menu actually carries

Outback’s national catering menu runs an Aussie-tizers section with exactly two items on it. Kookaburra Wings come in mild, medium or hot with blue cheese dressing and celery, or as separate Buffalo Ranch and Sweet BBQ items, all at $44.00 for five and $82.00 for ten. Outback Ribs are half racks, smoked, brushed and grilled with the signature BBQ sauce, at $70.00 for five and $136.00 for ten. There is no wing-count option and no thirty-wing increment; you pick a size that serves five or ten. Chicken Tenders and Gold Coast Coconut Shrimp are real catering items, but they sell as boxed meals, Party Pans and Buffet Bundle entrees rather than as appetizer trays.

How to use the Aussie-tizers in an office event

For an event-opening tray (think happy hour, board meeting kick-off, off-site icebreaker), order Kookaburra Wings and pair them with a Party Pan or a Buffet Bundle as the entree. Wings for ten at $82.00 work out at $8.20 a head, which is the cheapest way to put something on the table before the mains land. If you want a second tray, a Gold Coast Coconut Shrimp Party Pan is $105.00 for ten. For a single drop with no setup, the Aussie-tizers hold as the warm-up while the entree pans get laid out.

What’s in-restaurant only

The Bloomin’ Onion, the smaller Bloom Petals spin-off and the Bloomin’ Burger are all dine-in items, and none of them appear on the catering menu. The complimentary in-restaurant Bushman bread loaf with butter is also a dine-in feature, though the bread itself does ship to catering: every boxed meal, Party Pan, Build-Your-Own Bar and Buffet Bundle includes honey wheat bread. The catering menu does not use the Bushman name and does not sell the bread as a standalone tray, so you cannot order bread on its own.

Individually Packaged Meals & Box Prices

Outback’s Individually Packaged Meal is the format that distinguishes its catering program from most casual-dining steakhouse peers. Every box ships with an entree, honey wheat bread and, on most items, a required choice of side, and the box is labeled with the entree variety so distributed teams can grab the right one without rummaging. There is a ten-box minimum and you can mix and match across the whole list to hit it. Dessert is not in the box: a thunder brownie or a chocolate chunk cookie costs $2.50, and a bottle of water is another $2.50. For more on when per-person boxed lunches beat a shared buffet, see our boxed lunch catering vs. buffet guide and the cluster posts on boxed lunches for hybrid and distributed teams and allergy-safe individually packaged boxed lunches.

Side options inside the box: Aussie Fries, a loaded baked potato, a sweet potato with honey butter, homestyle mashed potatoes, seasoned rice, seasonal veggies, a House Salad with a choice of nine dressings, or a Caesar. Aussie Fries are the first option on the list, so the in-restaurant signature side does travel. Bacon mac and cheese and loaded mashed potatoes are shareable-only and cannot go in a box. Two boxes break the pattern: the Walhalla Pasta box and the two plain salad boxes come with no side at all. Honey wheat bread is in every box, which is the most consistent recognisable brand cue any national steakhouse chain ships in a boxed format. For ordering programs that need to scale across multiple offices, see our office manager’s guide to ordering catering.

Build-Your-Own Bars

The Build-Your-Own Bar formats are the catering-exclusive picks no other casual-dining steakhouse offers at this scale. Outback runs three bars: a Half-Pound Cheeseburger Bar, a Loaded Baked Potato Bar and a Grilled Chicken Sammie Bar. Each sells in a size for five and a size for ten, and each includes honey wheat bread. Read the build-out below literally: there are no topping options in the ordering flow at all, so what the menu lists is what turns up, and anything else has to go in the special instructions box.

The Loaded Baked Potato Bar is the catering format with no direct equivalent at any other casual-dining steakhouse chain. The closest peer reference is McAlister’s Deli Spud Bar, which trades on the same self-serve baked-potato premise at the fast-casual deli tier. Outback’s version is the cheapest thing on its own catering menu at $30.00 for five, or $6.00 a head, but the topping bench is narrow: butter, sour cream, bacon, cheese and chives, and that is the complete list. Note the bacon, because there is no bacon-free option in the ordering flow. For other build-your-own bar formats across cuisines, see our build-your-own taco bar guide.

Buffet Bundles & Party Pans

Buffet Bundles and Party Pans are the shared-service formats most office orders combine with an Aussie-tizer and a side. A Buffet Bundle is the entree plus a shareable salad, a shareable side, a shareable dessert and honey wheat bread. A Party Pan is the same entree with the bread and nothing else. Both sell as Small, serving five, or Large, serving ten. The difference between them is a flat $55.00 on the Small and a flat $100.00 on the Large, on every entree, which is exactly what the salad, the cheapest side and the cookies cost bought separately.

Buffet Bundle picks

There are no price tiers or bands. Nine entrees sit on one flat list, from Walhalla Pasta at $107.50 for five up to Filet Mignon at $172.50 for five, and the Large of each serves ten. Each bundle ships with the entree, honey wheat bread, a choice of side (seasoned rice, seasonal veggies or homestyle mashed potatoes at no extra cost; loaded mashed, bacon mac and cheese or parmesan creamed corn for $5.00 more), a salad (House with one of three dressings, or Caesar), and a dessert (thunder brownies or chocolate chunk cookies, with the dessert platter $2.50 more). Full prices for all nine are in the pricing section above.

Party Pan picks

The Party Pan is a single-entree tray serving five or ten, and it gives the office a clear visual centerpiece for the least money. The workhorse picks are the Center-Cut Sirloin ($70.00 for five, $135.00 for ten, and ask for it sliced because slicing is free), the Alice Springs Chicken ($62.50 and $120.00) and the Walhalla Pasta ($52.50 and $100.00), which is the cheapest entree on the menu and the vegetarian option in one. Ribs sell as an Aussie-tizer rather than a Party Pan. For larger events, order two or three pans side by side and run it as a steakhouse buffet without booking a steakhouse. For events where the buffet versus boxed-meal decision matters, see our boxed lunch vs. buffet and boxed lunch vs. buffet vs. family-style guides.

Sides, Salads, Honey Wheat Bread & Desserts

Outback’s shareable side bench covers steakhouse staples in two price bands. At $20.00 for five and $35.00 for ten: homestyle mashed potatoes (the workhorse), seasoned rice and seasonal veggies. At $25.00 and $45.00: loaded mashed potatoes (with bacon, sour cream, cheese and chives stirred in), bacon mac and cheese with a breadcrumb crust, and parmesan creamed corn. Note that the only mac on the menu carries bacon, so it is not a vegetarian side. Aussie Fries do not sell as a shareable side, but they are the first side option inside every boxed meal.

Honey wheat bread

The Honey Wheat Bushman bread is the dark, sweet, molasses-coloured wheat loaf served complimentary at every Outback table in-restaurant, and it is one of the most-recognised bread programs in casual dining. The catering menu ships the same bread but drops the Bushman name and simply says “includes honey wheat bread” against every Individually Packaged Meal, every Party Pan, every Build-Your-Own Bar and every Buffet Bundle. There is no standalone bread item, so you cannot order a tray of rolls on its own. Bushman bread is not sold in grocery stores either; some restaurants will sell loaves to walk-in guests at the manager’s discretion, but that is not a published policy. For an office order the bread is the single most consistent recognisable brand cue the catering program ships.

Salad bench

Desserts and beverages

Outback’s catering dessert bench is five items. Thunder Brownies and Chocolate Chunk Cookies come individually wrapped in fives for $12.50 or tens for $25.00, and the brownies contain pecans. The Dessert Platter combines both with strawberries at $15.00 for five or $30.00 for ten. Whole cakes are sold whole, not by the slice: a Whole Cheesecake is $44.00 for eight New York-style slices and a Whole Carrot Cake is $60.00 for twelve. There are no salted caramel cookies on the catering menu. For beverages, the chain ships gallon Sweet Tea and Unsweet Tea, gallon Country-Style Lemonade and Strawberry Lemonade, and bottled Dasani water. There is no Boxed Coffee program; for morning catering, see our boxed breakfast catering guide for what a steakhouse alternative looks like.

Gluten Friendly Menu, Allergen Guide & Vegetarian Options

Outback publishes a Gluten Friendly menu at outback.com/nutrition/gluten-friendly that covers most wood-grilled steaks, several chicken preparations, the wood-grilled salmon, certain salads (House and Caesar without croutons) and the side bench (mashed potatoes, seasoned rice, seasonal veggies). The chain states plainly that it does not run gluten-free kitchens and cannot guarantee against cross-contact, which is the right disclosure for catering buyers planning around celiac eaters. Two catering notes the gluten-friendly page does not make for you: Aussie Fries come out of a shared fryer, and they are the default first side on every boxed meal, so flag the swap when you order. The catering dessert is the Thunder Brownie rather than the in-restaurant Chocolate Thunder from Down Under, so confirm its status with the store rather than assuming.

The chain publishes a downloadable allergen guide listing each menu item’s allergen presence (milk, egg, fish, shellfish, peanut, tree nut, soy, wheat). For office catering, pull the allergen guide before ordering for any guests with specific allergen restrictions.

For events where dietary clarity matters more than menu range, see our mixed dietary needs guide, our gluten-free office catering guide, and our vegan office catering guide. For offices that need a deeper dietary clarity workflow than a steakhouse can provide, the deli alternatives (Jason’s Deli in particular, with its Gluten-Sensitive Menu and separate prep tools) are the easier pick.

How to Order Outback Catering

Outback runs a dedicated catering portal at outback.com/offers/catering and is also listed on the ezCater marketplace alongside the other Bloomin’ Brands concepts (Carrabba’s, Bonefish Grill and Fleming’s). Individual Outback stores have been on ezCater since at least October 2022. The portal flow is the cleaner option for direct ordering; ezCater is the cleaner option for an office that already has an ezCater account and wants to cross-shop within the Bloomin’ family on a single dashboard.

1. Enter the delivery address or pickup ZIP. The portal will route the order to the nearest participating Outback. Note that not every Outback participates in catering; the chain launched at four hundred eighty-one locations in April 2022 and has expanded since, but coverage is not universal. Western states are operated by the Out West Restaurant Group franchisee, though that is not the dividing line for catering: the Phoenix store we priced for this guide caters, and carries a wider bundle range than the Chicago-area one.
2. Pick a date and time. Outback’s published rule is a four-hour notice on all orders, which is unusually short for a chain this size, and both stores we priced confirmed it. Four hours is the floor, not the plan: for events of fifty or more give two to three days, and for events of one hundred or more give a full week and call the location directly to coordinate. Note that changes have to be in six business hours ahead, which is a tighter window than the ordering minimum.
3. Pick a format. Buffet Bundle, Party Pan, Individually Packaged Meals (ten-box minimum), Build-Your-Own Bar (Cheeseburger, Loaded Baked Potato or Grilled Chicken Sammie), an Aussie-tizer, a shareable salad or side, or a combination. Every shared format asks you to pick Small for five or Large for ten.
4. Customize for dietary needs. The chain’s Gluten Friendly menu and allergen guide live online; pull them before placing the order. Flag gluten-friendly boxes for the kitchen, mark vegetarian boxes (Walhalla Pasta or salad with no protein), and add notes for any specific allergen-isolation requirements. Note that Outback is not a 100% gluten-free environment.
5. Add sides, salads and beverages. Most office orders pair a Buffet Bundle or Party Pan with a House Salad and a gallon of Sweet Tea, which is $7.99 for ten and the cheapest thing you can add. For breakfast catering, look at a non-steakhouse chain since Outback does not run a breakfast program.
6. Add the delivery contact and a kitchen note. Include the office manager’s mobile, the building’s loading dock or visitor protocol, and any room-setup requests. For Build-Your-Own Bars, request a setup window so the catering team can lay out the toppings.
7. Pay and confirm. The portal and ezCater both accept major credit cards. Gratuity policies vary by participating location and by order channel; factor a tip in if the delivery includes a setup.

For weekly or biweekly catering programs, call the location directly and ask for a catering specialist. The launch program was designed to support recurring orders, and many participating locations will set up a standing order with the same delivery contact, the same setup notes and the same default items so each week’s order takes thirty seconds rather than ten minutes.
Plan steakhouse catering with CaterAi

Delivery, Pickup & Lead Times

Outback offers both delivery and in-store pickup for catering at participating locations. Delivery radius varies by store, and the chain has not published a national radius figure. The Out West Restaurant Group franchise area (California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico) operates independently and may have different delivery and lead-time policies than the corporate-owned restaurants.

For pickup orders, the wood-grilled proteins are heat-stable for a thirty to sixty minute window once the order is ready, and the boxed meals are packed for transport. A disposable chafing dish is $10.00 and covers about ten people, which is worth the dollar a head on any lunch running past forty-five minutes. For board meetings and milestone lunches where every minute counts, see our board meeting catering guide for the lead-time and setup approach we recommend.

Pros and Cons of Outback Catering

Pros

• Honey wheat bread in every box. The same honey wheat bread Outback serves at the table goes into every Individually Packaged Meal, which is the most consistent recognisable brand cue any national steakhouse chain ships in a boxed format.
• Build-Your-Own Bar formats. The Half-Pound Cheeseburger Bar, Loaded Baked Potato Bar and Grilled Chicken Sammie Bar are catering-exclusive formats no other casual-dining steakhouse offers at this scale, and the potato bar is $6.00 a head.
• A genuinely short lead time. Four hours of notice on any order, against the day-before window most chains of this size ask for. That makes Outback a real option when a meeting appears on the calendar the same morning.
• Wood-grilled program at scale. The Center-Cut Sirloin Party Pan at $13.50 a head for ten and the Alice Springs Chicken Party Pan at $12.00 ship with a wood-grill char that holds heat through a delivery window better than most casual-dining peers.
• Gluten Friendly menu published online. Outback publishes a real gluten-friendly menu with disclosed cross-contamination notes, which is more transparency than most casual-dining steakhouse chains provide.
• ezCater partnership. All four Bloomin’ Brands concepts (Outback, Carrabba’s, Bonefish, Fleming’s) are on ezCater, so an office buyer can cross-shop within the family on a single account.

Cons

• Catering coverage is not universal. The chain launched its national program in April 2022 at four hundred eighty-one locations and has expanded since, but coverage is not universal across all six hundred plus US restaurants, and it varies store by store rather than by region.
• No breakfast catering program. Outback does not run a breakfast menu; for morning catering, the office needs a separate partner.
• Vegetarian and vegan options are thin. Walhalla Pasta and salads without protein are the vegetarian picks; there is no published vegan program. For a mixed-dietary table with multiple vegetarians, the wood-grilled steakhouse positioning works against you.
• Dessert is never included in a boxed meal. Outback’s own menu says to add one “for an additional cost”, and that cost is $2.50 a box. Ten sirloin boxes with a brownie each is $189.90 rather than $164.90, so budget for it or tell people there is no pudding.
• Mid-tier pricing band. Outback sits above Texas Roadhouse on per-guest check, in the same band as LongHorn, and below Carrabba’s at the lower end of the Italian sibling. Budget-tight offices may default to a cheaper option.
• Catering program is still relatively new. Three years into the national rollout, the program is still building density compared to incumbents like Carrabba’s, Maggiano’s or the fast-casual deli chains.

What Customers Say

Who Is Outback Catering Best For?

Outback vs. LongHorn, Texas Roadhouse & Carrabba’s

Outback sits in the casual-dining steakhouse tier, in the same band as LongHorn Steakhouse, above Texas Roadhouse on per-guest check, and below Fleming’s. The differentiator on the steakhouse side is the Aussie-themed brand pillars that actually cater (honey wheat bread, Alice Springs Chicken, Walhalla Pasta) and the catering-exclusive Build-Your-Own Bar formats. The differentiator vs. the Italian and deli alternatives is the wood-grilled steakhouse positioning, which is the right pick when the office wants a steak event and the wrong pick when it does not.

A Better Option for Office Catering

Outback catering is one of the cleanest casual-dining steakhouse picks when the office wants a steakhouse experience without booking a steakhouse. It is the right call when the food matters, the brief is steak or wood-grilled chicken, and the team wants a recognisable brand cue in every box. It is not the right call when no participating location is in delivery range, when the brief is breakfast or deep vegetarian or allergen-isolated dietary clarity, or when the catering brief is more “real local food” than “the chain with the wood-grilled sirloin”.

That’s where Zerocater comes in. Zerocater connects offices to a curated network of more than one thousand local restaurants and culinary partners across most major US metros, and the CaterAi planning tool builds a menu from those partners around the team’s headcount, dietary mix, occasion and budget. Instead of locking the entire team into one chain’s menu, CaterAi can pull a wood-grilled steakhouse order from a real local steakhouse, a vegetarian Mediterranean order from a local Mezze chef, and a kids’ chicken-tender box from a neighborhood deli, on the same delivery, with the same labels and the same lead times. For ongoing programs, the same partners can show up on a weekly or biweekly rotation so the office doesn’t eat the same brand four times in a month.

For offices that want a one-time event-style order, see CaterAi or our corporate event catering page. For ongoing programs, see corporate catering solutions. For a quick read on how the platform works end-to-end, see how it works.
Plan steakhouse catering with CaterAi

Which Outback Order for How Many People?

For an office in a specific metro, layer in the local context: a Tampa or Orlando event can lean into the Florida-roots origin story; a Houston or Dallas event can pair the Center-Cut Sirloin Party Pan with a Texas-style barbecue side; a Chicago or Cleveland event can run the Loaded Baked Potato Bar through a cold-weather meeting. For city-specific catering picks beyond Outback, see our city listicles for Atlanta, Dallas, Washington D.C., Chicago, and the Boston catering scene. For cost benchmarks by metro, see our cost guides for Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. For events with mixed groups, see our company picnic and outdoor catering guide, our holiday party catering guide, and our BBQ corporate catering guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is Outback Steakhouse catering priced?

By format, and in two sizes. At the Chicago-area store we priced in September 2026, Buffet Bundles run $107.50 to $172.50 for five and $200.00 to $320.00 for ten. Party Pans run $52.50 to $117.50 for five. Individually Packaged Meals are $11.99 to $26.49 each with a ten-box minimum, and a dessert costs $2.50 more. Build-Your-Own Bars are $30.00 to $60.00 for five. Shareable salads and sides are $20.00 to $25.00 for five, and gallon beverages are $7.99 to $8.99. Prices are set store by store, so check yours.

What is the minimum order?

A $100 subtotal for delivery, plus a $30 delivery fee, and a ten-box minimum on Individually Packaged Meals. Both figures are published on Outback’s own catering page and both stores we priced matched them exactly. Buffet Bundles, Party Pans and Build-Your-Own Bars are scaled for five or for ten, so a small team clears the box minimum more easily with a shared format. Pickup carries no minimum at all.

How far in advance should I order?

Four hours. Outback’s catering page states a four-hour notice on all orders, and both stores we priced list the same 240-minute lead time. That is the floor rather than the plan: for events of fifty or more give two to three days, and for one hundred or more give a full week and call the location directly. Changes have to be in six business hours before the event, and cancelling inside 24 hours costs 25 percent.

Is the Bloomin’ Onion on the catering menu?

No. Outback’s official national catering menu does not list it anywhere, and neither of the two stores we priced for this guide carried it in any category. The Aussie-tizers section of the catering menu is two items: Kookaburra Wings ($44.00 for five, $82.00 for ten) and Outback Ribs ($70.00 and $136.00). The Bloomin’ Onion stays a dine-in item, so do not plan a menu around it without calling the location first.

Does every box include honey wheat bread?

Yes. Every Individually Packaged Meal includes honey wheat bread, and so do the Party Pans, the Build-Your-Own Bars and the Buffet Bundles. It is the same bread Outback calls Bushman bread in the restaurant, though the catering menu drops the name. There is no standalone bread tray, so you cannot order rolls on their own.

Can Outback accommodate gluten-free, vegetarian or allergen-restricted orders?

Yes for gluten-friendly (wood-grilled steaks, certain chicken, certain salads, the mashed potato and rice side bench). Aussie Fries come out of a shared fryer, and they are the default first side on every boxed meal, so flag a swap when you order. Vegetarian options exist but are thin for a steakhouse: Walhalla Pasta and salads without protein. The Loaded Baked Potato Bar ships with bacon in the standard build and offers no bacon-free option, so that needs a written request. The only mac on the menu is Bacon Mac and Cheese. No published vegan program. Pull the allergen guide before ordering for guests with specific restrictions.

How does Outback compare to LongHorn, Texas Roadhouse and Carrabba’s?

Outback sits in the casual-dining steakhouse tier, in the same band as LongHorn, above Texas Roadhouse on per-guest check. The differentiator vs. LongHorn is the Aussie-themed brand pillars and the Build-Your-Own Bar formats. Texas Roadhouse runs at a lower per-guest check with honey-wheat rolls and cinnamon butter on every order. Carrabba’s is the Italian sibling under Bloomin’ Brands and runs Bistro Sandwich Bundles and Boxed Lunches purpose-built for office catering.

What makes Outback a good fit for office catering?

A casual-dining steakhouse experience without booking a steakhouse, from $11.99 a box. Individually Packaged Meals each include honey wheat bread, the catering-exclusive Build-Your-Own Bar formats give the office a self-serve option no other steakhouse chain offers at this scale, and the wood-grilled Center-Cut Sirloin and Alice Springs Chicken Party Pans ship a recognisable brand spread that telegraphs a milestone lunch for $12.00 to $13.50 a head.

Does every Outback offer catering, and which formats vary by location?

Catering is available only at participating locations. The chain launched its national program in April 2022 at four hundred eighty-one locations and has expanded since, but coverage is not universal across all six hundred plus US restaurants. Western states (California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico) run through the Out West Restaurant Group franchisee. The exact set of formats and the prices both vary by location: the two stores we priced differed by up to 44 percent on the same item.

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