Is Outback Steakhouse Australian? Why It Flopped in Sydney

Since so much of the food served at Outback Steakhouse is virtually identical to every other American casual dining chain, you may feel justified in questioning whether the restaurant has any legitimate connection to Australia. Is Outback a genuine culinary import, or is it pure corporate theater? The answer is an emphatic no. A typical Outback location may plaster boomerangs, fake surfboards, and kangaroo signs across the walls, and the dishes may have cutesy “Aussie” monikers, but none of it represents Australian fare. Instead, Outback is a thoroughly American creation, a Hollywood-inspired fantasy dreamed up thousands of miles from the continent. In fact, when the Florida-born chain eventually decided to plant its cartoonish version of the Bush right in Sydney’s suburbs, the reaction from actual Australians was an awkward mix of bewilderment, amusement, and deep cultural cringe.

The Crocodile Dundee Beginnings

Outback Steakhouse was started in Florida in 1987 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. The trio even considered naming the restaurant Dundee’s, as well as Sydney’s. They decided on Outback because it invoked a “rugged, outdoorsy quality” and they felt it had good potential for marketing.

The trio was marketing a themed restaurant that owed a lot to Steak and Ale, where all three owners had worked during the 1970’s, had started before them. They were also updating the Western frontier concept of chains like Bonanza, Ponderosa, and Western Sizzlin’, with a theme that was right in tune with the 1980’s. The Australian Outback was the Wild West of the Australian frontier.

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. An efficient back of house, manager ownership opportunities, and clever menu names like Jackeroo Chops, Shrimp on the Barbie, Chicken on the Barbie, Kookaburra Wings, and, of course, the Bloomin Onion ¹, didn’t hurt. The Bloomin Onion, in case you were wondering, was not invented by Outback and it is most definitely American in origin.

By 1994 there were 210 Outback Steakhouse locations bringing in an estimated revenue of $544 million. By 2005, the number of restaurants had ballooned to1105, with $3.3 billion in revenue. But explosive domestic growth often breeds corporate blind spots. Having convinced millions of suburban Americans that a Bloomin’ Onion and a plastic boomerang represented authentic frontier heritage, corporate brass began eyeing international expansion. Eventually, someone in Tampa made the bold, tone-deaf calculation that if Americans loved Outback’s vision of Australia, actual Australians would be thrilled to have it, too. In 2001, the Florida chain prepared to show Sydney how an Australian steakhouse was really done.

Outback Steakhouse in Australia: Selling the Bush Back to Australians

When Outback Steakhouse opened its first Australian location in the western Sydney suburb of Parklea in 2001, corporate executives expected a triumphant homecoming. Instead, they walked into a wall of collective cultural cringe.

To everyday Australians, the concept was baffling. Australia already had an established dining culture built on neighborhood pubs, casual surf clubs, and local steakhouses serving quality grass-fed beef without fanfare. Seeing an American corporation import a caricature of their own country, complete with corrugated tin, plastic boomerangs, and faux-Aussie kitsch, felt bizarrely patronizing. It was the commercial equivalent of an American dining room dressed in cartoon crocodile-hunter cosplay, attempting to lecture the locals on how to throw a steak on the grill.

The cultural disconnect was most glaring on the menu. In America, diners had happily ordered dishes with exaggerated, cartoonish names. In Australia, patrons flatly refused to say them out loud. Outback was forced to quietly scrub the American menu of its most offensive gimmicks:

Kookaburra Wings disappeared immediately. In Australia, the kookaburra is a beloved native kingfisher, not poultry. Serving “kookaburra” sounded less like an appetizer and more like eating the local wildlife. The chain awkwardly rebranded them to Chookaburra Wings (borrowing chook, Australian slang for chicken).
Shrimp on the Barbie was dropped. Australians call them prawns, and the phrase itself, lifted from Paul Hogan’s famous 1980s American tourism commercials, is widely recognized Down Under as an export slogan invented purely for foreigners. On the Australian menu, it became plain old Grilled Prawns.
Aussie-Tizers was dropped in favor of standard Appetizers, and the Chocolate Thunder from Down Under became Chocolate Thunder.
Even the Aussie Chicken Cobb Salad was stripped of its national branding and renamed Crispy Chicken Salad.

The lone survivor of the American spectacle was the Bloomin’ Onion, a deep-fried novelty with zero roots in traditional Australian cooking that had to be sold on spectacle alone. And no, Outback did not invent this dish, only their naming of it.

This lukewarm reception stands in stark contrast to another famous American fast-food transplant: Hungry Jack’s. As detailed in the story of why Burger King is called Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Jack Cowin’s burger franchise succeeded precisely because it never tried to act like some kind of ambassador of Australian culture. Cowin simply sold American burgers under a neutral, friendly moniker that locals could adopt without feeling patronized. When corporate Burger King later tried to muscle in and conquer the market directly, Australians rallied around Hungry Jack’s as an honorary local institution.

Outback Steakhouse never earned that affection. By loudly announcing itself as “authentic Australia,” it guaranteed that locals would view it as an outsider playing dress-up. As a result, Outback remains a niche novelty rather than a national fixture. While the brand operates roughly a thousand restaurants globally, its footprint in Australia has never managed to expand beyond a handful of suburban locations, a quiet testament to what happens when you try to sell a nation its own identity through an American filter.

The Real Blueprint: Steak and Ale, Not Sydney

The original founders of Outback are still its owners, under their company Bloomin’ Brands, Inc. Their company now also owns Carrabba’s Italian Grill, Bonefish Grill, and Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar. Bloomin’ Brands is one of the largest casual dining restaurant companies in the world, operating in over 48 states and 22 countries.

Steak and Ale, which began in 1966, deserves credit for inspiring the casual dining wave that birthed chains like Outback. It was arguably the first of many affordable, faux-Tudor steakhouses featuring salad bars and dim lighting that dominated suburban dining before fading away. In 2008, the chain abruptly vanished into Chapter 7 bankruptcy when parent company Metromedia Steakhouses collapsed, shuttering all remaining locations overnight. While intellectual property owner Legendary Restaurant Brands, LLC (the parent of Bennigan’s) spent years teasing a nationwide comeback, the revival finally took physical form when a new location opened in Burnsville, Minnesota, followed by slow attempts to license new franchise units. Yet whether a retro 1970s concept can ever regain its former empire remains an open question.