Review of Welcome to the Outcast's Restaurant!

This is yet another 'kicked from the hero party' anime and as such it follows the standard checklist OP MC, kicked for a dubious reason, hero is series bad guy and jealous, heroes party starts to collapse without MC being there. I wish this series had actually dared to do something different and reject that initial premise because for the most part the series is good and able to stand out, it did not need such a cliched trope as it would have been perfectly fine without it. Just have MC retire from an S-Rank party on his own accord because he now has the money toopen up his own restaurant, that would have been perfectly fine.
But no, we have a cliched start and all the predictable stuff that comes with it.

For the most part this series is good when it is focused on the restaurant, Atelier and the customers, this is when it is at its best, fortunately this is over half the series, but just over a third of it is having to deal with hero party trope plot which is just mediocre as they so often end up being.
I would have scored this higher, I would be praising it if the hero party was actually left behind, and we just got Dennis and the Outcast Restaurant adventures, we were this close to greatness, but it lacked faith in itself and went with the boring cliché
This is a series that has huge potential, it is easy to see what the series could have been if it had just cut out all the subplot trash, and it could have been something special.

Dennis, Atelier and his patrons are great, they are what make the series, his mother and Katie are good too, they didn't detract from anything, I just can't say the same thing about Vigo.
The way the series introduces Henrietta, Vivia and Bachel mostly works, I feel that the series fell into certain tropes with Henrietta and Atelier as it wanted to be edgy and lacked a clear sense of direction, I feel a lot of the issues I have with this series are possibly from it lacking a clear sense of direction in the early draft before it found its feet, or at least I hope that is the case because then S2 should be better and be more focused on the restaurant vibe.
But having the main characters face what has been holding them back, grow as people, grow as adventurers, and also just banter with each other as they enjoy good food, that is a vibe, that for me is the core of this series, the heart of it, and why I enjoyed it so much. Just give me more of that.

There is a lot to enjoy about this series, I was ready to give it a 7/10 and it did sit at that as a preliminary score as I was watching it, if it had actually committed to the vibe and dropped the mediocre hero party subplot, it could have been an 8/10 maybe even higher, but it is a 'hero party' anime, and the last few episodes for me were just a let down.