Long review because I'm a Culver's stan who is a bit disgruntled. This location is in a tourist area and may be a customer's first experience with the brand. They really need to do better!
We got spoiled by the award-winning Culver's in Casselberry for a few years before we moved to the coast, so this location was a bit of a shock. As other reviewers have noted, order accuracy is indeed a huge problem here. We get our bacon maybe 3 times out of 4 after paying extra for it. Occasionally when we order a triple, we get a double instead. But of course you don't find that out til you get home and disassemble everything.
Custards also tend to come out wrong in varying ways. I'll give them credit for creativity. Sometimes the portion is wrong, sometimes it's vanilla instead of flavor of the day--but most worrisome, sometimes the toppings are wrong. I have food intolerances, so accidental cookie/brownie/pie/peanut topping is a deal breaker. So far it hasn't been anything I can't have, but several times it's been something I didn't want--often resting atop a laughable portion.
I have not once succeeded in getting a supreme chili on the first try (and sometimes not even the second)--but I won't be trying anymore because the chili is not right anyway. It seems to have filler in it, kind of like what you find in a can of beef stew, only not as good. If this location is your only experience with Culver's, that is *not* what the chili is supposed to taste like.
Drive thru has been better since they put humans outside instead of having to talk into a speaker. Although with the speaker at least you (ideally) get a visual list of what you ordered and you can spot errors before they propagate. I do wish they'd provide chairs for the order takers tho. Standing for hours is brutal anywhere, but especially in the Florida heat. Again I cite Casselberry, where chairs are provided and the order taking does not suffer in the least.
Slight tangent...
At one point, I noticed that the custard "flavor of the day" page named each location's owner(s). While we were still house hunting, we discovered that Port Orange had their act together better than Daytona. I decided to peep the ownership. PO listed owners but Daytona did not--and has not, ever, to my knowledge. We ultimately bought a house closer to Daytona and didn't venture to PO for a while. By the time we went back, their accuracy was almost as bad as Daytona's. Oh look, new owner! The former PO owners have a newer location elsewhere. One of the reviews on this page has a response from a (deleted?) account matching the name of the new PO owner, who also claims to own Daytona. Hmm. Why not put your name on it?
Then one time we went to Daytona and the order was PERFECT. Nothing missing, everything cooked right and assembled correctly.
What is this witchcraft?
Went back again not long after that--same thing, perfection.
Had they turned over a new leaf?
They were *slammed* on one of those visits, and I couldn't help noticing the manager. He was calm and collected, offering direction and encouragement to the workers and jumping in to help, even when one employee was shockingly unprofessional to him.
For a while, it seemed like he was there every time we visited. Accuracy continued to be great for a month or two. Then he was gone, and the accuracy went downhill again.
We saw him again on a subsequent trip to PO. Good to know he's still around at least.
"J" seemed like a quiet guy so I won't put him on blast by name, but I'm pretty sure they know who their clean-up guy is. Corporate, if you're reading this, I have seen what an award-winning Culver's franchisee looks like, and this guy is it. It would be a happy day if I pulled up the Daytona flavor of the day and saw him as the owner!
I will continue to go back because of the custard and the gluten free options--it's one of the few fast-food joints where I can get a burger *on a bun*, like the rest of humanity--but not the once or twice a week frequency like we did in Casselberry.
...unless J turns up on the FOD page :-D
oh and for the love of glob, PLEASE stop putting pot roast in hamburger boxes. It's too wet. Large side dish cups are the way. read more