Where to begin? HIGHLY disappointing experience. I created an account on the Culver's website and received a coupon for a BOGO Culver's Value Meal. My 16 year old son had never been to a Culver's and I let him use the coupon (try feeding a 6'1" growing teenager, lol). The first red flag was when we entered, there were no other customers at the counter and the lone cashier behind the register couldn't be bothered to greet us or ask us if we'd like to order. No. She just stood there doing nothing except looking like she wished she could be anywhere else but there. After looking at the menu for a few more minutes we began our order.
My son ordered a basic Butterburger with cheese, tomato and mayo and a Chicken Sandwich for the 2nd meal. He got fries with one meal and Cheese Curds with the other, along with some pretzel bites, a sweet tea and upgraded the 2nd meal drink to a Peanut Butter Shake. I ordered the 10-piece Jumbo Shrimp meal with Slaw, Fries and a sweet tea. I paid for our meal and thought $36 was kind of high for 2 meals, but maybe it was the because of the upgrades for the curds, pretzel bites and shake. Got our number and took a booth seat. About 10 minutes later a girl brought out my son's 2 value meals and drinks, but that's it. I thought maybe the girl couldn't fit it all in one trip and continued to wait. After another 10 minutes I got up and went to the counter asking where the rest of our meal was. The employees behind the counter (3 or 4 girls standing around chatting) were like "Oh, we were trying to figure out who it belonged to" turning and grabbing my shrimp meal and handing it to me. Well, maybe if you brought ALL the meals out for an order at the same time, you wouldn't be left wondering?
I sat down and started eating my meal. The Slaw was pretty good. A close copycat of KFC's slaw (which I like), but the fries were cold (probably from sitting in the pass through waiting to be picked up.) The shrimp was decent size but fairly bland in flavor, nothing special, plus they'd placed 3 of the pieces atop the slaw (who wants fried shrimp basted in slaw juice?) Culver's brags about how their hamburger is "never frozen", but I'm guessing that's the ONLY food item that isn't as the Shrimp wasn't any different from what you can get in the frozen aisle at Walmart. Same can be said for the fries. Go buy a package of crinkle-cut fries from your local grocer and cook them yourself at home and that's Culver's fries. The sweet tea was nothing special either. It tasted like your basic Nestea powdered mix that leaves a bad after taste in your mouth. Thank god the slaw was tasty.
As for my son's meals, he liked the burger and the shake, but didn't touch his fries at all. He thought the curds and pretzel bites were ok, but only finished the pretzel bites. And his chicken sandwich? It looked like it'd been run over with a steamroller. Seriously, the chicken patty was barely an 1/8" thick and ALMOST covered the small bun it was in. NOT worth what they charge for it, not even at half price.
But as if the service and food wasn't already mediocre enough, as I'm eating, I look at my receipt and see why the meals were so expensive. They charged me full price for all 3 and did NOT give me the BOGO offer I'd shown 3 different times to the cashier.
We finished our meals (what we ate anyway) and as we headed out, I stopped at the counter and ask for the manager. I showed her my receipt and questioned her about the BOGO offer I didn't receive. She looked at it and verified that we didn't get the offer, then asked if I'd shown it to the cashier. Um, yea, 3 DIFFERENT TIMES while ordering! Then she proceeded to tell me she couldn't refund the overcharge because we had upgraded the meal. I told her to just refund the amount of the meal minus the upgrade charge, but she said she couldn't do that as it was a debit charge (this is from the manager mind you.) After a couple more minutes of going back and forth with her, we ended up telling her to just give me the refund back in cash, which she finally relented to and did.
So yea, not a great experience at all. Poor service and mostly poor to mediocre food. I might give them another try at a (much) later date, but am undecided. Honestly, I've been cooking burgers using real butter at home for years and they're one of my son's favorite meals I make. Very tasty, juicy and seasoned just right. My son said he'd go back again, probably only for the peanut butter shake, but doubted he'd get food there again. And after all that we experienced, I can't say I blame him. If the owners don't do something to improve the employee's customer service competence and skillset, and vastly improve the quality of the food they offer, I'd be surprised if this location makes it more than a couple more years. Really, the Burger King they tore down to build this location had better service and food, and I don't even like BK. Ugh!! read more