Carrabba's Italian Grill

Carrabba's Italian Grill
2200 W. International Speedway Blvd.
Daytona Beach, FL 32114
(386)255-3344
www.carrabbas.com

The generosity of women continues to amaze me. On September 4th, my wife and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary. How she has put up with me for 11 years, I will never know. My hope is that what happened to us at Carrabba's on that day is not a hint of things to come.

We had to attend a wedding that afternoon and on a whim decided to go to dinner to celebrate our anniversary. We also invited our friends Ronda and her husband Jeff to join us. My thoughts about where to go included Stonewood Grill, Bonefish Grill, Carrabba's or Gene's Steakhouse. How I made such a colossal mistake in choosing Carrabba's over all the others is still a mystery to me. We told Ronda and Jeff we would meet them around 4:00 at Carrabba's.

We get there a little bit late and find them waiting for us in the lobby area. I notice that there are a ton of tables open, so I ask Jeff how come they haven't gotten a table yet. Jeff tells me they were told they do not have enough wait staff to handle all of the tables at that point. I am sorry, but if you open your doors and you are short on staff then the manager on duty needs to take some tables. That's just my opinion. Admittedly, we only waited about 10 minutes, but when it was time to get a table we were escorted past no less than 20 tables and booths to a table located right outside the restrooms. I immediately voiced my displeasure and asked to be seated elsewhere. We did get another table suitable to our liking and sat down to peruse the menu.

Our waiter shows up pretty quickly to take our drink orders and we made our dinner choices. I ordered veal Marsala and decided to go with soup and garlic mashed potatoes as my side. Everyone else got salads with their entrees and vegetables as their side, except Ronda who also chose the mashed potatoes. Our soup and salads arrived in short order and the first thing I notice about my soup is a layer of grease across the top of my lentil and sausage. I decide to power on and give the soup a solid stir before taking my first taste. The soup was cold, so I remove the bay leaf I find on my spoon and sit it along with my spoon on my bread plate and begin to wait. Surely the waiter will come back to check on us and I can get him to bring me another soup or heat this up. Well, that never happened. After about 15 minutes our entrees show up. The expediter delivering our entrees sees that I have not eaten my soup and asks if there was anything wrong with it. When I tell her it was cold and I was waiting for our waiter to return to tell him, she immediately apologizes and makes an offer to get me another. However, at this point our entrees are on the table and I don't want to eat soup as my meal gets cold. Again she apologizes profusely, which I appreciate, and promises to send over the manager. She leaves and about 30 seconds later I hear the manager telling the kitchen to check the temperature on their soups. Oh well, too late for me, but maybe that will help others.

I cut into my veal Marsala to find it nice and tender. It has a great flavor, but when I take a bite of my garlic mashed potatoes, they are cold as well. I am beginning to see what is going on here. Either these foods are not being stored at safe temperatures or sides are being put on the plates way too early before the main course. I ask Ronda how her potatoes are and she agrees that they are cold. At this point, I just really want to get out of there. I leave my potatoes on the plate and finish my veal. The manager never comes to our table, so I ask for the check. Next to us is a table of six with a number of children and when I see their dishes come out it is clear the way to go at Carrabba's is pasta. All of the pasta dishes being served were steaming hot.

I take full responsibility for this debacle as I should never have gone to a chain like this for an anniversary dinner. Its just that I like Carrabba's and we never go because my daughter doesn't like it. Given that she put the kibosh on a suggestion of Bennigan's two years ago and then they closed their doors two weeks later, I should be taking her advice. I was so upset after this meal that if Johnny and Damian would have been in the restaurant that evening, I would have clunked their heads together they way Moe does Larry and Curly. It was the worst!

I have had good meals at Carrabba's in the past, but I am done with them now. For this, my last visit to Carrabba's, I give them one Stiffy.

Eat, drink and be merry!

Harry