Carrabba’s Italian Grill

We ate there on a Saturday (today)!
Quick seating and a great waitress helped us. Food was hot and very good!!! No complaints

Dependable quality meal.

Awesome Mothers Day meal! Took my wife and at the recommendation of the door man, whom we later found out was the Proprietor, we sat at the pasta bar. What an awesome experience!!! John was working the grill and provided awesome food and conversation while he was truly a grill artist! Great food professionally prepared and outstanding taste! It is truly a different experience to have the cook hand you your dinner plate. Ashton was by far the best Carrabbas waitress we have had, her and John made quite the team! She was always on point with drinks and clearing the bar at just the right times. Very professional yet personal attentive service! We will return frequently to this location, if you go try sitting at the pasta bar, it is AWESOME! Thanks for a great experience Scott and team!

I usually come for minestrone soup. The soup here is consistent with other locations I have visited.
Very nice.
However, the pasta dish I ordered is definitely not what I would expect from a Carrabba’s kitchen.
It lacked sufficient sauce, and the fettuccine stuck together.
Rather bland, actually. Very surprised. Definitely did not meet my expectations.. .
At the price point for a pasta dish here, this leaves me very disappointed.
Staff is friendly and accommodating, no problems there.
I ordered takeout for both visits here, and unfortunately did not have the chance to have the meal corrected.
From this last experience, I doubt very seriously I would return.

Came here for dinner on a business trip. Excellent food. The service was okay. They brought the food out almost too quick. Didn’t have time to take 3 bites of the appetizer before the salad was out. Didn’t finish the sale before the main course was there. But the food is amazing. Most everything is wood grilled which gives it a very unique flavor. Great place. Would go again.

Another adventure for the Halls and a hang out for my kids to see their Aunt and cousins.
We sat up at the bar area so we could watch them cook our food. First time for us and definitely an enjoyable experience. Kids loved it, the appetizers came out quickly and were delicious. Our server was very attentive to our needs –making sure our glasses of tea were always full. One of the perks being up there was we never had to wait between our courses– as soon as we were done with our apps — the main course came. I had their pizza, Andrea their steak and Lexie had their Chicken Alfredo Fettuccine. Spot on!
Atmosphere is very nice — can come in — enjoy a nice family meal — best part of it — you got your moneys worth.
Thanks for a wonderful service, we will be back again

Certainly we can all agree reviews are merely a snapshot of one’s individual experience of a restaurant’s performance, and each experience can vary based on what is going on at the restaurant during the time we choose to visit. Carrabba’s menu is pretty consistent across the chain’s vast number of locations, the recipe’s have been designed to satisfy the largest number of customers and eliminates the need for the cooks to be creative. The responsibility of the restaurant’s ability to execute the business plan lies solely on the shoulders of the store’s manager, so when something is lacking it always boils down to a management issue. It’s clear the problems identified in this restaurant’s reviews start at the top and trickles down which is one reason you see the large swing in reviews of this location.
The Restaurant’s Characteristics — This is a smaller restaurant model compared to most of Carrabba’s restaurant locations, the design, signage, décor and employee uniforms are typical making it familiar to promote a sense of comfort and consistency for the customer.
The Food — The menu is consistent by design, this allows the customer to rely on past food experiences to make the decision to choose this brand over their competitors, based on taste, ambience and pricing not so much on service or the previous dining experience, similar to fast food models which relies on the brand’s marketing strengths not so much the performance of one individual location. It’s ok, consistent but never great.
The Management — Since the toughest part of any business is shaping and developing people this is also the biggest reason for low production numbers and a mediocre customer experience here. You can clone the food, the building, the tables, the chairs and the lighting but the wild card is the people which means the focus needs to be on the management team, since the hourly staff is a revolving door. If you get the management team wrong the results look like this location.
The Experience — Arrived at 9PM, greeted and seated immediately, our very pleasant server arrives takes our drink and food order, shortly afterwards delivers drinks, bread and oil, more customers arrived in our section, soup arrived hot, salad arrives on a chilled plate (it’s always appreciated that corporate’s policy is to serve their salads in this manner). First entrée arrives appears to have sat awhile then my pizza arrives it’s cold and wrong, servers presents the ticket to me showing it was the kitchens fault not hers (I don’t care who’s fault it is, the problems is it was delivered without being verified for accuracy before being served who’s managing the kitchen?). My remade pizza arrives correct so now I’m eating alone since my lovely companion has been done eating long before I get mine and her leftovers have already been boxed to take home. The check hits the table we pay, no apology, no sense of remorse for ruining our dining experience, no thank you hope to see you again, no manager in sight the entire night, and definitely no plans to return. The positive is we had a gift card and a six dollar balance after paying the bill which we tossed in the trash upon exiting…

We love this Carrabba’s! Dinner here a couple of weeks ago. It was busy, but my husband and I were seated immediately. Great food and great service! We will be returning many times.

I worked here for 3 years and honestly this place was one of the best restaurants I ever worked at. The kitchen crew really cared about the food we put out and the servers cared about the customers.

Carrabbas has always been a favorite of mine. I would always order the same thing every time because I knew it would be delicious. Then we tried the Plant City location… We have eaten in the restaurant twice and ordered to-​go a few times. I ordered my usual from them when we are in the restaurant and it was not good. Chicken was charred and it just didn’t taste the same. This past weekend we ordered to-​go to give then one last try. We ordered chicken Alfredo, a grilled chicken Caesar salad and dessert. The pasta was completely dry and stuck together in one big clump. If it weren’t supposed to have been prepared, this might be acceptable but with sauce included it was a disaster. My husbands salad came in two side salad boxes with just the lettuce and a little shredded cheese. The chicken for the salad was in a cup somewhere. Good thing my husband thought to look for it. I ordered Tiramasu (sp?) it was the worst I’ve ever had. Soggy, it just didn’t even taste right. This will be the last time we try the Plant City location. The one in Brandon is A+ always.

No bread (the nifty bread every other Carraba’s gives you when you sit down). They had bread … and I wish they had substituted the bread they had. The server didn’t offer us cheese for our pasta and apparently didn’t hear when I asked for it … or the second time I asked.

My wife just returned from a group luncheon at Caraba’s. Both the food and the service was TERRIBLE! The manager said that because it was such a large group, we should’ve requested a smaller (reduced) menu. Well, they knew weeks in advance we had approximately 20 ladies coming. One would think that a «reduced» menu would have been mentioned when making the reservation! There was also another large group there plus other «walk in» customers. There were only two waitresses working!
It was so bad, the manager did not charge our party anything… that’s right, NO CHARGE!
We made sure we tipped the waitresses for their effort. However, I, for one, will not come to this Caraba’s again.

Always the best food. Always the best service. Lasagna is fantastic. Never had any problems here.

I have never had a bad meal at any Carrabba’s that I have been to and this was no exception tonight. Food was excellent as always and the service that we received from Jewel was nothing less than excellent.
I think anyone posting bad reviews are just incredibly picky or just like to complain.

As Carrabbas go. The Plant City location was a disappointment. The visit started ordinarily enough as we were immediately greeted by a friendly hostess upon entrance. We were promptly seated and then we waited. And waited to be met by our sever Brittany. To add perspective it wasn’t busy. Oh about 10 minutes later we finally were greeted by her. Brittany was friendly enough but she wasn’t very helpful and was more of just an order taker. We ordered drinks and calamari for an appetizer. I was a bit surprised when our appetizer arrived about five minutes before our drinks. Keep in mind this place wasn’t busy. We ordered dinner after we received our drinks. We each ordered an Caesar salad and we shared the chicken trio with fett alf. Our salads arrived cold but the dressing wasn’t evenly spread and the croutons were bland. Our dinner arrived shortly after. The chicken was just warm and not hot but the fett alf was very good and hot. As chain restaurants go Carrabbas is usually very good, but this location was just meh.

Excellent happy hour & I’ve never had anything but a good experience as far as in-​restaurant service. My gift card was recently stolen and their management team was super helpful.

Some of the worst service ever at a chain from servers, kitchen all the way to the manager

Service very mediocre. My mom and I ordered a dessert to go at the end of our meal. It was great as far as the taste however the presentation needed a lot of help. It looked like it had been dropped on the floor or eaten off of when given to us.

Very busy, early dinner and large 50^th B-​day party crowd, but my party of 2 was seated immediately. Waited on within a few minutes afer seated. Nervous, seemingly overwhelmed, but pleasant petite female server. Food was blah; the bread was warm & toasty, but the house salad and The Damian (grilled salmon & shrimp and scallops) pricey entrée were mediocre at best.

The restaurant larger than I expected. Many seats to offer guest coming thought the doors. Service was adequate and friendly but it was also early with few tables. They had booths and tables.
The olive oil that came with the bread had extra herbs to it that make the dip tastier. The Linguine Pescatore (with shrimp, scallop, and mussels) was good with a side of salad or soup that came with it (all pasta dishes come w that option).