Larkin's — Restaurant in Greenville

I really wanted to like this place, as they had everything going for them to the very end. The end hurt the most. I had looked at numerous restaurants based on reviews for places to eat. This past Saturday 4/26, and despite my better judgement, I cancelled reservations I had researched...on the urge to look for a Tomahawk Ribeye (w/open res). We picked Larkin's and when we arrived, I immediately thought "This will be fun". Great layout with the open bar to the outdoor seating, dining reminiscent of their old location, and more outdoor seating out back. We were a few minutes early and grabbed a cocktail at the bar that had a nice view of city. The hostess approached us when our table was ready and we were seated in a cute spot. At this point I want to call out the first note of why this should have gone well. I saw the Manager and asked specifically if the Tomahawk was available. He responded with "Yes it is" and I let him know I was looking forward to it. We sat at our table and had a great waiter who told us the history about the establishment, made the mood very chill, and was super quick with just popping in or bringing things to the table. We ordered a bottle of wine and once again, I felt things were going very well because the waiter noticed the pricing of the wine I ordered was significantly lower (by 2.25 x's - Nice catch, thanks). We ordered the 30oz Tomahawk and the 7oz filet. Now, shortly after ordering, and I am talking minutes later, I called the waiter over. This is where my other point should be noted. I asked the waiter if the Tomahawk is served carved and sliced up, or would I be presented with the full steak? He stated they do it either way. I asked for the whole thing as “I like to tackle it myself". I made comments about other places that slice it up behind the scenes as a concern as I’m unaware if it had time to rest, etc. If you're going to pay a price for a meal, I'd like to have it my way. I was advised it would come the way I’d like it and on a cutting board. Once again, I was very excited. Just after that we enjoyed our wine and had plenty of time to chat. Fast forward a bit and our meal approached, and I noticed the Manager brought it over and our waiter had a concerned look on his face. When the cutting board was placed in front of me, the entire tomahawk was completely carved, off the bone, trimmed, and sliced. My better half gasped out loud, lol. My heart sunk and I stated that we had an issue. The Manager could only state the kitchen made a mistake and that "Dessert was on the house" and he walked away. The waiter stepped in to make it right and talked about how he made attempts to make it right before coming to the table; but the way it seemed when he said "I told my manager that he would have to deliver it" made it seem like I was going to be made to eat what I didn't ask for. It may sound corny, but that sh*t broke my heart man, lol. I then said "Let your manager know, he can keep the desserts. Also, let them know how absolutely disappointed I am about this." The dessert part is also very funny as we had no intentions of it, nice job at making that look like an afterthought in front of people. lol. Anyway, I repeated how disappointed I was to make it clear. The waiter offered to take the 7oz filet off the bill, I said "leave it". This place should have known better to even ask me what to take off. Did I send it back? I ate that miserable 30 oz steak because I wanted to; but I felt like the biggest sucker for doing so. So, I ate the whole thing and let me tell you, it was dry and, the waiter only popped in once to hand the bill. The Larkin's cheeriness was gone. With tip, $454 (I didn't skimp on the tip and nothing was removed). That might be a drop in the bucket for this place or to some people, but not for me. Again, I felt like a sucker, but I just didn't have it in me to go further. When I changed the reservations that day and said "I don't want to go to a chain", I ate my own words, because at it much better. That was very low of...

Unfortunately, the experience I had today was one of the worst dining experiences I have had while living in Greenville (I’ve lived here my entire life). I am leaving this feedback in hopes that the restaurant will read it make some changes so they can have a long and successful future.

The service I would say this was the worst service I have ever had in a restaurant. Our waitress never took our drink order so we had to ask to order some drinks. It took 30 minutes for our drinks to arrive (we didn’t even order cocktails…two beers and two glasses of champagne). She never asked if we wanted to order another drink or refilled our water the entire length of our visit (which was about 2 hours long). She came by our table a total of 3 times (once to take our food order, once to deliver the food, once to bring the check). Our food took an hour and half to arrive and when it arrived it was not hot. Our waitress never came by to check on us and see if we wanted another drink while we were waiting or gave us an update on our food or checked on us. We asked for our check and she completely messed up the check but didn’t seem to care. For how long our visit was, I would have expected more communication from our waitress.

The food We ordered the calamari for an appetizer (which came out room temp), the fish sandwich with fries (came out room temp), the steak sandwich (came out warm but not hot and had a very small portion of fries), and the kids chicken tenders which came with 3 tenders and was $16. The food wasn’t awful but it wasn’t great and in no way did it make up for all of the other bad aspects of our visit. All of the handheld menu items come with chips and if you would like fries there is a $5 up charge. The fries look exactly like McDonald’s fries and I would never pay an additional $5 for the fries due to the poor quality and also the quantity that they serve (it was a small handful).

Poor kitchen hygiene and management Probably the most concerning aspect of our visit was the poor hygiene we noted in the kitchen/plating area. They have an open kitchen concept and we could see the mass disorganization and chaos going on with orders. You could see the kitchen staff were working as hard as they possibly could trying to crank out as many orders as possible but there was a disconnect between the servers/kitchen management and the people cooking the food. Whoever was plating the food had a rag that she used to wipe something off the counter and then used that exact same rag to wipe something off someone’s plate. This type of poor hygiene is was contributed to food borne illnesses. Also, this same woman had gloves on and was touching all kind of different items and then touching and adding things to people’s plates. If you have any kind of allergy this would be concerning, but regardless of allergies, the cross contamination and potential for bacteria to get on food is astounding.

Overall, The restaurant seems extremely mismanaged from the servers to the bartenders to the kitchen staff. We will not be returning to Larkins for the foreseeable future but I do wish them well and hope they can make some significant changes that will allow them to flourish in the downtown Greenville food scene. For a “higher end” restaurant I would expect better service and better food. I would not recommend this restaurant at this time and particularly if you are wanting to celebrate something special where you want to have a...

First let me say that I had been to the previous location on multiple occasions and loved everything about my experience but last week I went to the new location for my wife’s birthday and to say I was disappointed and even confused with the experience would be an understatement.

When we walk into the new location we look to the left at a beautiful bar area then as I turn to the hostess stand I see a bland area of tables behind her. No table clothes, terrible brown booth seats, and just an underwhelming feel that reminded me of a Denny’s. Thankfully as I looked past the “Denny’s” area I could see the kind of seating I would expect from a restaurant of this price range. Black booth seating, white table clothes, etc…

Once seated we met our waiter. Nice guy and a very solid waiter but I was shocked to see him wearing jeans and a basic button up shirt at a restaurant like this. As a retired professional bodybuilder and a social media influencer I like to take pics of everything that hits my table from the drinks, apps, salads, mains, and desserts to take my following on the journey with me. As always I started doing so when the apps came out but as the apps left and more courses started coming I realized that nobody was cleaning the crumbs off of our table and frankly it looked far too bad to post so I didn’t. I guess that worked out because my wife and I ordered the same medium rare steak and neither of them had consistent temperature throughout. They were fine but a far cry of what I had experienced with Larkins in the last at their old location.

Overall my biggest complaint is that it was as if the concept lost its way and y’all couldn’t decide if you wanted to be a trendy high end bar, a middle of the road spot for a quick bite, or a fine dining restaurant. By the end the evening the only part that was 100% what I would expect from fine dining was the price. $300 plus tip is exactly what I expect to pay for fine dining but with that I expect the full fine dining experience which I did not receive.

I truly hope that things get better for Larkin’s because it was a huge fall from grace for me. I have included a picture illustrating what can only be described as two different restaurants in one location. My hope is that the price in the Denny’s area is drastically cheaper but I assume it is not. If the goal is to get more people to just pop in maybe not as well dressed, just state on your website that there is no dress code and as long as you have a hungry stomach and a full wallet you’re...