Carrabba's - The Original On Kirby — Restaurant in Houston

The short version of the review is that if all you want is fairly good food, then this is a good place. Each of the dishes that we tried were amazing. But if you are looking for something other than food for your experience visiting this restaurant, you are out of luck.

I am a bit hesitant to give a passing grade on Decor. If you are only looking for how the place look, it does look nice when you enter, before they sit you down. But from there everything went downhill.

The waiting staff is obviously extremely undertrained. They take a long time taking your order, the waiter messed up the order twice. One person in our party needed the gluten free menu, and the waiter didn't even know what sides could accompany the dishes there. And although I would not describe the service as plain rude, I have to say that I have had much better service at a truck stop.

Then, as the place was somewhat pack, instead of telling people that there would be a waiting period, they continued packing more and more tables in the little space there were. Twice we were moved, to make space for more tables, and this was around 7PM on a Sunday, not a time when they are barely opening.

Also, the place is not well distributed. I have been to restaurant of similar size where you can have a pleasant conversation with the person across the table, even with the place full. Here, I had problems listening to the person next to me. And of course, as everybody has the same problem, I had a better chance to listen to the conversations in some of the tables near by, as they were almost yelling to each other.

To make matter worse, although the food was delicious, it took them for ever to bring it. Let's say that we sat down at around 7 sharp, and we left at around 9PM, no coffee, no desert, nothing.

My praises to the kitchen staff, that seem to have been the only really competent employees on shift. The rest of the staff was at best incompetent. The person who recommended the chain to me says that he had never visited this one in particular, and that it seems to be the exception, but if you are in Kirby, skip Carrabba's and go somewhere else. I swear, I'll never...

Dear Carrabba’s The Original Team,

I hope you are doing well.

I am writing to share my disappointment regarding the experience I had during my recent visit to your restaurant on Sunday, March 20th. I was dining with three other people, and as someone who frequently travels to Houston for business, Carrabba’s The Original has always been a must-stop for me since I first discovered it. Unfortunately, this recent visit has left me with concerns I feel compelled to address.

We were served by José Aguirre, who was very kind and courteous throughout our meal. However, I must mention that he repeatedly interrupted our conversations to share personal stories and topics that, while likely well-intentioned, were not of interest to us and disrupted our dining experience.

The main issue occurred when we asked for the check. We were charged for a Margherita pizza that we did not order. The only pizza we requested was a pepperoni pizza, of which only half was eaten. When we asked to have the remaining half packed up along with some leftover bread, we trusted everything would be properly handled. Unfortunately, when we arrived at our lodging in Conroe, we realized that the half of the pizza we hadn’t eaten was not included in what we were given to take away.

At that point, returning to the restaurant to address the issue was not an option, as we were already in Conroe and I was scheduled to return to my home country the following day.

Situations like this are disappointing, especially considering we paid a substantial bill and left a generous tip. My intention in reaching out is to provide constructive feedback so that similar incidents can be avoided in the future and so that the high standard of service I’ve always experienced at Carrabba’s The Original can be maintained.

Thank you for your attention to...

Tonight we had our church volunteer appreciation dinner at Carrabba’s. What an awesome night! The restaurant looks stunning, even more so than usual with all the holiday decorations. I have been coming here for many years, and it is always beautiful and an amazing experience. Tonight Ishmael and Darwin and the support staff were wonderful. I never had to ask for my glass to be refilled, or my plate to be taken. No small task with 25 people in the room for dinner. Being a former server it always is a breath of fresh air to receive excellent service, especially in this day and age of lackluster experiences at most restaurants after 2020. Every modification I asked for was kindly given to me, which I really appreciated because of being gluten free but still wanting the chicken Marsala. They had a smile on their face after any request that was made by anyone at the table, and I felt like family as I sat there. It was absolutely delicious! The chicken Marsala here is probably the best I’ve ever had. I ate the chicken Marsala at one of the franchises of Carraba’s at the airport in Atlanta in October and it was not even close. It didn’t even compare to how delicious the food is here st the Original. The servers even knew exactly when to close the doors so that we could have some quiet while we ate, visited, played a game, and went around the room to talk about the past year and our grateful hearts for our church family and our pastors. Although I do my best to give compliments instead of complaints, I don’t always succeed in remembering to do it. However, I had to post a review now while I was thinking about it so you would know how happy the whole group was with the meal and the service. Thanks for always being consistently...