Culver’s — Restaurant in Kenosha

When we first moved to the Milwaukee area from Oregon in 2017 on a job transfer, we discovered Culver's on our day trips to learn more about our new home state of Wisconsin.

We long ago gave up on fast food. But based on a co-worker's recommendation, we tried Culver's and found it much better than McD's, Burger King, etc. So it became a habit to include a Culver’s on our outings.

Fast-forwarding to the present, our dining-out habits have only begun to recover from the Covid pandemic. But on May 12, 2022, we had driven down to Illinois Beach State Park in search of a bird rarity (we’re amateur ornithologists) after work. It was well past our dinner time when we started back north, and we still had an hour or more to drive. We remembered there was a Culver’s on the south side of Kenosha with outdoor seating, so we shaped a course for it.

Though getting late, the place was packed with cars in the drive-through, people standing around in the ordering area, and employees — lots of employees! It seemed like there were more people behind the county than in front of it.

We ordered inside, planning to have our food delivered to an outdoor table. Austin was our attendant, and he was polite enough. I ordered a North Atlantic Cod Filet Sandwich which I’d not tried before, and my wife ordered a ButterBurger with fried onions. We both got a side of Wisconsin Cheese Curds, and cups for water.

We paid the $15.07 tab, then we went outside to grab a table.

A good 25 minutes later our food finally showed up, and with no apologies for the slow service.

My fish sandwich was lukewarm, bland, and mostly airy bun. My wife’s burger was a pathetic little thing, and the only thing on it was a glob of onions that tasted like they’d first gone rancid, then were overcooked into a bitter little mass of brownness.

By this point we were starving, it was getting dark, and had no desire to wait another 25 minutes for an improved batch of food. We gagged down what we could, and wrote it off to experience. On the upside, the cheese curds were pretty good, so at least we didn’t leave completely hungry.

Now, this isn’t the first bad experience we’ve had at a Culver’s. We had already noticed a general decline in quality when we stopped in at Culver’s before the pandemic. But this was a whole new level of bad. So we’re now done with Culver’s for good. We’d gotten pretty good at packing our own lunches during Covid, and we’ll just go back to that permanently. Too bad, because we were big Culver’s fans for a while there.

UPDATE: I see the Culver's PR engine quickly responded, wanting me to email so they can "speak with me directly about this." Why on earth would I waste more time on this, after all the trouble I went through to write a comprehensive review? I think it's the unit manager they need to speak with...

I don't normally write poor reviews but I've been sitting on this for a while and the way I was treated is still bothering me so here we go. When I pulled in through the drivethru at this Culver's there were no other cars being waited on. I was waiting there a few minutes when an older woman (maybe in her 50's-60's) got on the intercom and asked me to hold on just a while longer - I have no inherent issues with that. Although after a little while longer, another car pulled into the adjacent drivethru lane, and was immediately waited on by a chipper young woman before me. Finally, the staff member helping me returned but her tone became almost condescending/sarcastic when she greeted me again asking, "What [she] can make fresh for [me] today?". I asked for a burger basket and had requested a plain burger with just ketchup. Now, I've been wording my hamburger orders for YEARS like this at many restaurants and have never had any issues. The reason I word it this way is because oftentimes restaurant staff get confused and I end up with a burger with other toppings or I end up somehow getting cheeseburgers with only ketchup by mistake. Never have I ever gotten attitude or been scolded for my semantics and rudely shouted at, "well then it's not a PLAIN burger, is it?". I didn't want to argue about something so menial so I just specified as nicely as I could that as long as it's a plain burger on a bun with ketchup as the only topping then I'd be set. Pulling up to the window there were two young women at their stations facing me that greeted me nicely and took my payment. The woman that helped me was on the opposite end of the window in a station facing the corner and away from customers, she didn't acknowledge anything or look up. I wish I knew the name of that lady that took my order but the receipt just says "Order Taker" leading me to believe that maybe this lady was just filling in. In the future, I'd recommend NOT utilizing her for a customer-facing role. The food came out fine but I'd never had any customer service issues at any Culver's before this.

Edit 7/8: My original rating was 2/5 stars. Now adjusted to 1/5 stars for how this was handled, or rather, how it sounds like it won’t be. Cayla responded to the survey I submitted to the Culver’s website as the comment below indicated I should do. She apologized on behalf of the staff, stating maybe they had a bad day, and said the drive-thru will be monitored but because they don’t save the schedules that far back they don’t know who took my order so they may end up having a talking to with the wrong employee - her words. No further action has been taken at this time or efforts...

Just experienced the Worst service I've ever had in Anywhere!, from this Culvers location on Sheridan rd.!! My $51.00 dollar order was almost completely made and giving to me wrong in drive thru. When my childrens dad got back with the food and I noticed that my Ruben Sandwich was not in the bags and all the chicken strip baskets were missing and was giving chicken sandwiches instead😞 I called the manager right away, told her about the mix up.. She apologize & advised me that the order would be remade by the time I drove all the way back.. When I got back with my receipt another young male manager stepped in and argued a bit with me and said he over heard the order take place and they had thought that we said chicken crisp baskets.So it wasent thier fault on the mix up and he seemed to doubt me on forgeting the Ruben Sandwich, like I was lying or something.. I could not believe what was happening! ..He then refused to give me my correct order due to the fact that I had not brought back my wrong chicken sandwiches to them, which is partly my mistake, I guess, because I just quickly ran out of the house to grab my correct order because at this time my kids were crying for their chicken strips, but the girl manager on the phone said just come right back to pick up the right and missing items. So now im at home with no correct food I orderd. And now Im left tonight with three cold chickencrisp and no Ruben ..Shame on this staff at Culvers. I am so upset right now..Im probably red in the face. I have never been so disgused and humiliated by service ever!! I have been in retail/ customer service for over 20 years and being one of the leads at Ace Hardware where I give 100% great service everyday to everyone, I would of been instantly terminated if I did even a fraction of the horrible service that happened to me! I ran to McDonald's out of desperation for nuggets for my kids. And I eat my husbands Butterbuger cuz no Ruben for me😞 If you've ever been so mad you wanna cry, thats how I feel~Culvers . I tryed to give 0 stars,...