Carrabba's Italian Grill — Restaurant in Knoxville

My wife, two kids and I came to resturant to enjoy a nice dinner after school shopping all day around 5pm. My wife and daughter went in to get a table while I found a place to park. Keep in mind the restaurant wasn't busy at this point as we eat here often and decided to come to an early dinner as we hoped we wouldn't have to wait as this is our families favorite restaurant. Just to be honest we are truly not sure that we will be back!! However, they were seated immediately and Sam greeted them right away, which is normally a good thing, and was asked what did they want to drink. My wife informed Sam that two others will be joining and she wasn't sure what my Son and I wanted. Sam said well do you want waters while you look at the wine list. My wife then said I really am not sure if they want tea or something else and could see us walking in. Sam obviously got aggravated and walked away. After I joined them my wife told me that she thinks she made the server upset. It took him over 10 mins to get back to us, and when he did come over, we were overly nice to him, and he was visibly upset at us. Wouldn't talk or even act like he wanted to help us at this point. He took our drink orders and the young waitress that brought our drinks and bread was extremely nice and laughed with our kids which was great. Sam then returned over 10 minutes later and ordered our food. Which my daughter got the kids penned mac and chz, my son ordered a kids tenders, my wife ordered fettuccine weezie and I ordered the new dish the filet and shrimp Toscana. My wife and I both ordered a salad and our food came shortly after. Sam did actually bring our food out, but still wasn't talking to us or being attentive at all. My wife's drink was empty at this point and no refill and not even an acknowledgement. We never got asked how our food was, my Son needed Ketchup ( never came back over ) my Wife, Son along with myself all had empty drinks to the point that when he came over to ask us if we were ready for the check I then asked if we could get refills please and he just turned and walked away. I ate 5 bites of my food and my wife barely ate hers because she was so upset that when the nice waitress brought us refills we asked for togo boxes and just took our food home with us. Sam did finally come over and didnt ask how we got togo boxes or if anything was wrong and just asked are we ready for the check. I replied with yes please. Sam immediately handed to me. The funny thing is that when I did receive my check I didn't even look at it and I just handed Sam my card as I was so over the disrespect that I didn't realize until I got home that he over charged us. My dish was $26.29, my wife's dish was $22.29, my sons was $7.99 and my daughters was $8.99 plus two drinks which was $2.99. Which is a total or $71.54 ( before tax ). My bill was $84.70 after tax! So how or where is the difference? I understand that is isn't a ton of money on the grand scheme of things however if our service was even remotely better we would never be sending this email. We tipped $15 and normally tip way more, but figured 20% was enough for terrible service from our waiter. Wr really hoped we could give it to drink and bread runner as she was incredibly sweet. We didn't realize until after we got home that something didn't add up right. So, I paid $99.70 after tip for a meal that my family now has to reheat all because our server got upset because my wife didn't know what I or my Son wanted to drink. Inexcusable and ridiculous that I am sending an email like this to a resturant that my family loves. To be honest with you I don't do this, but I would really appreciate a full refund in hopes that will reverse the sour taste we currently have...

We entered as soon as they opened. We were seated and then had to wait for a server for drink orders. The drinks came quickly.

We asked for a few minutes to decide for our food and were given quite a bit of time before the server came back.

We ordered two appetizers, drinks, and two entrees.

The calemarie was tender and tasted good. (It is always nice to find calemarie that doesn't remind one of a bike tire.)

The bread dip trio was as expected. They do put a nice amount of cheese in the Alfredo which was a nice suprise.

Things went down hill with the main courses.

He had the chicken alfredo, I had chicken marsala.

The portions on my plate were small. His was fine. For both plates the chicken was unforgivingly dry. If you need a toothpick at first bite and even that doesnt work, then there is a problem.

The service was alright. Our server did her job, even if we had to wait more than nessesary sometimes. (No. The place was not busy.)

There was no happy welcome. It was down to business, followong the script.

Oddly enough, I witnessed staff members jubilantly greet other guests, some obviously regulars so that makes sense. It was like night and day.

All in all both my partner and I were underwhelmed. We were bored with the wait between services, not happy about the lack of care for the food preparation (my salad had wilted lettuce and croutons were soggy), and overall the whole ordeal felt bland. (Seriously, there were dark spots on the leaves)

Being there went from the excitement of a date after not beomg able to have one for so long due to work, to feeling as though being a customer was a chore.

We were glad to leave, and I was sad that our date ended in such a way. I wanted to spoil my partner with one of his favorite foods, instead the lunch was soured and limp;

like my salad.

At least the bread and olive oil were good.

I highly doubt we will be back.

I heavily dislike leaving a place feeling as though I wasted my time, energy, and money.

I missed the way it used to be years ago.

Today?

The price is Not...

Had a terrible birthday dinner here tonight. I left work and we decided to meet up to have dinner for my birthday which is tomorrow. The server just seemed like we were bothering her. She forgot one of our drinks, which was the signature pear spritzer that was advertised on the menu insert that I pointed to and asked for. When our meals came, mine was right but my husbands plate was just a steak. The manager who delivered it told us that it was just the steak on the ticket. I’ve managed restaurants for years and it’s your job as the expo to question things like this. Ask the server if they wanted sides or just the steak or something to that effect. When the dinner came we still didn’t have the drink, mind you our server was one of the bartenders, and when it was finally dropped off it was some purple drink with chambord or razzmatazz in it, not the drink ordered. The manager never came back to ask if we got the sides we had ordered with the steak. When I told the waitress that the drink was wrong she said it was ok because she wasn’t going to charge us for it anyway. I ordered a second beer and when the second one came I knew it wasn’t the right beer. When I asked her about it she said oh yeah, I just rang in a bud light so I forgot what your first one was. I never told her it was my birthday and all I wanted was a piece of tiramisu but thought it best to just leave. She was nice enough to pint out that she didn’t charge us for the wrong drink and only charged me for two bud lights, which I didn’t order, and didn’t charge my husband for the up charge for the Alfredo with his steak. It took almost ten minutes to get the Alfredo and broccoli after the steak was dropped off. The food was okay, but everything else was terrible. She never told us her name and the check just said Grayson C so I don’t know if that was actually the server/bartender who waited in us or not. It sucks that this is the only Carrabbas...