Bob Evans — Restaurant in Middletown

On mother's day we were thinking of going out to eat, the idea was tossed around but ultimately we all decided we didn't wanna deal with the crowds and had been digging in the gardens and planting flowers all day and were beat. Sooooo take out it was! We didn't want to drive thru take out. We wanted a dinner dinner. Some places take out is easier than others, which narrowed down our choices. I like it when places have large family meals for one price. Bob Evans has PHENOMENAL meals! We got the sliced turkey over stuffing and country fried steak family meals with mashed potatoes n gravy, Cole slaw, and green beans w/ pork for flavoring, and it came with so many rolls and butter. It fed all 5 of us WELL!!! It said fed 6 ppl, but that's not accurate. If your family eats little portions, maybe, but it fed 5 of us very well. I will say they had cranberry sauce, too, with the sliced turkey n stuffing. I am a huge fan of canned ocean spray cranberry sauce. Not usually a fan of the chunky kind, but theirs was DELICIOUS!!!!But It was literally a teaspoon size amount for 5 ppl, literally just a teaspoon. I was super disappointed because that stuff was great!!! But now I know to order extra. Gravy options came with everything, and you could alter which gravy you preferred. Turkey gravy came with the sliced turkey and the mashed potatoes you had your choice of what gravy you wanted. The country fried steak came with the white gravy, too. Alllllllll of that tasted very homemade too. It wasn't bland or lacking flavor. I mean, the stuffing reminded me of stouffers, but I love that boxed stuffing. It has a lot of herbs, and it isn't soggy like a lot of ppls homemade versions But hey, to each their own right? Anywho, the Cole slaw, I expected to be great too, no quite the opposite! It tasted spicy. It literally tasted like it had horseradish in it. I have NEVER had coleslaw mixed with horseradish, idk y anyone would do that, but they did, or at least it tasted like it. It wasn't a black pepper spice it definitely tasted Zesty n just like horseradish (I am foodie, lol) . The green beans w pork chunks were delicious! It wasn't greasy and fatty n buttery. It was just the chunks of pork to add flavor, not pork drippings and lard. It had a very light buttery taste to them, and they tasted like fresh green beans almost had the steamed texture still too, not pot boiled soft. The sizes of the sides were very large. Like the thick, tall, clear plastic containers full of each side. Their larges are true to the name LARGE! You know how u order a large "family" side, and it looks like a personal large, and each one of you could literally eat one of your own? Yeah? No, these are LARGE LARGE! All the gravy were spot on, too, very well flavored. The turkey was fresh tasting and not dried out. The country fried steak was good, I wouldn't say great, it definitely came across as like I feel like I could buy this in a box in the frozen isle n nuke it and get the same taste. But with tip and feeding 5 people, it was like 75$ total n I pulled right up, and they came right out. It was easy and effortless. I would absolutely eat there again and try other family combo's they have and highly recommend anyone check them out, not even...

UPDATE: The service and food has improved. We really enjoyed our breakfast there the last couple of times we went.

ORIGINAL REVIEW: The food is usually good, but the kitchen staff doesn't seem to know the menu, so be sure you check your food for accuracy when served to you.

Also, service is hit or miss there. My visit before last, my friend and I had a horrible female waitress. We waited a very long time, about 10 minutes, just to place our drink orders. And for that to happen, I stopped a waitress and asked her to tell our server we had been seated, thinking the person wasn't told. Lo and behold, the lady I stopped was our server. She asked us to wait a bit more for her. Considering the amount of people in there, I found that a pointless request, considering it was far from filled, only about 5 tables had people and she had spent much of our waiting-time talking to and laughing with three ladies who had already finished and were just chatting and finishing their drinks. The rest of our time with her didn't improve, but I'll spare the rest of the poor service she provided.

Unfortunately, I have had more average to poor service here, than average to great

The last time my friend and I went, we had the best waiter ever! He was attentive and had a lot more tables to handle than the prior waitress. He got a huge tip and we told the manager he...

My husband and I decided to stop here this morning while we were on our way to do some grocery shopping. We were seated right away, however, no server came to greet us. While my husband went to the men's room, I figured someone would approach me to take our drink order. My husband returned right away and was surprised he didnt have a cup of coffee waiting for him. I informed him no one had come to take our order or anything. After another 10 minutes had passed and still no server, although there were servers at all the other tables around us. We even had a server look our way but didn't even approach us. Were we supposed to flag someone down? We stood up to leave and as I was putting on my coat a woman who probably was the manager asked if a server had come to our table, I responded no. She asked if she could help, again I responded no. Needless to say we will not be spending our money at this Bob Evans. Your loss was Middletown Diner's gain as we were seated and served within a couple of minutes of arriving. The Middletown Diner's food was awesome and arrived nice and hot, which we enjoyed tremendously. The service at the Middletown Diner was exceptional from the person who seated us, to our server to the cashier. So thank you Bob Evans because if you had served us today, we would never have found the...