Culver’s — Restaurant in Ocala

Visited Culver's at other locations and had an overall fabulous experience! Food was very hot and tasty, friendly, helpful staff, clean dining area and restrooms, parking was a breeze. Visited Ocala location 2 times since they've opened and was extremely disappointed both times! The parking and Drive-thru situation is absolutely horrid! Couldn't get into a handicapped space without causing a road rage situation because Drive-thru line went right thru that parking area. People trying to leave, Drive-thru and others attempting to park, tempers and horns were tested! It was just awful! Then once you get in to order and eat... Wow! Burger was thrown together as sloppily as Burger King or McDonald's. The fries were not the nice crunchy fries we're used to getting from Culver's, worse than Wendy's cold, greasy fries! The sandwich was not hot enough to melt the cheese. Concrete's are not mixed thru properly. Culver's has The BEST Concrete ever,, if you can get them to use the correct cherries. It's a vanilla with whole cherries, the whole cherries are maraschino cherries and being a Concrete, yes, It's all mixed together. The cherries get all chopped and mixed in together. Yum!! Those making the concretes don't know what to do if the order is for a whole cherry (instead of wild cherry). They think you don't want the cherries chopped up and seem befuddled? Or they use the wild cherries in the vanilla, mix it up and put a maraschino cherry on top. If you explain what you want at the register, they seem to understand what you want, but the staff making the Concretes at this location inevitably will make it wrong. When I took it back, I was given very rude attitudes in the multi-combination of sarcasm, dirty looks, and slamming the re-made product on the counter and just walking off to whisper with other staff and gesture at us, the worst was that it was the young man Manager on duty at the time who behaved in this childish, uncalled for tantrum! I wished I had got his name, but I had never received such rude treatment at a Culver's before and was shocked by his behavior! He was not wearing a name badge and I doubted that I would have been given his correct name if I had asked. It's a real shame to treat customers who are not being rude to staff in this manner! They are also not printing surveys on their receipts, so there is no other way to report such a problem except this way. I sincerely hope they get their act together and wrinkles ironed out soon. It would be very nice to have a Culver's here in Ocala with the same great service and quality of food we've had at Culver's in other cities! ...

This was my first experience with Culver's. Truth be told, I have never heard of them until I ran across this Culver's. We stopped in at the end of September, 2023. We entered the restaurant only to be greeted by a ghost on the wall :) Culver's was fairly busy, but the line to order went fairly quick. We picked up a menu to study before hand, so we didn't hold up other folks. We went with burger meals. She picked the Deluxe, I went with a Butter Burger. The two single burger meals (fries and a soft drink) Culver's gives you a number placard, then fill your drink, before you find a table and wait for your food to be delivered to your table. The wait wasn't all that long considering the food is prepared fresh for you, like some other burger chains, but not most. The food arrived to our table without issue. We found the food to be quite decent. My burger was just a little dry, but good. The burger was a little thin, but fairly large in size (circumference). And still better than most burger chains burgers lately. So if my burger being a little dry, was just a fluke, that's even better. The wife said her burger a quite good. We ate our meal, then made the mistake of getting custard. But since I decided to do this review, I had to do it. The custard was quite good, and somewhat reasonably priced. But even though we purchased single burgers and small custards, we were a little too full. So there's the dilemma. Burger meal or custard? I cannot have both. 😀 The restaurant and restrooms, were fairly clean and decently kept. This is the stark difference between the Culver's and another similar burger chain we like, just up the road. So Culver's was a pleasant experience with decent food and custard. We paid about $18 for single burger meals. About another $10 for small custards. I did get a Turtle sundae that was very good. So Culver's is not inexpensive. But it seems to be overly priced on par with the other burger chains. The difference is the food is a lot better than most other burger chains. There are a few that are this good. But not most of them. All in all this Culver's was decently clean. Not overly expensive, and the food actually tastes good. I'm sure we'll be back to visit...

Tonight was three strikes and your out for us. First strike was several weeks ago when we ordered from very busy drive-thru. We were asked to pull to front of store around corner as did a couple cars behind us. We watched as all the cars got their order and left. Being patient I continued to wait until it had been over 15 minutes. I went inside to ask for my order and the person turned and picked it up from a counter and handed it to me saying it must have been overlooked, sorry about that". I said, "that's it sorry about that!" They replied back, " what would you like me to do?" I had wasted enough time and just said, "if you have to ask me what to do, you need some customer service training" and left. The second issue also occurred in drive-thru, but not too busy. I ordered a meal and switched out fries for curds. I only asked to switch the fries for curds and not an additional order of curds, which was repeated back to me. I was charged for the upgrade and an additional order of curds, which I did not receive. Finally, tonight ordered in busy drive-thru again and was asked to pull to front of store and park. We watched the drive-thru clear out as well as several new vehicles without getting our food. After 20 minutes I went inside and asked for a refund. My wife came in and said they finally brought the food. This was after several minutes waiting inside to speak to someone. The cashier said, "so your good then?" I explained I still wanted a refund and she asked us to bring the food back. My very frustrated, and now angry wife said, "really, we waited over 30 minutes, and that's your response!" The cashier left to get a manager who came over and just said, "sorry, did you use a card?" I told her it was cash and she paid me with only a "sorry about that". Very poor service and customer care. Thankfully they built a nice Chick Fil-a across the street and Culvers...