Culver’s — Restaurant in Rapid City

I like their burgers. But I really like their root beer. It's straight up delicious. However. I must warn you. If you happen to be going through the drive thru, and you find yourself waiting an extended period of time because they make your sandwich fresh . . . Do not, I repeat, do not!, drink your root beer out of the cup without the straw and then ask for refill. I'll describe the situation as it played out for me: On a hot Friday afternoon I was out running some errands and was hungry and extremely thirsty. I pulled into a Culvers and ordered some chicken sandwich meal. I arrived at the window and paid, and they had me just stay there while they prepared the meal, but they gave me my drink. Really thirsty I tried to avoid drinking the root beer for about a full minute, but then I took the plastic lid off and took a sip. And then another. And then a big drink. After about 5 minutes they handed me my bag of take out. But I had already drunk my drink. So I asked if they could refill it for me. The kid in the window said, "sure". But the manager started to freak out shouting something about germs as if I carried the plague. Certainly he could have just said "no", I would have been fine with that. But the food was good. And they gave smaller cup of root beer...

Culver's is Culver's. This place appears to be newer, and in decent shape. They have the typical large menu available at all Culver's locations, but there is just something about this brand of food that I do not go out of my way for, some people in the midwest compare them to In-N-Out Burger, but those people are extremely wrong! haha

The service isn't exceptional, it is good, just nothing spectacular. The wait is typically longer than other fast food joints because they make things once they are ordered, I do not ding them for this, in-fact I encourage other joints to do the same.

Restrooms are modern and clean, not large enough for a huge rush though. My kids did not enjoy the chicken strips, not sure why, they appeared decent but they simply didn't like them. I had the Cod sandwich to change it up from a burger, it was sadly not impressive. Held on to too much oil, and half way through got that typical "I ate to much fried food" feeling. Fries are decent, and crinkle cut. I think they would do much better if they would shrink the menu to half of what they serve, and stop trying to be a restaurant, and just be an exceptional fast food joint for...

I’ve been coming to this location at least bi-weekly, if not multiple times a week for the past 4-5 years, and have recently slowed down on my visits as the service has gone far downhill.

It used to be nothing but wonderful tones, and polite workers with maybe one mistake on my order I can recall the first 4 years or so. As of the past few months though, every time I come through I either get extreme passive-aggressive tones through the drive-thru, or the person taking my order wants to rush through the process so quickly as if she’s already got my answers. It’s horrible. On top of that I’ve had at least two mistakes in the past few months, which isn’t much, but with such a previously clean record it doesn’t bode well, and had slowed down my visits until I just recently stopped going at all.

I’ve worked in restaurants the majority of my adult life, and have worked drive-thru, and know how breaking it can feel working fast food for not very much money, but at the end of the day it’s your decision to be employed there, don’t take it out on the customer’s...