Culver’s — Restaurant in South Carolina

Well, like all fair-minded people, I took the chance that my favorite I cream destination, Culvers, had fixed the problem I wrote about below. They did fix the one complaint in my previous posting but somehow managed to find me again. This time following a hard fast rule that everyone deserves a second chance, my wife and I drove up to the speaker station and placed the exact order as last visit. A very cordial lady announced that she had the details of a single serving of chocolate custard and a double serving of vanilla for my Turtle sundae.

I drove to the next window, paid and had a sticker with the number 31 stuck to the driver’s side mirror. I was told to proceed to the holding lane and wait. Wait we did.

After about fifteen minutes and all the cars in front and a half dozen or so behind me had gotten their orders, I decided to go inside and find out what the holdup was this time.

When I walked up to the counter, two people greeted me immediately, a vast improvement from my last visit. So, score one for Culver's. The young lady directed me to another person near the drive up window and the nightmare began all over again. Apparently, the number 31 was not in the system, and no one had a clue as to why I was standing there. I repeated the order and four or five people were consulted but to no avail. As far as they were concerned, Number 31 was something that arrived from the Twilight Zone. I felt like Rod Serling when I asked for the manager.

A very nice lady appeared from the inner sanctum and rather annoyed asked me "what is the problem?" Normally that approach would have received an equally curt response, but I wanted my ice cream. I explained why I was standing in front of her and offered that I had been in this position before. I also mentioned that the owner had asked me to come in and they would give me a different experience this time around. (Truth be told, this was a different experience)

The manager then told me she was the owner and didn't recall anything about an email with the invite attached. I told her it involved a young woman who worked at the counter and had ignored me while she looked at her phone and doodled on a small scrap of paper.

"Ah yes, I remember you now!" I was greatly relieved to have a new standing in this latest transaction and explained what happed today. The owner repeated my complaint to a growing crowd of customers and employees. She seemed skeptical that i had been waiting fifteen minutes on a slow time in their day. So she said quite out loud that the customer says he's been waiting fifteen minutes and looked at some little device that to her obvious surprise backed me up. She said to the employee closest, "He's been waiting over 19 minutes!"

Now another 15 minutes passed while the ice cream detectives worked alongside others who were frantically making a "fresh batch" of custard to fill my order. I would have been very happy with a stale batch of custard at that point.

The owner then wanted to refund my money, but I refused. She wanted to give me coupons for free product, and I refused again. I explained that I did not come inside to get a free anything. I just wanted the ice cream that I paid for.

Now the fact that my last two trips ended in such an extraordinary experience seems so unlikely that one might suspect that I worked for some competitor and was making this up to denigrate Culver's. I do not work for a competitor nor am I interested in denigrating the firm or getting free stuff. I just want my very delicious and now quite coveted Culver's custard ice cream!

PS, I am going to give it one more try before I give up entirely. Stay tuned!

PSS, I took away one of my three stars from my previous review hoping that this will incentivize the owner and its employees to regain...

I love ice cream and I love a place that is friendly and serves the sweet concoction with some aplomb. I’ve frequented this place called Culver’s more than once and typically get what I ordered but yesterday was the exception.

As the car lineup is usually crazy long and moves at an arctic speed, (see what I did there… cold, ice cream) I decided to venture indoors to place my order.

It was not very busy and two people were behind the counter awaiting to take assist. One was a young lady who seemed occupied with what I thought was her phone and ignored me as I appeared to be second in line. The other attendant was assisting the person ahead of me.

After several minutes, I did my best to announce my presence to the girl who was still staring down at the counter as she busily kept avoiding my throat clearing, engaging eye contact and a little Irish jig. (Another aside… I would have offered me a washroom key for that performance).

Finally I caught the “pit boss’s” eye and he poked her while moving his head in my direction. This began a painfully difficult process of ordering a small cup of chocolate custard for my wife and a regular turtle sundae for me. The young woman seemed to have never been introduced to the digital ordering setup as she made several trips to others in her quest to complete my order.

After repeating the details and correcting her interpretation several times, we settled on what I wanted when I walked in.

I paid. Then several more minutes passed as I stood clutching the elongated plastic thingy that identified me as #31. After another cache of time had elapsed, the pit boss noticed that I was the only person still awaiting their order and went to see why. He quietly pointed out to our lady in waiting that she needed to push the order button if they were ever to get me out of their behind the counter view.

That being done, another five minutes or so passed until I approached another person headed towards the fries bin and asked if he could check on my order. Minutes later another young lady appeared with two odd looking containers that were filled with something call “concrete” neither of which vaguely resemble a small cup of chocolate custard or a turtle sundae.

At this point I said that neither looked like what I ordered and the person froze with a clear look of perfect confusion as though this had never happened before at the legendary Culver’s.

So after almost 30 minutes of an ongoing comical farce, I made it clear to all in shouting distance that I wanted and paid for the… well you get it.

Within two minutes, I was headed out the door triumphantly clutching the frosty holy grail and delivered said grail to my rather impatient bride.

The ice cream was good and I had a story to tell so all in all a bit of an entertaining visit to my local Culver’s.

BTW she wasn’t looking at her cell phone after all, she was doodling a blue-penned eye complete with long lashes. It wasn’t a bad rendition at all. Perhaps art would be a better career path for our young...

This is an update to the below review and I've changed it from 3 stars to 4. We finally made the drive back and it was cleaner. A young man did thoroughly clean a table and the seats across from us but again tables turned over with no attention. Food runners were constantly bringing diners their food and I would suggest they be told to look around each time to report which tables just emptied and need cleaning. Otherwise there is no way anyone at the counter part of the restaurant can see the dining area.

The food itself was excellent. I had the mushroom burger again and it was super juicy. My husband thoroughly enjoyed his bacon cheeseburger. And the custard is great. We drove 30 miles to try this place. There were several registers and there were several employees standing around but apparently only one register was open so we stood waiting to order while wondering just what the idle employee's duties were. No one greeted us. When it was our turn we found the menu board crowded and hard to really look at and the young lady was not helpful. I ordered a mushroom Swiss burger and cheese curds with a drink and she immediately said "is that all?" Well, my husband was right there and had not ordered so I had to actually say no, he needs to order also. She did not ask about other toppings, sauces, anything.

We walked to the dining area to find tables either occupied or dirty from previous patrons. We picked the least dirty looking and were prepared to carefully eat from the tray and not touch the table. When our food was brought out I pointed out the dirty table and the young lady just stared blankly while saying it should have been cleaned after each party left. She also stated she was not on dining room duty and didn't know who was responsible for cleaning and then left. Wow. Such personal responsibility and initiative. We were there a total of 40 minutes and never once saw an employee enter the dining area to wipe down anything.

The food was actually good but pricey. I would have liked a traditional gravy for the cheese curds. We ended with frozen custard and it was excellent. If I happened to be in Summerville I would go through the drive through to get a custard but I wouldn't go out of my way and I certainly wouldn't dine in. In today's times you'd think a business would be emphasizing cleaning between customers. I thought that was a state...