Carvers Steaks & Chops — Restaurant in Washington Township

We attempted dinner at Carvers in Dayton tonight for my husbands birthday ...

Such a disappointment. I will refrain from anything more than facts about our horrible Carvers experience. Our plan was to try something new, after a few recommendations, we made reservations. Upon arriving for our 7:15, we were sat 30 min later (side note those walking up were only given 15-20 min waits). After being sat, we waited a while and finally acknowledged and were offered waters. Which took another 10 mins to come. At this time, I placed appetizer of calamari. That came about 20 mins later and was disgusting. We got our drinks and our salads arrived. Not too bad, however my husband had ordered a spinach salad that was to come with slivered almonds, cranberries, apples and dressing. The spinach and almonds was all he got. Moving on ... our drinks have been empty for sometime and no one has returned to our table. Trying to enjoy the evening with my husband and our sons I try to just let things go. Unfortunately, it doesn’t get better. Out comes our entrees - JUST KIDDING, the plates were nothing that we ordered. Not even close. I excuse myself and request a manager. He comes from the kitchen, I express my experience thus far - still NO REFILLS on our drinks. He apologizes and I’m hopeful he’ll get a new waiter and rush drinks over - NO he doesn’t. 13 minutes, YES I was timing, 13 minutes go by and our oldest son has gone to the bar to get another drink and he goes back to speak to the manager. The manager now sends a lady, who was sent from the back to apologize to us telling us the manager, who is now MIA, is covering all our costs for the evening. That’s real thoughtful - but you haven’t even refilled a thing for us, still no food. So another 15 min goes by and no food. I’m fuming, and amazed this was really happening. The women who was sent out, comes to tell us our food is almost ready. We kindly decline and express how nothing was attempted to be rectified. If they cared, we would have been taken care of in a timely fashion, instead they just wanted us out the door and attempting to avoid any negative reviews. Well your food isn’t worth being free either - we stood up and left and will never be back. It was an all around horrible experience from the second we walked in the door.

WORST EXPERIENCE 😡 Go to...

My mom and I went here during her visit for a special evening out and were very disappointing. We started at a steakhouse across the street that we have been to before and loved but the wait was 1 hour long so we thought we would try Carvers since it was suppose to be a nice steakhouse as well. First clue across the street was a one hour wait...no wait and plenty of empty tables on a Friday night at Carvers. 2nd clue when we pulled up and parked on the side some of the kitchen staff was outside smoking and one guy was wearing his apron from the kitchen outside to smoke. There did not seem to be a lot of pride in their job. The 3rd clue was our very nice waiter who mentioned the steakhouse had been there 21 years and at first I thought he said he had been there 21 years (that would have been an impressive sign) but instead he said, "THANK G*^ NO!"...not a good sign that it was a place the staff took pride and enjoyed their job. The bread and salad came out and it was very good then came our steaks. My mom and I both ordered the ribeye steaks my mom medium rare (waiter said it would be a little red...and I wanted pink) so I ordered medium. My mom's came out still moooing it was jelly texture on one side and perfect on the other. Mine was brown, thin, dry, chewy and no marbling on one side and not so dry on the other. I do not usually go out and spend $35 on an entree on myself. And I was disappointed and felt like it was a waist of our eating out money. I also ordered the vegetables and it I eat a lot of vegetables and these green beans were not only nothing special I actually did not like them (that is super rare). I got home and told my husband and he told me I should have sent it back but I am not very good at that, it makes me feel really uncomfortable, to complain and no one asked. But the fact that we ordered the same thing and ordered just one step in cooking from each other and got bloody raw jelly and brown dry chewy seems like poor cooking and I question how our same cuts could look so different in such a quality steakhouse? (our family buys a part of a local cow each year and I have had a lot of ribeye steaks and never can remember two being so different) Anyway would not recommend this sadly. I hate giving bad reviews but I also would hate for anyone else to waist...

An exceptionally dark interior cannot hide the antiquated decor and aging interior of this steak house. Every part of the experience elicits an image of a restaurant grasping to hang on at the end--from the waitress joining patrons for a drink to the slow service to even the other lonely patrons drinking alone... A cheery foreshadowing of the food to come.

I started with a french onion soup-expecting a delicious hot experience layered with bread & cheese on top, instead I received a luke warm soup I found they went quite literal with--it had french/fried onions on it, making it a soggy chore to consume.

Backing up for a minute, you would think an expensive steakhouse would have a nice signature cocktail menu. Carvers has tried to take an angle on sophistication with their Carvers "Martinis". I'm far from a connoisseur, but putting a dozen basic cocktails and serving them in a martini glass is far from what I would associate with sophistication or a martini. My wife ordered a Limoncello Martini, she received an $11 super sweet, heavy handed mess of a cocktail complete with lemon pulp and seeds.

Getting to the main course, somehow the star of a meal containing a 14 oz. prime rib was a side: garlic mashed potatoes. Star may be overselling it, they tasted like garlic and mashed potatoes-at least they got that one right. While they cooked the steak to order, is did not taste herb crusted and roasted overnight, it didn't really taste seasoned with much of anything. Hoping to add some flavor it with the au jus sauce, I was unfortunately met with further disappointment as the sauce had little taste as well, as if had been watered down--it certainly did not look any where near as dark as the images on their website. Had I not also requested horseradish with the prime rib, I may have passed on eating it altogether.

While all this would be expected if the restaurant was at a cheaper price point, the pricing of plates in the $30-$50 range would imply that this is decent dining where one would expect a tasty, seasoned steak. As far as I am concerned, you could easily go to somewhere like Texas Roadhouse for this price point and you would be getting better value for your money.

Even though our waiter was very nice and did a great job, I would not recommend this restaurant as the taste is just not...