Carrabba's Italian Grill — Restaurant in Wichita

My friends and I loved ths place and we were excited coming here for my birthday since we hadn't been here in months. When we came in, my friend mentioned how the place smelled different. That smokey wood, Parmesan and garlic was gone.

We sat down and got our drinks and an appetizer. My friend got an Arnold Palmer and got a raspberry tea. Our appetizer was the onr with the mushrooms, cheese sticks and calamari. My friend reacted to her drink and said they had changed it and it wasn't as good.

Our appetizer arrived and I noticed the cheeze sticks were different, they were not the wide flat peices but slightly oval sticks. I grabed them since I am not much for calamari. I ate it and it really didn't taste much like anything. The old ones were tasty and flavorful but this was really not much of anything. I ate a mushroom and it was so so. I asked my friends about the calamari and they said it was oily and not as good as they used to be.

My soup arrived (minestrone) and I didn't notice anything off.

Next, the main course arrived. I had the Tascan ribeye, one friend has the Johnny Trio and the other had the mezzaluna ravioli. I took a bite of my steak and it had a different grill flavor then I had before from there. It had a gas fired taste rather than the wood grilled flavor I had from there previously. The flavor was still good at first bit once I got used to the grill flavor, I noticed it didn't have much backing it up.

My friend had quickly devoured her Chicken Bryan but had trouble with the sirloin and pasta. She loved het chicken, but wasn't thilled with her mezzaluna nor her sirloin, nor her side of linguine alfredo. I tried some of both and both tasted like the water they were cooked in hadn't been salted. the linguine didn't have a real alfredo flavor to it either. Her husband (the other friend) only ate half of his mezzaluna not thrilled with the flavor.

The only other complaint was when my second glass of raspberry tea arrived, it tasted different and my friend recognized as strawberry. Not a hude deal though.

Overall, it was quite a sad sense since the food used to be so good and this was well below what it used to be. My friend wasn't happy to have to hand over $125 for the meal considering how lack luster it was. In fact, she is still grumbling about it saying we could have had much better food at Napoli for that price.

The atmosphere was a bit muted. It used to be crowded in there but it felt only half full but it was a Tuesday evening.

The service I felt was okay, but not great. The waitress had only came a few times and it felt rather sparingly. she did nothing wrong but we didn't feel like we were checked often enough especially since the table count was low.

We used to look forward to coming here, but after this, we are not sure we want to come back unless for the...

Call ahead seating a BONUS when dining for 6 and children involved. Arrived at our call ahead time, and seated within 15 minutes. We were seated in the southwest corner of the building with single pane, drafty windows on 2 sides and outside temperatures mid 40's. Brrr!

We ordered drinks AND appetizers immediately, and all delivered and enjoyed. Drinks were refilled and checked on multiple times, as we waited for food.

As we visited and enjoyed the appetizers, others were seated at surrounding tables. About the 45 minutes after seating timeframe, we began asking about our food. We were told shouldn't be to much longer.

There are lots of people and we have found many restaurants struggling to serve with limited staff. We see meals approach the surrounding tables, and think won't be long. At the hour, we are again told should be up soon. At the hour and a quarter, we ask for a manager. The surrounding tables have come after us, gone, and reseated by now.

The manager comes and assures us he will get our food right out. In five minutes, we leave the table to gather our check for drinks and appetizers. Another waitress comes out with most of our food, and noticed the table is EMPTY. She spins around stating, "They have left!" Seeing my face 👀, she asks if that was our table. I stated that it was, and she asked if we wanted to reseat or have the food in to-go containers. We returned to the table.

The pastas on each plate were cold and the meats lukewarm; the grilled chicken on the salad was dried out; the side of mushrooms was cold. Some of our party had passed the hunger stage to frustration, and lost interest in eating. We took 2 to-go cartons, and choked down most of the other meals.

When we received the check it was 1/2 price, but slow in returning to collect payment. We wrote the details of the E-Gift card on the receipt. Rather than telling us she had difficulty processing it, she came back stating she had the meal comped, we only have to pay for the alcoholic drinks. Passing along a $25 gift card to cover 2 drinks and a tip, we exit 2-1/2 hours after seating.

Sorry, no photos to share, was not thinking of recording...

Frank was lovely on his first night back. Started with another girl, Jordan, who obviously didn't put the drink order in or the appetizers, or bring any bread to us. My friend found 2 of the workers sitting in the bathroom playing on their phones. The 2nd time he went in, the toilets they servers had been using were not flushed and were full of waste. My Italian old fashioned was straight bourbon with a couple pieces of orange and a crushed cherry on the bottom. Had it remade by the manager, and it came out with an orange slice garnish, the crushed cherry, and plorange bits. Plus, this time, it had the armoretto and the bourbon , which made it better. The appetizer, 4 cheese and sausage mushroom caps, arrived without appetizer plates and was possible and just warm, not sizzling. No cheese on top either. We had to ask after the entrees arrived for bread. I had the Johhnnny Trio, my friend had the lasagna which was lukewarm and swamped in red sauce and tasted blah... no cheese! My Johnny Trio, the sirloin was perfection, the chicken was well done, but the Mezzaluna with the red Pomodoro sauce was lobster filled and tasted weird with red sauce. The Mezzaluna was supposed to be chicken, ricotta, parmesan, Romano, and spinach filling. Our server, Frank, who luckily took over, was lovely about fixing things, like my friends salad, which was 80 percent chopped carrots. I asked to have my meal replaced with the grilled Sirloin Marsala, and the manager, Tim Whitfield, came over. I explained why I wanted my entree replaced with one I could eat, and he got brusque with me, he stated there was no way my ravioli were lobster and refused to replace my meal with the Sirloin Marsala. He insisted our meal was free. I really wanted a meal I could eat, maybe leftovers I could eat, not this mess and a frustrating meal. I got one third of an edible meal. I would like to point out Frank was an angel through it all, so we gave him a...