Carrabba’s Italian Grill

Let me start by saying that I am normally a huge fan of Carrabbas. I went to this location on s Friday night with 13 other friends and had s perfectly horrible experience. I made arrangements for our party days before and again on the day of the dinner. We waited an additional hour before getting sat. Once sat, the server was already overwhelmed and unprepared for our party. Drink service was slow inaccurate. Food orders were eventually taken and gradually fulfilled. The house salad portion size was the smallest I’d ever seen, and my entrée was bland. My friends and I get together every Friday for food and fellowship. I selected this restaurant because of past positive experiences. Sadly, we will not be returning to this location.

Everything was just mediocre for Me. The wood fire wings had a great season to Them but nothing to make Me crave again. I bought the potatoes but They were blah and the cub didn’t really care for Them either. The selections were not bad but not a wowzer either* I definitely wouldn’t choose this place again any time soon but again Salute for the free meal*

I am sitting here waiting on my check… The food was good although there was a slight mix up with my order. Lunch portions are small but filling. The warm bread and seasoned olive oil are amazing! But I’ve been waiting on my check for a while now. Not sure why two mix ups have to fall into one… It appears that team work is an issue amongst the servers. The place wasn’t that crowded when I walked in. Nonetheless the Marsala was excellent as always. I really enjoy coming here. Carabbas has always been one of my favorites.

The waitress was great! However, the food was mediocre compared to other locations I have visited in the past. I had ravioli and it was just warm red sauce and pasta… it lacked flavor and zest. Appears to possibly be an older location.

Lawd where do I start. I KNEW I didnt want to go here. I should have dropped kicked my cousin who suggested it out of pure selfishness. She talks out of state family into going here because she thought they had crabs didnt care what anyone else wanted.
The children in our party had dried out spaghetti and meatball that right one
meatball that they couldn’t eat because it was made of pork.
They rest of the group had soupy Alfredo salmon with dried out noodles and veggies.
The waiter was slow and kept getting the drinks wrong he was either new or his mind was elsewhere. Had to laugh as the manager suggested (not ask
ed) did we enjoy our food
I was so happy my cousin suffered and didn’t get what she wanted (the crabs) was a limited special so they didn’t have it.
I was also glad I didn’t have to pay for what I would call slop. That’s right she suggested it now you pay for it.

Drew and I have been attempting to go to Carrabas’s together. We both had frequented this spot with our collegues/​co-​workers but never together.
Although we had to wait for our requested booth, we were greeted by Sade our server.
As an appetizer, we ordered calamari and as well as our dinner items. Drew ordered the Fettucine Carraba and I had the Shrimp and Scallop Spiedino. The calamari arrived timely although it was not a great calamari, We had to wait about 20 minutes for our salads although finished our appetizer. The Cesar salads were o.k. Just o.k.
Finally, our entrees arrived, Drew did not comment on his pasta but ate all of it which led me to believe he enjoyed it.
My scallop and shrimp with mashed potatoes were cooked to perfection. I ate it all because I did not want to have any leftovers.
We skipped dessert because nothing on the menu sounded or looked good.
It was good dinner at a franchise restaurant with good service.

Crappy chain Italian restaurant. Poor service. Though she said many polite things, it took forever to order wine or get a refill on water. Bread was not good and served cold with olive oil and herbs that had so much salt in it you could taste nothing else. I got a shrimp and scallop salad, about $ 16, small portion with 4 small scallops and 4 medium size shrimp. Again, so salty and covered with grill char I could taste nothing else. Almost all romaine with three leaves of other greens though it was supposed to be mixed greens. I got a glass of zin for $ 8.50 and the bottle had clearly been open for awhile. I guess they don’t sell it often or bother to rotate the bottle after a few weeks! My mom ordered a side of asparagus for about $ 5 and got 5 spears. Chicken Marsala portions for my dad and brother were small and overpriced too.
Also, two managers stopped by to check in but instead of asking how everything was and allowing our feedback, they fed us dumb corporate lines like «I’m so glad to see everything was superbly delicious for you today». I ate my food, but that doesn’t mean it was superb! They did give my brother a scoop of ice cream for his birthday, which was a nice gesture, but didn’t make up for the overall dull and sterile experience.

Service here is awesome. Darren at the bar is a whirling dervish and can multi task like a master. Perfect guy to run the bar. Good selection on on tap beer for a small bar.

Food and service is still great. I didn’t like how my server was very skimpy with the bread dip though … Atmosphere is still pretty good … But this location just wasn’t doing it for me.

Service was great! We had Ross as our waiter he was very attentive and friendly. .the best I’ve had at this carrabbas so far. .food was so yummy lol. .everything cooked the way I ordered it. .3 course Monday was definitely a hit! !!

Came here for lunch with a coworker and got the soup/​salad combo. It was about 8 $. Word of warning – the salad that comes with this will pretty much just be lettuce and dressing and the soup is a small cup. I added chicken to the salad so it was a lot more substantial than it would have been without. The soup of the day was lentil sausage, and it was very good. Service was attentive and we got in and out of the restaurant in good time. Good workweek lunch choice.

O.K. Good, nothing exceptional.
Service was a bit slack;I needed to search for my waitress twice, which made me «cut» her tip — which I normally do 20% +, but for what I received, I was sorry to have to leave just 11%. That’s the way it is/​goes.

I came in with a pretty bad mood from a long day. The server took my order and was courteous.
After that though, the waitress went over and beyond to compensate for not having a menu item available (I came in after 10 PM on a Saturday). The Bryan chicken pizza was great, the tiramisu was great, and I’d just like to commend Becca for her great work. I wish I dealt with service like this at more restaurants.

Their steaks are damn good… chain restaurant or not. Don’t get anything else. The steak paninis are excellent too. The grill guy must have the magic touch.
Service is hit or miss though for both takeout and dine in hence the 4 stars. So if u r not in a rush and just want a good steak… yum yum. And this goes for the Cumberland location only. I can’t say for others. I’m from Tampa where Outback and Carrabbas originated, and no one can beat this grill guy.
Heaven forbid I go on his day off… My preggo butt will not be happy. :-/

Great lunch place! We had an hour for lunch on a recent business trip and Carraba’s filled the bill! We ordered the half salad, half sandwich combos and all four of us loved our meals. I had the steak with a side salad! Excellent! My husband ordered the meatball sandwich with soup and really loved his meal!

Go on a Monday — they do some Amore Mondays meal: 3 courses for $ 12/​$ 15/​$ 18 depending on your main course.
For $ 15 I got: sausage ricotta flatbread + shrimp and scallop linguine in tomato cream sauce + cup of sausge lentil soup.
For $ 18 my dining partner got: fried calamari + breaded shrimp and scallops with a side of corkscrew pasta + cup of minestrone soup.
Btw — those appetizers (flatbread and calamari) were FULL SIZED portions. Wow. It was a lot of food.
We also ordered a carafe? (it was the middle sized option, not the glass, not the bottle) and it was just enough for 1 glass for each of us.
Really good deal. More than enough food. Totally worth checking out on a Monday. Friendly staff. Food is more like 3.5 stars but if I went another day I’m not sure I’d round up. But I would definitely go back (and plan to on my next b-​trip)

Not your best Italian restaurant. Better you go to the Carrabba’s on Barrett Parkway just 10 minutes north. First we had a salad drowned in dressing — ok, that can happen. But…
This place cooks calamari into rubber bands with lots of salt — like way over cooked for those of us who eat calamari regularly. And then there were the mussels in sweet wine sauce (oh yuk!). Have you ever tasted mussels in sweet wine sauce — they are unbelievably horrible. I told the waitress to advise the chef that a dry white wine was more appropriate for this dish but she told the manager. That works — except we never saw the manager at all. Wonder what s/​he was doing instead of reaching out to custmers??? Anyhow, the long and the short of this is — go elsewhere for calamari and mussels if you really want good food. My recommendation is Carrabba’s just a bit farther north up I-​75 at Barrett Parkway. They cook these two items to perfection.

Likely one of my better dining experiences at a chain. My girlfriend convinced me to go and we happen to be visiting on the day they offered wine flights. The price was ridiculously reasonable. I think it was something like $ 10 or $ 15 for 5 pours. And we happen to sell one of the wines at my store so it was a nice surprise to try it.
The portions were huge. We over did it. But everything was tasty.
We ordered calamari, some kind of melted goat cheese dip, caprese salad, veal Marsala and a seafood pasta dish. Oddly enough, the veal Marsala was actually better here than Alfredo’s. My seafood pasta was so so but I was not expecting the moon and stars so to get a star was totally fine.

My family has been coming here for years (I think I was 6 or 7 the first time…) and I’ve probably dined at this restaurant more times in my lifetime than any other place – I wouldn’t be surprised if the number was literally in the hundreds. I’ve since moved away to college, but a visit to my parents in Atlanta always involves an obligatory meal at Carrabbas. This place has come a long way in the past 15 years…
SETTING: Fairly standard for your Italian restaurant – dark woody tones, random fixtures covered in vines and Italianesque décor items. A few years ago the chain got a face lift and became more modern with the feel of this particular dining room becoming a little bit more open. It seems fancy at first glance, and maybe it actually is fancy, but in my mind I’ve never had any qualms about strolling in for dinner in shorts and a t-​shirt.
SERVICE: Always pleasant. I don’t remember in all our visits ever having an issue with the service so dire it required bringing it to the attention of the manager. I mean, over the course of over a decade and dozens of visits you’re bound to encounter a dud or two, and I probably wouldn’t have held it against them. As a kid they brought me a ball of pizza dough to play with, which can make a kid’s night. I don’t know if that’s still a thing though. Sitting at the kitchen counter can be fun; you can watch the guys cook, if you’re lucky you’ll get some free samples.
FOOD: The bread, with the spices and herbs they mix with the olive oil, is awesome. My otherwise gluten-​conscious father’s affinity for it is probably the sole reason this restaurant was a staple of my childhood. Back in the day, I got the cheese pizza off the kid’s menu with a pink Hi-​C to drink. The Hi-​C was very important, none of the other restaurants that my parents ever took me to had it. Around the age of 10, I graduated to the rigatoni with marinara. That phase didn’t last long; I got food poisoning the third time I ordered it and consequently had an aversion to any of their red sauce offerings for a time after that. Naturally, Fettuccine Carrabba was my go to after the incident. One night, we sat at the kitchen bar however and they gave us a sample of Mezzaluna. I was converted. I ordered it that night and for many nights afterwards, marking the beginning of my slow transition back to the red sauces. I later had the Lasagne a few times, but it was a bit much for me. The Manicotti, however, found its way into my rotation.
You might be wondering why I only ranked three stars for a place that seems to have invoked such nostalgia… well it’s never my choice to go there, I’m always the one dragged there. I ended up going less in high school, and obviously even less so when I went away to college, as my preferences in where our family would eat became a bit more incorporated. Somewhere in that timeframe was when they totally revamped their menu and look, and it was definitely for the better. Their menu has expanded greatly, with a number of those «healthy» (under 600 calories) options that are actually quite pleasing. The shrimp risotto, lobster ravioli, or tomatoes caprese are all pretty good. I’m still a bit of a sucker for their calamari, which to be clear is not under 600 calories.
As I was walking to the restrooms this evening at Carrabba’s I reflected on whether I would rank them 3 or 4 stars. I told myself if they still had the Italian language lessons playing in the bathrooms, I would give them 4 stars. When I walked in there was a John Mayer song playing, no Italian lessons. And thus three stars.

Just like Daniel B. wrote in his review, this is like a nicer Olive Garden. The food tastes better to me. The ambience looks dark and romantic. It feels more upscale than Olive Garden.
I’ve been here many times for lunch. They have decent dishes. The portions and small and prices seem high for what you get. If you want pasta for lunch in the Vinings area, Carrabba’s seems like one of your better options. The other places like Figo and Olive Garden just taste horrible.
The last time I came here for lunch, I ordered the lasagne. The lasagne tasted okay. It didn’t have any WOW factor to it. It was just a standard lasagna. I did feel parts of the pasta felt under-​cooked.
They bring out boring bread with some olive oil and spices dipping sauce. I wasn’t a fan of their free bread. Oh well.
The servers are attentive and friendly. They obviously have a lot of business people coming for lunch because they can split big checks no-​problem. Overall, I think this is an A-​OK Italian place. I give it 3.5 stars.

Stopped by this Carrabba’s for a weekday lunch with some friends. Expect to spend about $ 12+ per person for lunch at this American Italian chain. The lunch menu is pretty straightforward and contains over 20 entrée selections, which is a little over half of the dinner items. They include soups, salads, pizzas, sandwiches, pastas, and grilled foods.
Carrabba’s is like the Olive Garden, but nicer. They’ve got an open kitchen with wood-​fired grill, full-​size bar, and plenty of table and booth seating. The Carrabba’s restaurants are spacious and designed to handle many people, so it’s an ideal venue for group dining. Interior is nice and clean.
Every meal starts off with a loaf of Italian bread and olive oil with seasonings. Blocks of Parmesan cheese are grated at the table when entrees arrive.
The fried Calamari is a popular appetizer ($ 6 single serving, $ 8 regular) and isn’t bad. It comes with a small serving of marinara sauce. The Chicken Bryan entrée ($ 11.50) is also quite popular and amounts to a grilled chicken breast fillet topped with goat cheese, tomatoes, and sauce.
I had the Tag Pic Pac with chicken ($ 9 + $ 2, shrimp is also an option). It consists of tagliarini pasta (long, paper-​thin ribbon noodles) covered in Carrabba’s «Pacchu Picchiu» sauce, made up of crushed tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, and basil. It was a filling dish for lunch, but quite heavy on the tomatoes.
The Chicken Parmesan ($ 10) is good, but doesn’t come with any pasta. It’s just a piece of sauteed, breaded chicken breast with melted mozzarella and pomodoro cheeses and a small side (e.g. broccoli). Not a lot of food.
David H. was our server and he did a good job.
Carrabba’s Cumberland is located down the street from Cumberland Mall and Chuck E. Cheese’s. If you’re traveling on Cumberland Blvd. from the east, Carrabba’s comes up on your right-​hand side rather fast, after you cross over I-​285. Be ready to turn.