O’Charley’s Restaurant & Bar

Of the major chain restaurants, O’charley’s is our favorite (I like the 6 ounce sirloin with chicken fingers combo, I always take home the chicken to have for lunch the next day), free pie Wednesday is neat, they also have a very good brunch. That being said, this location is very inconsistent with service. The food is usually very good, but it’s a dissapontment when the menu changes and you wave a favorite goodbye. When we first went there some time ago, there was a manager that walked around and greeted guests, but over the course of the past 6 months or so, management has changed and we don’t see that attention to detail. Service is slow, and not all waitstaff seem to know the menu, not to mention there was a printing error on my menu last night, there were new items but still a few old favorites, and my dining companion’s menu was missing those things. Unsure which menu was accurate, we pointed that out to our waitress (who was already exacerbated by how busy and understaffed they were) and instead of pulling the incorrect menu she just loudly shouted that the panko crusted shrimp was replaced by buttermilk fried shrimp. Seating: there are 3 seating areas. Our experience is that if you are seated in the dining room back behind the bar area, you will receive very slow service, and sometimes very slow crappy service. If you are seated in the main area, you will have somewhat less slow service. They have a full bar with bar seating as well, we have never been seated there. One of my big pet peeves, that I have been meaning to photograph, is the at each entrance there are signs saying «This is a smoke free environment «, however there are overflowing containers full of cigarette butts, and people stand right at the door smoking, and smoke enters the lobby. And it’s just gross to look at all those butts. Smoking should not be permitted right at the door. Last night a man was leaning against the sign, smoking. That is not a smoke free environment. My advice is if you are not in a rush but want an uncomplicated American meal, be prepared to have some frustrations, and when the check comes and there is a survey, do that survey.

This is the worst O’Charley’s. They under cooked my steak, brought cold mushrooms and the waitress disappears. Got a manager and she orders new one and the waitress finally comes back. Brings me a new glass of water and it has a fruit fly in it. New steak comes and it was right temp but they cooked it on high and made it horribly tough to cut… The waitress was also more worried about her smoke break and just quickly dropped the rolls at the end of the table. Not to mention the rolls were hard…
Go to the other location off of gaskins rd, you will have a better experience. Wish I followed my friends warnings about this one.

I do not like giving bad reviews but where do I start…
My fiancé and I went here for a birthday dinner and from the first greeting it seemed as if our waitress was not having a good day. Fair enough, everyone has «those days» so I dismissed it as an issue. Well I came to the dinner knowing there was a limited selection for me to eat (I’m currently fasting) but I chose to order a simple side salad +/​-​a few items that came on it. It seemed as if the waitress was even more annoyed then, but hey that’s not my fault!
So skipping a few interactions, we receive our food and I notice there is a foreign piece of food in my salad. It looked as if a large chunk of fried batter from the chicken tenders landed in my salad. It wouldn’t have been so alarming if it was actually clear as to what it was, but neither my friends nor the waitress could figure it out so she said she would have another one made, ok fair. Take two, she brings another salad pretty quickly and I notice there were hardly any vegetables other than lettuce in this portion and as i’m looking through the salad I notice a piece of blue plastic that I wanted to believe was discolored lettuce until I poked it with a fork and it was HARD! Now to my knowledge, there is no vegetable that turns blue, black, and hard so we get the waitress’ attention again and she just takes the plate without even looking to see what was the issue was (as if I was being annoying) and says «ok.» Now I am not a difficult person in a restaurant, but I refuse to eat/​pay for something that has foreign objects in it! She was so disinterested in the problem and sent the manager over to discuss it with me.
Needless to say, I did not want another salad at this point because there was clearly either a bad batch of lettuce in the kitchen, or careless handling of the food! Being that this restaurant is less than a minute away from me, I wanted to enjoy the experience and put it on my list of «quick dinner options.» So if I ever go back, I will stay clear of the salads and update this review to hopefully give it more than one star.

The service is kind of hit or miss when it comes to o charleys. food wise was actually really good for chain restaurants. Wednesday is free pie day and their chicken tenders are really good. I went here on a dinner date with a friend and we ordered a lot of food prime rib, salmon, appetizer combo, soup and salads for the both of us and dessert. the food was good, but the service was almost non existent. Apps and entrees came out pretty close to each other and server was never there to check how things were. I finally had to flag down a manager because we did not have app plates or refills on our drinks. By the end of the meal our soups salads and desserts never came out so we cancelled all of it. The server was new but did not seem to care. 3 stars for good food and damage control by the managers.

I went in on this past Saturday evening to order some food to go; I wanted the good food I’ve come to expect from O’Charleys, but without the busy weekend crowd,. There were three staff members at the host stand when I entered, and several customers seated. All of them were calling a party of five that didn’t seem to exist, because after 4 times of each of them calling, no one answered.
I stood there patiently waiting my turn to be acknowledged (again, there were THREE of them there) only to be ignored as they chatted away (not to mention, they failed to call the next party on the list). Then some woman barges in front of me to the stand and loudly asks to see a menu. One of the girls (still THREE of them, one doing the work half-​way, the other two I guess were «supervising») says that she’ll go and get a server to take her order.
Apparently, rudeness is the only language these people understand.

I had lunch with my mom on ¹⁰⁄₆ and it was wonderful! I eat here every time I am in Richmond. Our server Kristi was very nice and prompt with food and drink requests. Mom really enjoyed her steak and I really enjoyed the catfish! Overall experience was great and I wish we had an O’Charley’s in Long Beach, CA. The black and blue salad is my favorite item on the menu.

Wow, the sangrias are delicious, chunky and are a meal in itself! The sweet hot rolls are totally irresistible! They have a pretty decent steak for the price, always a fresh salad, the waitstaff, were very friendly. the bar looked crowded, we just ate at a table.

Went here for lunch today. Waitress was very nice and very attentive. She was very quick on the soda refills which was great. The food was good, nothing outstanding. My baked potato soup was lukewarm (I like my soup really hot) and my ½ of a fried chicken salad was good. My husband really liked his fried chicken sandwich. The reason for the lower rating is the bathrooms. They were dirty and could use a complete overhaul. The floors were dirty as were the toilets. Spend some money and upgrade this!

went for lunch today with some friends. I order from the burger off the menu. The strawberry lemonade was very good! All the food that I ORDER was def on point. I love their bread, its just something about there bread with spread all butter all over it. Only thing I didnt like was the service. Was checking on our table once in awhile, not as often, waited for bread and took about 45 mins before she give us a new batch. I ask for my drink and she got everyones besides me. She was nice and funny but was as attentive as I thought she was. Other then that I’ll still come back but hopefully it will change.

I suppose if you’re a local, and this is where your friends work, then I guess this would be an okay place to watch some sports, but as an out-​of-​towner I wasn’t impressed. With the Thursday night game on an obscure television station that our local hotel could not get, we had few choices in the area. The beer selection was very limited and the menu was undesirable. The patrons seemed a bit seedy, most taking frequent trips to the parking lot for a cigarette, and so the atmosphere was less than appetizing. We resisted ordering food at first, but by half time we needed something, and I think that my wife and I were on a suicide by food mission.
We first ordered the sweet potato fries. They were bland, and lacked the sweetness of other fries that I have had. If I didn’t know better, I would suspect that they were regular potatoes with food coloring added. Is that even possible? Still unsatisfied we ordered the spinach and artichoke dip. It wasn’t bad, but lacked the richness that I expect when I choose to over indulge on such fare.
Would I go back if ever in the area again? Only if there is a good football game on, and I couldn’t find somewhere else to watch it.

The food was decent. I enjoyed my strawberry lemonade (although a bit on the sweet side). Maybe it’s due to the small glasses. I didn’t appreciate the waitress bringing out two glasses (the second got watery and warm). Maybe it’s customary, but felt more like lazy customer service.

This place is one of those run of the mill, everything menu restaurants. Ruby Tuesday’s, Applebee’s, TGIFriday’s; even Red Robin’s are all in this category.
That being said, I have been to my share of restaurants like this, and O’Charley’s is one of the better ones. The first time I went, Ryan C. and I got the Pick 2 meal and the nachos appetizer and steak entrees were both delicious. The entrees were not very big, which I really appreciated since it meant we weren’t over-​stuffing ourselves. The steaks were also cooked pretty rare, which I’ll take any day over well done.
The last time we were there, everyone in my group enjoyed their meal. I got salmon, which was very tasty, even after being reheated the next day for lunch. My meal came with a salad and I got some kind of sweet vinaigrette that I ended up wishing I hadn’t poured onto my salad. It was way too sweet and I didn’t like it.
Ryan C. loves the bread there, and its okay, but it reminds me too much of the frozen dinner rolls you can buy at the grocery store. The servers are all pretty nice there as well, if not a little dumb.

Lunch with co workers… Food was good. I got the cajun chicken pasta and house salad. I was disapointed they dont have the southwestern salad anymore. Thats what i came there looking for, but my lunch was great. (well, minus the gigantc onions in it)
My co workers had some food issues though., they ordered medium well steak and got well done steak… And the weirdest part of the lunch was the drinks. I ordered a strawberry lemonade… The waitress brought me 2 drinks at once… It was odd to me. Made me think she didnt plan to come back for refills or was just plain lazy. It was bad enough she had these drawn on fake eyebrows distracting me lol.

Food was pretty good. Very stingy with the iced tea, $ 2.20 with no refill offered. Same with the rolls, two and that’s it.
First pack of silverware was dirty, still had dried food on a fork and a knife although they had been run thru a dishwasher. Small plate silverware/​napkin was on was dirty too.
Second pack/​plate was fine.

The food here is pretty decent nothing to rant and rave about. The best thing to get is the sampler where u get spicy cheese wedges potatoe skins and mozzerella sticks delicious! And the complimentary bread is pretty good too. But everytime I come the menu always changes

Yuck. Eat here if you want diarrhea. I had the buffalo kickin sandwich with sweet potato fries. The sandwich was soggy, not crisp at all, no spice at all. The crispy buffalo sandwich at The Cheesecake Factory is so much better!!! I don’t know why people go to O’Charleys. How is it different from Crapplebees, and TGIF? I have no idea. Same crap. If you have to eat in this area, there are plenty of other options. Some of the best Asian restaurants in Richmond just down the street. I’ll never go back, but I know people who go here on a regular basis… WHY???