Charley’s Philly Steaks

I’ve been eating in this place since it opened, and I see how the service and quality go down steadily. The staff is unfriendly and rude, the meat often mixes on the grill between different orders, or it ends up in condiment trays. The staff constantly experiment with different settings (like at what point the customers need to specify what they want on their sandwiches — at the time of order or after), which confuses the customer. Prices just went up. Today, after dealing with another rude encounter with a cashier, finding yet again a piece of chicken in my meat sandwich and having to eat it with mayo because of the mixup, I’ve decided to just quit eating there. There are many more places now at L’Enfant.

Not bad, not excellent, just Charley’s. I have eaten at many of these places, which are invariably in food courts in a mall or airport. I ordered a small three cheese and chicken sub (a new special), regular fries and a strawberry lemonade.
The sub was good, and it had a reasonable amount of filling for me, although I could see other people saying there is too much bread. However, the lettuce tasted OLD to the point that I just took it all off the sub. The fries are Charley’s standard fries – quite bland, honestly. They were fresh, though.
I do have to give them props for the strawberry lemonade, which was made well and actually had real strawberry bits in it.
In terms of service, the guy who took my order and made my sandwich was pretty friendly. This was a slow day (Saturday), so I didn’t have to fight the usual throng of people at L’Enfant Plaza.
All in all, not bad. Charley’s won’t be my first stop of I’m looking for lunch at L’Enfant, but it’s not my last choice, either.

Regular size (essentially the medium) cheese steak was pretty light on the fillings. You may be asking yourself, «where’s the beef?» Tasted alright but nothing to write home about. The fries were soggy and flavorless.

Charley’s Philly Steaks is a new restaurant that opened in the L’Enfant Plaza a month or so ago. It’s apart of the recent renovation of the entire plaza and it really draws a big crowd during lunch time. I ordered the regular size California Chicken Cheese steak, Fries and Strawberry Lemonade combo. The price ended up being $ 11 and some change. Not a fan of spending that much on my lunch, but I was willing to try it out. The sandwich itself was okay. Pretty flavorful and it actually covered the entire hoagie roll, but it did seem like it was missing something. The fries were pretty lame. No type of flavor whatsoever! The strawberry lemonade was excellent! Pieces of real strawberries are cut up and floating around inside.
The staff was very accommodating and didn’t mind explaining the menu items to the customers. After you place your order, you wait to the side and when your order comes up the sandwich maker will ask for the toppings you would like on your sandwich. This area can be a bit hectic to wait around for, so make sure you listen for your number to be called because people are huddled up around the glass like cattle.
It was an okay experience, but it’s not somewhere I would like to eat on a weekly basis. Even if I could, I don’t think my wallet will allow me too.

If you’ve been to any other Charley’s, you’ll know what to expect. Prices are high for a food court restaurant, especially when you tack on DC’s 10% tax, but the food was pretty good. They were moving people through the checkout fairly fast for the lunch rush, but the folks on the grill were getting confused. The customer in front of me was lactose intolerant, and he had to tell them twice to remake his sandwich because they kept putting cheese on it. For my order, they gave me the wrong kind of fries. They were quick to fix their mistakes without complaint, and I’d chalk it up to not having been open that long.