Ray C.
Google
Went to Shari’s for turkey dinner on December 24. First time there since they closed all the places in Oregon and Washington except the one in Orchards. Very disappointed.
I have always been leery of places that have a lot of poor and a lot of high ratings. Seems like the poor ratings were made by real customers and high ratings are made by friends or people that work there. But figured would give it a try. Since it was Wednesday would get a free piece of pie.
The Shari’s in orchards is not the Shari’s of old. Only things the same is the building and the name. Even the building is in need of repairs.
We used to go to Shari’s 5 or 6 times a year beginning when they first opened. The food was seldom great, but always good at a reasonable price. It was not an Olive Garden or Red Lobster, but you did not expect it to be.
Usually had a wait time of 15 to 45 minutes.
They had a rewards program. Where you would get a $5 discount after several meals. You got a free piece of pie on your birthday. The rewards program ended about 10 years ago. They added a number of restrictions to the birthday pie.
They had free pie with a meal on Wednesdays. Every dinner came with home made soup (usually had a choice of 2). May have had a choice of soup or salad. They began to charge extra for soup maybe 10 years ago.
On the 24th their was no wait time, may have had something to do with the holidays. There was always 5 or 6 tables of dinners. A couple of take out orders and a number of people came in to pickup a pie. They only had a choice of about 4 pies, used to have 10 to 15 choices.
I have had the turkey dinner for thanksgiving or Christmas several times in the past. It was always good, but usually had a long wait time.
Figured would give it try. The on-line menu said “The Turkey Dinner includes oven-roasted turkey, stuffing, garlic green beans, mashed potatoes, turkey gravy, cranberry sauce, and a roll.” The picture shows brown gravy. The stuffing looks to be made not the hard boxed stove top.
Well the turkey was processed, not what I would call oven roasted. Stuffing appeared to be stove top from a box. Green beans were broccoli, so hard needed the sharp knife to cut it. Mashed potatoes were the only good item on the plate. Turkey gravy was white, appeared to be from a can. Real turkey gravy is brown. Cranberries were from a can, better than the chopped berries they used to have. They were not doing the free pie during the holidays.
The turkey dinners in the past was carved roasted turkey, with made stuffing, mashed potatoes with turkey pan gravy, think peas or beans, think it had mashed sweet potatoes and some sort of roll. I think it came with pumpkin pie.
I was expecting to get something similar to what they had in the past, very disappointed with what I got. As soon as I saw the processed turkey, I knew I was at the wrong place.
You would think a business that was trying to hang on or make a come back would make things better, not take short cuts and not annihilate customers.