Carl's Chop House

Reminiscing about the past I had to check out carls. In the 70's it was unbeatable. It was either carls, marios or greektown for me back in the day. From 1972-1978. The glory days for those places

I'm so bummed to read all these reviews Carl's used to be great back in the seventies and eighties my boyfriend and I went there at least weekly and the steaks were phenomenal and lobster tails were huge and I love their Lyonnaise potatoes was the only place you could get them they had waitresses that have been there for 25 years and knew everybody that came in. I doubt I will ever have a surf and turf as good as Carl's but at least I was fortunate enough to have it

Unfortunately, the first reviewer was pretty much on the money.

I dragged my boyfriend here because I've always heard about it and I've never been (I might have as a kid, but not that I remember). I really only wanted to have a drink, but we felt so bad for the servers -- there were TWO customers in the restaurant, TWO! -- that we sat down to eat even though we had just eaten.

Yes, the place is legendary. But the light of that legend has burnt out. Now, the restaurant is dark and dank and makes you feel like you are in that huge ballroom in the Shining.

I had to pee, so I went to the bathroom before I even sat down. But, when neither of the two spools in my stall had any toilet paper, I waddled, panties around my ankles, into THREE different stalls before I found some. And it wasn't even on the spool, it was just a roll sitting on top of the dispenser. Ewww. Come on, seriously? The employees have basically nothing to do, since there aren't any customers, and they can't even refill the toilet paper??

The porterhouse steak we ordered was actually pretty good, but, like the first reviewer said, medium rare here is basically rare. I want to chalk that up to the old school nature of the place, since that's how it used to be -- medium rare is red. Rare is almost raw.

But -- get this -- before we ordered, the waiter said, "We don't have any seafood, and we are serving cole slaw instead of salad, because of the whole e. coli thing." WHAT?? What e. coli thing?? 'Scuse me?? And when he said they didn't have seafood, I thought he was just saying that it's a chop house, so they don't have seafood. But no, the menu listed tons of seafood, they just didn't have any at the moment. (Maybe it was the "whole e. coli thing.") I don't blame them, I mean I wouldn't order a bunch of lobster tails when they don't have any customers, but it just made the whole place seem even sadder than it already did.

So, again, our porterhouse was pretty good. The zip sauce was tasty. But I just felt sad. An empty dining room. No toilet paper. No sunlight. Dusty decor.

I guess the sign that said "_ARL'S" should have tipped me off. It's a giant, neon capital "C" shy of it's former glory.

I feel so sorry for this place. i only went here because the restaurants at my hotel were closed for renovations.
Im sure it was amazing back in its hay day.
I could tell it was by the vintage pictures they had hanging up.
This place was huge and only about 5 people showed up in the almost 2 hours we were there.
I ordered a fillet med rare. It came with soup and salad.
My salad looked like it was sitting in a cooler for a week.
My steak came in a puddle of what tasted like condensed campbells mushroom soup. the cut was a little off when it was compared to the other steaks. the potato it came with im sure was baked a few days ago and reused. my boyfriend ordered the prime rib roast. med rare. it came out VERY rare. didnt even looked cooked. he also ordered some of their "famous" onion rings. they were barely battered. pretty horrible.

I honestly dont feel like continuing on with how horrible this place was. im sure 30 years ago it was amazing. i wish i got to go there then.
and im only giving them one star because they had really awesome old billboards and lighted signs.

oh well.

It is horrible that Carl's is closed. Some of the best meals I ever had were here. My favorite was the prime rib - extra cut which was 24 ounces of the best meat you could get! Also, they had frog legs(which were my grandmothers favorite) served with the best mint sauce. This restaurant is my idea of heaven!!

I feel like I must defend Carl's honor from most of the reviewers here on Yelp. You already know that this place was an institution with decades of history. But you know what else? They made a darn fine steak. I'm not talking about 25 years ago. I'm talking about 2005.
I lived pretty near Carl's, in Lafayette lofts, and whenever me and my hubby got a hankering to get fancy, we went to Carl's. It was the same dark, over-dramatic decor as Mario's and probably most other hot spots of its era. The maitre'd rocked a gigantic, perfectly round afro the size of a spaceship with his formal attire. Service was a little flirty and top-notch, in part I'm sure because the waitstaff liked seeing a young black couple like us becoming regulars. And they made a complete carnivore out of me.
We moved out of state and couldn't support the spot anymore, but it will always have a place in my heart (and my stomach).
I drove past it's former address on Grand River about a month and saw no vestiges of it ever existing. Made me sad. I really wish they could have hung on for the revitalization. But business is business. RIP Carl's.

I'm going to just review the food, since that is what this is about. Carls is closed, which is a bummer because the steaks were great. My wife and I went there in the last year or two of the place being open. It was odd because the place was dead. We were one of 4 tables in the place. The service was good and the steaks were perfect. The old school decor was neat to see, but definitely needed updating. Good job Detroit, another jem, gone.

Carl's is now out of business, closed. Sadly. It is a shame to see all of these reviews slamming them without understanding what happened. They did have incredibly good steaks. Unfortunately, most everything else on the menu went downhill has they lost business, causing them to lose even more business. This effects everything else, the service, the decor and even the legendary relish tray took a hit.
But I do not blame the owners. You have to blame the area. Detroit let Carl's die a long and slow death. People in the Detroit area have to support the cities restaurants. They have to visit them (not just when their team is playing and winning). Carl's tried to cash in on the sports crowd- updating to 1980 with stamped steel, neon ad the sports crap, fake neon and the bada bing neon sign and other DIY rec room decor was just wrong. All to try to get a handful of people to a restaurant that used to seat hundreds. Carl's did not get this bad overnight. It took decades of neglect and indifference. Most locals never dine downtown, and even in the burbs, they prefer to dine in chain restaurants. So this scenario is likely to repeat again and again unless the people of the Detroit area change their dining attitudes.

I went there before thay closed. It was one of those things I figured I should do. It was very old school, with the relishes and pickled beans like they used to lay out at Joe Muers and classy restaurants of that period.

Service was very good, but I noticed that our African-American waiter shifted into a more informal black dialect when addressing the couple at an adjacent table. When in Rome...

My steak was pretty much murdered. The medium ordered was served well done. I would describe it as burned beyond rescue.

Another Detroit institution bites the dust.

Food was always top notch here, I was raised out near Jackson yet my mom and dad talked about how great a place it was, so every time I was in Detroit I would go there. then when I became a truck driver I delivered there ( with two different company's one cleaning supplies and another produce) I can say the owners were some of the nicest people I ever delt with on a delivery. offered me free food more then once. very sad to see its gone.