Carrabba's Italian Grill

I was happy to see the Cinco Ranch area finally get a Carrabba's and visited this location for the first time last night with a group of six, plus two children and a baby. The food was good and tasted exactly as I have come to expect from a Carrabba's. However, there were several other service-related circumstances that affected my dining experience and brought my rating down from a solid four stars to two stars.

The short version: The food is good, but the service has a lot of kinks. You may be at risk for poorer service if you come with a group of more than four people.

The long version:
1) We were given a wait time of "about 45 minutes," and ended up waiting for an hour and thirty minutes. OK, no problem, we kept each other company and a couple of beers from the grocery store's bar across the parking lot took the edge off.
2) Everyone in our party received their meals except me. I received my meal as soon as everyone else had completed theirs. Then I wolfed it down because it was tasty and I didn't want to hold up everyone.
3) We waited approximately 30 minutes to receive our tickets at the conclusion of the meal. There was no dessert, no wine, no coffee, nothing. Just us, sitting at a table for 30 minutes staring at the floors and ceilings, thinking about life and how late it was.
4) On the way out, I noticed that although our servers were fumbling for the past half hour on generating tickets, the whole management team was relaxing and eating their dinner. I'm only assuming they were relaxing; They could have, in fact, been very tense and uneasy while they were sitting back and eating their dinner. However, it seemed strange to me that any of them would be sitting down while members of their staff were having a helluva time figuring out how to serve us.

I called the proprietor, Mark Kolter, as soon as I stepped out the door and told him my experience (he was having dinner inside the restaurant). He met me outside and was very apologetic, understanding, and I felt like he took my criticisms seriously. I think this location's service will improve and I will be disappointed if I ever have a similar experience here again. Until then, two stars.