I Heart Mac & Cheese - Hixson — Restaurant in Chattanooga

This is going to be a lengthy review, but I want to try my best to accurately describe why this is the most poorly executed restaurant I have ever seen. I highly recommend reading the full review before you consider spending $15+ per person of your hard earned money at this establishment. The Menu. The menu here is just too broad. It's as simple as that. They try far too hard, and made too many sacrafices to have some of the silly things they have on this menu. When you go to a mac and cheese place, you want mac and cheese. No one cares about your grilled cheeses, especially if it means you use sliced cheese on the mac and cheese instead of shreded (by far one of the silliest most appalling mistakes of this restaurant. Its mac and cheese, you have to use shreded cheese.) The menu is chock full of so much nonsense, that despite having nearly 10 people behind the counter, they still were all running around like mad people.

The Food. I'll begin on a good note, probably the only one of the whole review, the flavors were actually pretty good. Nothing insane, but as good as could be expected. Now, onto the bad stuff, and there is a good bit. First and foremost, whoever in their right mind decided that a mac and cheese place should use anything other than a broiler style rolling oven (like used in pizza places) should be fired. Instead, what they have in the back heating your food is this rinky dink Subway style oven, and let me tell you, it did not get the job done. Our food was LUKE WARM at best, and if we had decided to drive home with it instead of eating in the car, it would have actually been completely cold. The "crispy" chicken was absolutely disturbing. It looked as if they took a bag of frozen Great Value brand popcorn chicken, and let it thaw before putting it directly on the line. Your pathetic rinky dink oven is NOT enough to fully cook uncrisped chicken, and it never will be. You HAVE to crisp it prior to putting it on the line, otherwise it is disgusting! Also, the tater tots, though I did not have them, looked like the grossest most pale uncrispy miserable lumps of potatoes I've ever seen. That brings me to final, most disturbing point regarding the food. SLICED CHEESE. Whoever made the decision to for go shredded cheese just because you already have sliced cheese for your useless grilled cheeses, should be fired, and publicly shamed on their way out. It's the dumbest most idiotic business decision I've EVER seen in my life. Who in their right mind has ever wanted a giant glob of melted sliced cheese that refuses to incorporate on top of their mac and cheese? I sincerely want to meet the moron that made that business decision, because I would be honored to interact with the once in a generation intellect that person has. Sorry, that's maybe a bit harsh, but they probably deserve it.

I'll make this my final segment though, I think I could find more things wrong, I believe I've made my point.

The Process. We waited in line for a solid 20 minutes, meanwhile there was only 5 people in front of us. This is probably because the line forces you to hide behind a wall where you can't see the menu, then your forced to look over one hundred options before you inevitably decide you want mac and cheese at the mac and cheese place. The assembly line is a mess. All of the stations are in the wrong order which left me confused and wanting to go back and forth to build my bowl. It should go as follows: Noods, Cheese sauce, veggies, protein, SHREDDED cheeses, extras (sauces, bread crumbs, etc). After your food is assembled it is thrown into their rinky dink oven, then two whole people are responsible for destroying your beautifully crafted bowl by dumping it into a secondary, useless, heart shaped bowl (biggest waste of money and plastics ever). All is all the process took us about 30 minutes just to get our food to go, and could be incredibly more efficient if the people who designed the restaurant had half a brain.

If you own this establishment, please reach out so I can help you not go...

I am very disappointed. My family and I have been waiting to come here ever since we found out they had gluten-free pasta, but it was not worth the hype

The food was mediocre at best. I ordered pasta, pesto (which they did not put on...), bacon, and scallions, while the other members of my party ordered similar toppings. The pasta was rather... crunchy, almost like it was undercooked, and the cheese tasted kind of fake. The bacon was very unflavorful, while the scallions were basically non-existent. The workers also decided to put breadcrumbs on top of all of our orders, which we did not order, which is a problem, since two of the members of my party are gluten intolerant, and they had ordered gluten free pasta and toppings.

The service was very bad, and left us all disappointed. The people who made our meals did not ask us if we wanted cheese or what our choice of sauce would be. One of the servers was especially rude, who nearly snapped at someone because they couldn't hear them and had a snarl on his face. They used the same tongs for everything, so anyone who orders vegan or gluten-free alternatives would have cross-contamination. This is especially problematic for people with allergies.

The price was way too high; it cost around 70 dollars for four meals with drinks and a side of tots (which they forgot). The line was about an hour wait due to it being the weekend after opening and their computers going down.

The best part of the experience was that the owners were customer service oriented even though their employees were not.

In short, the experience was bad, but the place could very well be redeemed. I believe that the employees could be more kind and perhaps a bit faster. I believe if the lines cool down, this place is worth a shot... if you really want to visit. Possibly in the future, I may revisit this place in hopes of leaving a better review, but not...

This review was done by John Humble ...

My wife and I had been hearing about the new I Heart Mac & Cheese location coming to Hixson Tennessee and were determined to visit as soon as possible. The day finally came where we were able to visit for a Sunday lunch and the place was packed, at first we thought we were not going to stay and try to come back when the traffic was a bit less. In spite of the long line, we decided to stay and to our pleasant surprise the staff worked like a well oiled machine and we had our orders placed and received our food within a surprisingly short period of time. The food which was brought to our table by one of the friendly staff was freshly prepared at a near perfect temperature and tasted delectable. I had the grilled bacon cheese with tomato soup that had complimentary tots on the side and my wife Laura had the classic grilled cheese with extra tots ...The owner of the restaurant Kyle and his lovely wife Rita actually took the time to stop by and visit our table to check on us to make sure we were well taken care of. I felt more like I was visiting a five star high end restaurant than a local eatery that had just opened. I came to discover that it was no mistake or accident that the flow and top notch service of this restaurant operation was due to the many years of experience the owner had aquired through out his career as a RESTAURATEUR managing and operating various well known chain restaurants prior to achieving his dream of buying his own operation ... Everything one would hope to accomplish in a dining out experience was received with 5 stars all the way across ... Great food, clean operation, friendly helpful staff, professionally ran ... what ya gonna do .... we are going back every opportunity...