Habit Burger & Grill — Restaurant in Chico

The Habit is a restaurant that does not seem to know what it is or wants to be. They have a nicer interior that wants to be more upscale than your average fast food, but without the actual bar and grill atmosphere. They offer a menu that is seemingly a bit more upgraded than many fast food competitors, but then make their pricing closer to a sit down restaurant without restaurant quality food. They offer a drive through, then have it take 3 times longer than any competitor.

I had eaten at the local establishment once previously and was not all that impressed with the food when compared to the pricing & previously noted that the drive thru was slower than usual. A year later, I decided to give them one more chance, prompted by a coupon mailer. I decided to go through the drive thru. 4 cars in front of me didn't really give me pause, but the total wait from the time I pulled in, until I received my food was 30 minutes. Yes, 30 minutes. This just should not be acceptable for a drive thru burger chain. I overheard the two cars in front of me when they ordered & did hear an apology offered for the wait. When I got to the order board, I was asked to wait again. Then someone else came on after a wait of 3-4 minutes. No apology, just straight into asking for my order. When picking up my food. No greeting. Peering in the window was not seeing chaos, it was 1-2 people, just relaxed, milling about. Cashier opened the window, then promptly remembered something, and turned around without a word. She came back after a minute and wordlessly took the coupon I held out. She gave me the total, I handed her my card, and then she gave me my bag and card back with a "here you go. Thanks".

I got a chicken club and an order of onion rings. The chicken club is normally $11.29 before the mailer coupon discount. The sandwich came in a nice plastic to go container instead of wrapped in paper like most. It had a nice chicken breast fillet, a bit less bacon & tomato than you would expect from a nicer restaurant, but in line with a normal fast food sandwich. A nice toasted sourdough really helped out the flavor. It was definitely the highlight of my experience.

The onion rings were very disappointing. Their price was $4.69. The portion size was pretty good, but the flavor and cooking execution missed, badly. Very bland batter with no noticeable spice / salt. The first onion ring I picked up disintegrated instantly. I found that most of the onion rings did not stay together and became a pile of onion ring crumbs. The batter fell off the onion, while it managed to be overly crisp on the outside, and mushy undercooked on the inside. They tasted of old oil. The onion rings came with their signature "ranch sauce", in a somewhat large portion cup. I opened the cup to find it maybe 1/3 full, which would normally be disappointing, but the ranch sauce was runny and bitter.

For me, this was clearly a case of 2 chances being all I need to form an opinion. If you want a fast food burger, you have options that offer vastly superior food, at a better price, at a much faster service. If you are seeking a better menu and atmosphere than fast food, just go to a sit down bar & grill restaurant and get the better food at comparable prices with better service & same wait times. The Habit somehow misses both demographics and doesn't offer much to hang...

Went with my wife today (6/25/2024) to try for the first time and get lunch for us and our kids and took our order to go. Ordered the Impossible burger, Teriyaki Burger, a double cheese burger, a single cheese burger, and kids chicken nuggets. Also ordered 5 fries and 4 drinks and a juice for my little'n. The service is outstanding! Very polite, smiling, and willing to please. The atmosphere reminds me of a Mr. Cook from the 80's, which isn't bad, but the dining area could have used a bit of a wipe off. Lots of tables that had crumbs on them and food trash bits on the floor beneath the tables. All of our sandwiches were soggy and flavorless and smashed. The buns were falling apart on us as we were eating and made the experience completely not worth it after that point. When we got home we found that we were missing 2 out of the 5 orders of fries and the apple juice that we were supposed to get with the kid's meal. Sandwiches that were requested to not have tomatoes on it had them and the shredded lettuce was wilted and very unhappy. If we would have eaten our food there, we would have had them remake everything because what we received was below McDonald's level. We spent $74 for the 5 of us to get food there and it was not worth it at all to us. They are very nice there, but not $74 worth of nice to make up for the food. I do have to say though that the hibiscus aqua fresca is pretty tasty. I'd go back just to grab that drink, but...

I'd never eaten at a Habit Burger until now. We ordered online for curbside pickup. The website said our order would be ready in ten minutes and we would receive a text when it was ready. I received the text within seconds of placing the order. No problem. We drove over to Habit Burger and were there two minutes after the website and subsequent email said the order would be ready. The young lady parked in the space next to ours looked at us sadly as we pulled in. Ten minutes later she got her order delivered to her car. As she backed out she shared with us that she'd been waiting an hour. Eventually an employee came out to deliver a bag to another waiting car, so we asked if they would check for our order. He said he would and a few minutes later he came back out with our order. Habit Burger had "up sized" our drinks for the inconvenience. We had been waiting for thirty minutes past when our order was supposed to be ready; not sure the extra ounces of lemonade made up for that. The food was cold, too. It had clearly just been sitting there waiting for someone to run it out. There is something wrong with their system, so I would recommend going with the "pick up in store" option if you...