Chili's Grill & Bar — Restaurant in Citrus Park

The only reason this place is getting two stars is because the entrees and salads were good. Otherwise, it's a solid one star. Now don't get me wrong: I love Chili's. I urge you, however, to avoid this specific Chili's like the plague. Coincidentally, I was instructed to go to a sit-down restaurant and write a review afterwards for a writing class. I could never have been prepared for the ride we experienced. When we were seated and told our server, John, was busy and would get to back to us later I should have known what was to come. My roommate and I ordered waters, we received waters, and then we were greeted by John. John took our order at this point since we had decided relatively quickly that we would share the 2 for $25 (a wonderful deal, by the way). We also ordered chips and salsa. We didn't hear from John again for another forty-five minutes. Look, I may be a college student, but I tip fairly well. My mom and my grandmother both worked in restaurants and I know how awful it can be. I typically tip 20% and I'm an easy-going person, so it takes a lot to annoy me enough to not give a 20% tip. Being an eighteen-year-old I'm accustomed to servers not taking me seriously because 'younger folk don't tip well.' Whatever. Don't be blatantly rude and I'll still tip you 20%. I don't know if we didn't receive proper service tonight because we were obviously college students or if it was because our server was flirting with a woman at a different booth, but either way I was extremely annoyed. My roommate was reading a book for an assignment because she had homework due at 11:59pm. I had nothing to do but wait. And wait. And wait. While I was waiting I noticed another server waiting tables. I'm not entirely certain what his name was but my roommate and I have been referring to him as Max. And Max was a model server. He waited on people upon arrival, refilled drinks when they were nearing empty, and even initiated conversations with guests as if he genuinely cared about them and their opinions. If you ever find yourself waiting tables, be like Max. Don't be like John. When Max's tables that had arrived fifteen minutes after ours had received their food I became irritated. When John's table that had arrived five minutes after ours received their food I was done. If we hadn't waved John down and asked where our salads were I wonder if we would've been served at all. That's right, folks, we waited forty-five minutes for two salads. This was essentially the catalyst that catapulted the rest of our food onto our table. We received our salads a few minutes later and our entrees a few minutes after that. Paranoid about how long it took to receive our other food we quickly ordered our skillet cookie that came with our meal. As I said, the only good food were the entrees and salads. The chips: so oily and stale that the salsa would not adhere. The skillet cookie: so under cooked and raw that it was like eating a chocolate chip-cookie-dough-and-ice-cream soup. The story does not end there. Whether it was an accident or not we were charged for two 3 for $10's instead of our 2 for $25. We received six dollars off of our meal for John's mistake and as we were paying him in a twenty and five he tried to leave with our change. He ended up asking (poor) Max for fifteen cents and hunting down someone else for our change. We left promptly after that, but not before leaving $5 with one of Max's tables as a tip. Max, we see you, and we appreciate you; please keep doing what you're doing. I swear to you, I love Chili's. Just... Not this one. I have never experienced such awful service in my life. Whoever is reading this: please, NEVER go to this Chili's. Unless, of course, it's to give Max a high-five or a well-deserved hug....

I went there today 10/03/21 with my family. We had a server come up to us to takes our order he did not have a mask on we asked if he had a mask and if he could put it on he responded no to both. He said he doesn't need one because he was vaccinated. We told him that having the vaccine keeps you safe but we also explain that you can still transmit it to another person if you get it. The young man said once again he was vaccinated and didn't need a mask. He then asked if we would like another serve we said yes please. Moments later a young laidy came to the table with a mask on under her chin. We asked her if she would please put on her mask while taking out order. The young laidy said no she didn't have to become she was vaccinated and that it wasn't even required by policy to wear masks. We asked her if she could please because we had a child at the table who is not old enough to get vaccinated yet. She said well you're not wearing masks and you're around him! Does she not understand that we're his immediate family and we're doing everything possible to keep him safe? Then she proceeded to say that if we don't like it we were free to leave so we did. We went up the road to a new place Zoe's Kitchen and spent about $70 and didn't even have to give a tip. Thanks for saving us money. The food at Zoe's Kitchen was amazing! It was Greek food but in a fast-food Style setting but made fresh and delicious. Everyone in Zoe's Kitchen in the front of the house and back of the house was wearing a mask. Let me say that again. The people in the front of the house were wearing masks and there was still a plexiglass between us and the people in the back of the house on the stove cooking where also wearing masks. So a place with less interaction with customers was doing more to protect themselves and customers from Covid then Chili's. All the managers at Chili's on North Dale Mabry in Tampa Florida let me tell you, you definitely lost some customers today because we will be going back to Zoe's Kitchen from now on. The food was delicious and I highly highly highly recommend it to anybody in the neighborhood. GO TRY THE GREEK FOOD AT ZOE'S KITCHEN ON NORTH DALE MABRY, TAMPA FLORIDA INSTEAD...

The last few times I have been to this Chilis were terrible, but this time was the worst. First of all the atmosphere here sucks, no music just the sound of servers and bartenders talking in the kitchen/side stations.

The food here is mediocre at best, everything comes out lukewarm. The bartender serving us was very unkind to say the least. When sat down and we ordered drinks she let us know they no longer do 2 for 1 drinks, which is fine we don’t care we were just asking when that happened and thought it was wild and were really nice about it and she said so flatly “it’s because we’re a restaurant and not a bar”- we didn’t even ask why. And it was just weird considering that we were sitting at the bar. She didn’t bring us the waters we asked for, our drink came out wrong. She never came back for us to order anything else or tell her that we needed water. Someone else ran our food and the worst part of our interaction was when we needed to pay.

We assumed she wanted us to use the kiosk since she never came to the table. When I used it I kept it in there until it gave me an error message. I went to tell her it wasn’t working and ask for a paper receipt and she wouldn’t even let me speak and explain what happened she just said “it’s because your card isn’t working it’s because your card isn’t working you took it out too soon you took it out too soon you need another card you need another card.” Which is just crazy because she never once came to the table to know what it was doing to insinuate that it was my fault, wouldn’t listen to me say what was wrong with it, and didn’t offer to try our card on the POS system and give me a paper receipt. I understand people have bad days and have things going on in their lives, but this just felt like she had a personal issue with us from the start for no reason.

The manager was also exhibiting some questionable energy, the look on her face basically read that we were crazy when she asked what was going on and very sarcastically yelled “have a great day!” when we left. The only person who was kind to us was our food runner. She was really sweet, asked us if we needed anything else, and I wish she had...