Chuy's — Restaurant in Corpus Christi

I've been eating at Chuy's in various locations for over 20 years. Richmond and Westheimer locations in Houston, Lubbock location,a couple in Dallas, and now that I live in the Corpus Christi area, I go to the CC location. On Saturday, September 21st, I had my first bad service experience at a Chuy's. I can't remember the server's name, Rose or Rosa maybe? Older lady. My wife and I were greeted and seated promptly by the host, and being Chuy's regulars, my wife and I already knew exactly what we wanted when we got there. I wanted to try the newly returned Chile Rellenos, my wife got her usual steak burrito. Her food was delicious as always. I was disappointed in the new recipe for the Rellenos. I like the old recipe more. I've had worse Rellenos many places, but I left wishing I had ordered something else. But most disappointing was our service. We sat for about six or seven minutes before or server came out with a tray of food for a nearby table. She greeted us and told us she'd be with us shortly, and served the neighboring table's food, the returned to the kitchen. After waiting another four or five minutes, she FINALLY came to our table with chips, salsa and creamy jalapeño. She took our drink order and our dinner order and left again. We waited about another seven or eight minutes for my iced tea and my wife's frozen margarita. We're approaching 20 minutes we've been seated and still nothing to drink on the table. Eventually a manager walked by and noticed we had no drinks and she went to the service bar and returned with my wife's Rita and asked what I ordered. She went back to the kitchen and found the server there, who finally returned with my iced tea and my wife's side of ice water. Our food came out promptly, but she never did a two minute/two bite follow up. The restaurant want busy at all, it was about 4:30 in the afternoon and she only appeared to have two tables. We left a tip of roughly 16-17%, which is low for us. My wife still works in the restaurant industry as a manager, and I waited tables, tended bar, cooked and managed restaurants for many years myself. Chuy's is our favorite place to eat out, and we'll be back, but my birthday dinner was a little...

I had a party of 4 when we came into this establishment today, when we walked in it was a really nice environment and the waitress showed us to our table. We sat down and waited 15 minutes before this young man came up asking for our drinks and if we were ready to order (we were never given menus) after we put our drink order in it took another 10-15 minutes to recieve them and the kid got the order wrong. 2 sweet teas 1 unsweet tea and 1 Sprite easy, nope brought 3 sweet teas and laughed when I asked for my unsweet tea. So we put our orders in and we wait wait wait 30 minutes goes by and I ask the young man when our food was going to come out (we were 4 baskets of chips in and getting full) he said it'll be about another 20-25 minutes. We didnt order anything special why is our order taking so long. Finally the order came out and low and behold my order was wrong. I asked for the steak burrito and the kid brought me a VERY HARD steak chimi my brothers nachos were burnt and our wives food looked like it sat under the heat lamp for 20-25 minutes. So finally I asked for the manager and I give HIGH PRAISE to the manager, she went into the kitchen herself made my steak burrito and it was absolutely phenomenal!!! The manager saved the day. She comp'd mine and my brothers plates and I wound up tipping her instead of the waiter. But while we were waiting we were watching the busboy bus and clean tables and every table that he wiped he wiped everything on the floors and seats and didn't bother cleaning that part up. The place is set up nicely the manager is awesome but she has allot of work to do with the staff members. We will not...

My wife and I visited from out of town looking for a good Tex-Mex meal....and we left quite disappointed. Before someone says "You don't know what Tex-Mex is"... we're both Mexican and live in the RGV...we eat it basically every day.

The place itself feels a little cluttered...I understand it's supposed to give it a certain feel to the place, provide an ambience to it. But what does Elvis have to do with Tex-Mex? Maybe I missed that bit of history....maybe Elvis was a big Tex-Mex fan? I don't know.

The service was lacking...the place was slightly crowded. The waiter did come by and ask for our order...we asked for about 5 more minutes which turned out to be closer to 15 mins later.

Surprisingly...the menu felt very small. They had plenty of alcoholic options...but the entrees basically centered on burritos, enchiladas, and the fajitas. There's plenty of Tex-Mex options outside of wrapping food up in a tortilla and doing a deep fry on it (Chiles rellenos, fajita tampiquena, etc).

So anyways....my wife ordered the beef/chicken fajitas and I ordered the Chuychanga. Her plate was good...the meat was nicely cooked...no real issues there. They were definitely lacking on salsa..we wanted something with heat.

My Chuychanga was not appealing....I was expecting it maybe to be drenched with the sauce and sour cream...as opposed to looking like a giant burrito from the local Circle K placed on some sauce. Was there even sauce? You can't even see it in the pic....

So if we're looking for good Tex-Mex....I think we'll stick to my wife's...