Chili's Grill & Bar — Restaurant in Escondido

I came here with my family and friends to have dinner yesterday evening. Our server, Arleth, was quite obnoxious. At first, she showed friendliness through her smile. Other than being able to do the basics of her job such as come to our table and take an order, Arleth lacked any customer service skills and thus her inadequate work ethic led to zero gratuity. The restaurant itself was busy and loud at the time. I noticed she was hard of hearing when taking our order and thus several mistakes were made. The food runners brought to our table several drinks that did not belong to us. When we informed the food runner, she showed signs of irritability as if we asked her to do a job that insulted her. When Arleth took our food order, I had asked questions regarding specific entrees, and she displayed signs of confusion and irritability. Unaware of the reason for the obvious body language and tone of voice, I had a poor perception of her character and ability to conduct her job. Our table became overcrowded after receiving our entrees because of the appetizers still on the table. When Arleth was asked to “take away some of the plates”, her bearing broke and facial expression was poor; you could tell she had an attitude at this point. When she returned, we asked her to take away more plates and she rolled her eyes and smirked. Arleth did not attend to our table throughout the night unless we asked for her although, there was another table behind ours, she still made no effort to. We asked for the check and when she showed us how the check was split, we immediately noticed extra charges and the check was split incorrectly. I asked her “Can we fix this?”. At that moment, Arleth raised her voice, rolled her eyes, smirked and said “Do not talk to me that way, ok?” and ignored my question. I leaned back from how close she was to my personal space. I said, “get me your manager and another server who can close out our check professionally.” Arleth became defensive and said “You’ve been disrespect all night to me.” Being confused concerning the reasoning behind this statement, I conveyed that I no longer wanted to speak to her and that I have been respectful and kind while also requesting of her to do reasonable tasks related to her job. She said “it’s because the way you’re talking to me.” Still confused, I said “If I’m speaking loudly and affirmatively, it’s because it is loud in the restaurant and mistakes were made to our order already. However, please get me your manager. I no longer want to speak to you. If you are unable to conduct things asked of you related to your job, then there is no reason you should be working this job.” She ignored my statement and pleaded with me yet still lacking professionalism. She asked me to explain to her what was wrong with the check and when I did, she stormed off and the manager came. Ultimately, Arleth’ lack of timeliness, professionalism, respect, workplace etiquette, tact, bearing, communication and customer service skills led to her not receiving a tip. Very inappropriate behavior and response from an individual working in a restaurant. Be very cognitive of how you speak to Arleth as there is obvious sensitivity when asked to do her job. Overall, this location needs intervention. The food was cold by the time we received it and the food runners also lacked professional courtesy. Lastly, they failed to conduct the basics and therefore, may fail when given larger tasks. Absolutely the staff could benefit from a customer service, time management and...

I have learned to lower my expectations when dining out since the world turned upside down with the COVID epidemic. We arrived at Escondido Chili's expecting things to be slow but definitely worth the wait. I was a bit surprised to see so many open tables during the peak dining hours on an early Sunday afternoon. Pre-pandemic there would normally be a line of people waiting to get a table on a weekend. I quickly learned why there were so many vacant seats in the restaurant that day.

My party of four were seated immediately upon arriving at the restaurant. The waitress quickly came to get our drink order. Everyone ordered water. Everyone. Just water. She got the order wrong. Things went downhill from there.

To surmise , the waitress was incompetent. The waitress completely ignored us after taking our order. One of our party actually started waving both of her arms, like she was helping to land an aircraft on a runway, in order to get this woman's attention as she chatted with another employee 15 feet from our table. After almost 30 minutes our food finally arrived. One person in our party was brought a plate of food no one even recognized. It was returned to the kitchen while she got to wait again for her meal to be delivered. My own food was incorrectly prepared and was tepid in temperature when delivered. It took three people and three attempts to get my meal delivered to our table. My food order was still incorrect after the third try, so I just gave up. I ate the corn on the cob in order to tide me over until I could get home and properly prepare the food myself. At this point I just wanted to escape this excruciating situation at all costs.

The real kicker for me, though, occurred at the end of the meal when our waitress finally showed up at our table herself. This lady actually had the audacity to stand in front of us and blame the other people working in the establishment for all the problems we had encountered instead of taking responsibility for her own blatant ineptitude. For the first time in my life, I did not leave a tip.

I rated two stars. These are for the floor manager, the host, and another waitress who genuinely tried to right our waitress' wrongs. However, the mediocre food combined with my encounter with the narcissistic Gen Z waitress has caused me to conclude that Escondido Chili's is not a place that I will be able to patronize moving forward. A shame, really. It used to be such a treat to dine at...

I hate giving bad reviews but I wanted to put this out there so you can choose if you want to go or not. If you want to go out and have a nice enjoyable dinner out - this is not the place you want to go. If you like it loud and busy - this is your place. I will tell you I had the margarita chicken and it was really good. The young guys greeting you at the door and taking you to your seat were very nice. But that is where the good service ended And I will never go back 😞 First it was really crazy busy for a mid week day night! My friend and I had a booth in the back which was fine because we wanted to sit and visit. But - it was SO loud! Every sound echoes - including the sound of the chairs scraping the floor when someone is scooting in - this drove me crazy! People laughing, talking, it sounded like they were screaming in my ear. There were times we couldn't even hear each other from across the table. It was miserable. Our waiter was nice enough but she never came back to check in with us and no one ever came by to clean the dirty plates off our table - and we sat there for over a half hour after we finished our food. And I hated the little machine they put on your table - it was dirty and it didn't work really well. I'll also put this out there - we sat in the area to the far left of the podium as you walk in, in the back corner. That area just really echoes. Things might be different in the main dining area to the right. I do not know for sure. But it was still noisy, it just might not echo as bad. Sorry Chili's it was...