Chili's Grill & Bar — Restaurant in Florida

19 April 2025 - Why do I come back here?? IDK. HUGE mistake. Marielena was up to her old tricks. Paying attention to her friends and ignoring other customers. 👎👎

8 Feb 2025 - Update. Where do I begin? Substantial downgrade AGAIN. 👎🏻👎🏻

First problem. We sat at the bar and the bartender was named Marielena.

We ordered chips and salsa and Marielena continued to put her dishes away and talk to a person that she knew who was sitting at the bar. I had to ask her "are we supposed to order the chips and salsa on this little computer?". She said "no I’m going to do it", but she continued to put everything away and never did order our chips and salsa for well over five minutes. Meanwhile, Marielena continued her in-depth conversation with that person. 🤷🏻

Marielena made an orange martini or margarita drink and the drink was sitting there for over 30 minutes. The ice that was in the drink had melted and diluted the drink. A server finally came along and came behind the bar, shook the contents into another mixing container, poured it into a new margarita glass with ice and delivered the drink to the customer. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Two servers were standing in the bar order area, waiting for their orders and had to get Marielena's attention to complete their orders because she was still talking to that same person.

Marielena got my order wrong even after she asked my spouse, quite a while later for my order, and was told a second time the type of salad I ordered. Marielena's attention was clearly with that customer.

My second margarita was shaken in a container and poured into the same glass as the first margarita. No salt on rim and the same lime wedge. 😡

The bartender paid an enormous amount of attention to ONE patron while others suffered, including us. She would pour wine in front of him, and then sit there and chit chat before she would take that drink over to the counter for the servers. Marielena spent quite a bit of time chit chatting with that one customer. Clearly distracted from what she was supposed to be doing; HER JOB.

When the fajitas that my spouse ordered came from the kitchen, she mentioned that it usually comes with cheese and guacamole and she said "oh that’s coming" and then she ran out to the kitchen and brought me a plate with cheese but no guacamole and she said "we haven’t included guacamole in over a year". We know differently because we place online orders quite often and the fajitas come with cheese, guacamole, sour cream and pico de gallo.

VERY DISAPPOINTING VISIT!!!

29 Dec 2023 - Update. Back to a good review for Chili’s in Tarpon Plaza. Good food and drinks at good prices. We enjoy Chili’s and always buy gift certificates.

Update, 8 December 2022 (severe downgrade) - We came in on a Thursday evening for dinner and we sat in the bar area. Everything started out fine until a very obnoxious patron came in a sat across from us at the bar. The patron was very boisterous and extremely loud about everything. He was chatting with several Chilis wait staff that were sitting at a table near him in the bar area. It was obvious that other patrons in the bar area were annoyed with the loud patron's behavior. He was clearly drunk and yet the bartender continued to serve him. It turned out that the annoying patron, the wait staff, the bartender and the floor manager were friends. The floor manager was not around and should have taken care of the problem. The manager did not take care of anything until the obnoxious patron made a rude comment to us and we requested that the floor manager do something about it.

After the floor manager said something to the group, the loud patron left and the staff went back to work. Comments in the bar area from others were on the order of "it's finally quiet". All in all our worse visit to a Chilis ever.

P.S. We started to write something on the payment machine but it mysteriously shutdown in the middle of writing my comments....

It was really disappointing this visit. We were a group of 20, 10 kids and 10 adults. They were shocked but it take just a few minutes and with our help we settled 2 tables. Manager explained it will be one server and it would be slow but we accepted because we were not in a rush. As soon as the server presented herself I knew it will be trouble because ahe was not happy. We tried and I think we were pretty organized and we even accepted to do our kids orders instead of the server taking it to keep the mess controlled. When the food came it was a disaster but not because of the server but because of the rush of the helpers to deliver the food. We didn’t maje a big deal until the server let the plate fell without an explanation. She was with an bipolar attitude during the whole night so we were done with the way she was treating us and our kids. One of us went to the manager and advised him we were not in a rush and the server didn’t need to feel pressured. Time for the bill arrived and we all pay separate. After that she lost it. We order to go refills and she throw on of the to go cups on purpose to one of the kids. At that time we requested the manager and he came to apologize in the name of the server because the was feeling frustrated because Chilis didn’t charge the 18% automatically and she was not happy with the tip. Just for the server’s information: Tip is not obligatory and it’s proporcional to the service received. If you have an attitude and you throw plates with food , or you derogatory explain the rules like you were in a classroom… then you will received the amount of money equals to that. Management was not on point, a manager can not vent the server issue about the tip with us customers. Servers needs more knowledge and training, not a manager covering up...

Came in for early dinner .. received a friendly greeting from a young lady at the entrance.. after sitting a bit longer than expected as they were not busy.. our server finally came to our table young man Joe" I believe his name was"waited on us, he was not really friendly and seemed indifferent and customer service..We started with chips & salsa which were good and the best thing eaten""then Had another appetizer" consisting of" 2 mini cheeseburger sliders, (ok)2 mozzarella sticks(good)and 2 southwest eggrolls (yuck)"definitely not worth the almost $18bucks price.. main entree was horrible and we should have returned it back to the kitchen.. had a swiss and mushroom burger.. I specifically asked that only mayo be on it""...it came out fully loaded with onions"( I hate onions) a tomato and very old looking lettuce.. it was overcooked hard burger and so greasy it was inedible"' the other burger was supposed to be a cheeseburger loaded.. it came out with only lettuce and this burger was missing tomatoes& onion..and again was so greasy it couldn't be eaten..also opposite of my overcooked burger this burger was undercooked"" fries on the side were cold and hard .. other fries ( paid extra for loaded") ..were terrible and a joke they came out in a skillet...cold"" total was over $75bucks. Plus tip. and though not earned out of courtesy tipped 20% ..we also never had our drinks refilled and though he noticed we didn't eat much & asked "was it bad ?" when we said yes..he said nothing ( so why ask??) I don't mind paying a bit more for good food & service but after this experience I wouldn't waste either...