Chili's Grill & Bar — Restaurant in Florida

I am a frequent customer of this Chilis and have never run into a single issue until today. Tonight I ordered dinner to be picked up. I purposefully eat at Chilis because they post their allergens online and are completely transparent about safe food service practices and keeping a nut free environment for customers. As someone with a severe and life threatening peanut allergy, I used to feel safe eating here. However, that changed tonight. When I went to pick up my dinner, the take out girl, who was packaging food without gloves on, was popping peanut M&M’s in her mouth. Simultaneously, she was eating peanuts, walking to the back kitchen, handling food of other take out customers, and serving guests. I knew she had peanut M&M’s because of the bright yellow distinguishable packaging and from being able to read the label. I used to work as a take out specialist in Boca Raton, and bringing in outside food into the back kitchen was a huge no-no for the risk of cross contamination. Seeing her handle my food (and other customer’s take out dinners) while eating peanuts was very nerve wracking and extremely irresponsible considering peanuts cause anaphylaxis and is largely considered one of the most common food allergens. Peanut allergies are well known and an obvious risk. I don’t know whether it is ignorance, a lack of training, or this Chilis having really low sanitary standards in food preparation, but it was very disappointing to see this. Again, I never leave reviews, but someone in management should be put on notice about this. I ended up not eating my dinner from fear of cross contamination, wasting my money, and I will not be returning to this location because of the unsafe food preparation environment for people with allergies. The Chilis menu online clearly has NO NUTS, yet their employees are allowed to freely eat nut foods during the dinner rush- which defeats the point entirely. If someone reading this has severe food allergies, think twice before getting take out here! I had no idea about the extremely relaxed regulations/rules this restaurant has when it comes to cross contamination. I informed the take out girl of my allergy and she still did not wash her hands. Another server brought out my food, but I still did not feel comfortable eating it knowing it was handled and prepared by the take out girl. It should really be addressed and taken more seriously. Very disappointing. I used to come here at least 2...

Besides the host telling us that there was not seating for 5 for fifteen minutes when clearly there were several seating options open (and when my wife finally literally stood next to an empty table he said we could have it), my very small hamburger was cooked to the consistency of a hockey puck and had some sort of mesh stuck to it, protruding from the edge, that was probably meat but it was clearly the pattern of something it was stuck to it one time. There were other unusual and strange completely burned black bits that were stuck to the middle of the patty once I pulled it off the bun to look more closely at it. For what it's worth the waitress was pleasant, although the food was extremely slow coming out, which the waitress advised us about halfway through our wait, however she never asked me how I would like my hamburger cooked, not that that that question ever actually gets your hamburger cooked the way you requested. Half of the chips brought out were burned visibly, and tasted horrible. To the managers credit he came over and of course, took my uneaten meal and offered a free dessert.

Look, I'm not naïve, my expectations are incredibly low when I go to a Chili's, particularly the ones in Boynton Beach and unincorporated Lake Worth. My wife, who goes to Chili's often, correctly states that she doesn't always have a bad experience when she goes to Chilis without me ( as she knows that after repeated bad experiences I'm no longer a fan) but whenever I go along something really bad about the experience, whether it's the service or food, is guaranteed to happen.

There were a few clearly visible things that could have been done, realtime, to prevent the poor experience. However, it seems that in the past few years, that rarely happens at Chili's.

I'm not a jerk who treats the wait staff horribly, who "induces" the bad food or service upon himself, I think that it's just what we've gotten used to in a busy suburban area, where any given well marketed, name brand restaurant will be crowded no matter how badly they flog you.

(If you're asking why I went there when I usually have a bad experience, it's because my five year old son chose the restaurant after performing his school's Christmas musical. And even he did not like his food, he was there more for the iPad that has games at...

I would give zero stars if possible. Went in to meet my mother-in-law for dinner (4:50p.m.) while we were in town visiting. Waited nearly six minutes before anyone showed up to seat us, although the place was empty except for a few at the bar and two visible couples dining. We asked for a booth and were told none were availabke because they hadn't yet been bussed, so we were seated at a table near thw restrooms in the back. While we waited for a server to come and take our drink order, we could clearly hear obscenities, shouting, and crashing dishes from the kitchen area. When our server finally showed up, he asked if we we wanted to start with an appetizer or were ready to order our entrees....Note that we hadn't even ordered our drinks yet. So we simply asked for two iced teas and a Coke, were told the tea wasn't available (?) and the Coke hadn't "arrived" yet. So we settled for water. While we still had his attention we ordered two house salads, one without onion and dressing on the side, and an order of sour cream enchiladas to share. He took the menus from us and scurried off before we had a chance to even look for our entrees! Ugh.. The salads arrived promptly, but were warm, and both had onion, neither had dressing, on the side or otherwise. Ten minutes later the enchiladas arrived....oh dear lord, were they atrocious. A red hot plate of some burned, cheese-covered, unidentifiable form of "food", with watery black beans splashed all over the place and greenish yet flavorless rice falling all over the place. Although we ordered it to share, it came on one plate, no silverware. As he set it down, most of the beans poured onto the table, yet he set the plate down right on top as if it had never happened....At this point we were done. Having not touched our salads or "first course", we began to pack our purses and leave, when our server caught us at the door and asked what if we needed anything...No, we replied, and promptly...