Chili's Grill & Bar — Restaurant in Gulfport

I went to supper with my dad. We have been to Chil's many times over the years but it seems they have lost their quality. My dad ordered the smokehouse BBQ plate as advertised, and it was a disaster. To order the half rack of ribs, we had to pay $2.00 more, but what my dad got was 5 small ribs which looked they were old, cold, not fresh, and were leftovers from a previous day. There was no taste to them other than the sauce, which he chose the original sauce flavor. It didn't taste that good. The ribs seemed like they had been sitting in old water, too. They had a bit of rotten taste to them. The supposed fire roasted corn was not fire roasted at all. It was simply a two small piecs of boiled corn with seasoning on it. It tasted like it had been soaking in toilet water. The pickles were disgusting...unedible. They try too hard to flavor some things and jazz them up more than necessary. The smoked sausages were not impressive either. The French fries were too oily and the oil they had been fried in left a bad after taste. I think the oil was old and dirty. My dad hardly ate anything. He left hungry. My plate was a burger and fries. The burger was average at best. I had the same french fries my dad had. I could not eat mine either. He and I both sincerely tried to eat everything we were given, but it was simply mostly unedible. I thought the burger was the best out of everything. I was hungry and ate it even though it was just average. We were sat in the bar section so the barrister had to serve us. She was trying to over the bar and all of the tables on that side of the restaurant. If it had been anymore busy, we would have waited for even longer time than we did for service. When we spoke to her about everything at the end, she seemed in a hurry with her body language and not wanting to listen. She immediately cut my dad off when he he started talking about the bad quality of the food and she was quick to just throw a discount to us and seemed like she was ready to rush off and go do that, but my dad and I were not concerned with a discount. We wanted them to hear about our experience when they asked us. So we told them. But between the barrister and her manager who came over next were not really engaged or seemed to want to listen or stay there. You can tell when they are itching to get away. That is what we saw and felt. We got excuse that they under new management and trying to sort things out. We told them it is not the Chili's we remember years ago. The last few times we have been there or my sister and her family been there, it has been below our expectations. We told them we will not be back again. There are too many other places to go. They also need to solve their staffing issue, as they were under staffed and they even admitted that they had two or three people call in that day who were scheduled to work. It's probably hard to find good labor in a market like this here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and when a new restaurant comes along, they probably all hop over to new place for employment. We should have known better and went to a local place (no chain). We learned our lesson though. ...

We arrived around 4pm. Walked in the restaurant and there was no one at the front to greet or seat our family. We waited 5 minutes. I walked around the corner towards the bar because they were fairly empty (only 2 tables with customers) and I wanted to make sure they were actually open. One other person walked in behind us after a few minutes. Turns out there must have been a staff meeting of some sort. The waitress mentioned to another employee that she was the only server and there was only one food runner for the night. I expected slower service, but there were only 3 tables total so it wasn't too bad. However, at one point there were 10 tables with still just one waitress and food runner for all of them. So the service was very slow. This is not to put all blame on the waitress because it is not her fault the restaurant management has done a poor job of properly staffing.

After bringing our drinks she forgot that we hadn't ordered our food yet and we had to flag her down after walking past us a few times with menus on the table. I ordered the Cajun chicken pasta and asked for the Alfredo to be left off or just put on the side because I didn't really like it and maybe they could put a little butter on the pasta or something. She said okay. Fast forward quite some time to receiving our order and the pasta had Alfredo plus an extra cup. Knowing how long it took to receive it in the first place, I didn't bother to request a new order but just are the pasta on the outside with the least sauce. My husband ordered the Chipotle Mexican bowl and was very disappointed. It was much like a high end Taco Bell or low end Moe's bowl. We'd also ordered the half order of Texas cheese fries. They were okay but loaded with cheese and thus greasy. Chips and salsa were perfect. Nice spice level to the salsa and chips were good. Best thing out of the whole meal. Strawberry lemonade was fine too.

At one point the music was turned up considerably, stayed like that for about 10 seconds, and then was turned way down to almost inaudible. Not sure why someone touched the volume in the first place when it was fine as it was. On the note of ambiance, the restaurant also had one stall in the ladies room that was disgusting. And the table had lots of garbage stuffed along the edge by the window that my toddler kept trying to grab.

My husband went outside with our two daughters while I waited to pay. I was requesting military discount so I needed to speak to the waitress for that. I finally flagged her down and asked her for the discount and she let me know she'd ask a manager to fix it. 5 minutes or more later, she comes back around and clears of my table and says the managers are in a meeting and they'll fix it soon. A couple more minutes goes by and I see two other employees walk away from the back assuming those were the managers. Then the waitress came back around with the receipt and I was able to pay and finally leave the restaurant.

Overall, the service was slow, the food was subpar, the attention to detail was disappointing, and the management was...

The food was really good, but kind of greasy a little overpriced but they did have a deal that might still have it going on right now for like 10 or 11 bucks, you get a free drink a free side and then your main entree, and if you choose your free side to be salsa and chips you'll get free refills on the salsa and chips. so basically unlimited salsa and chips for the entire table you only need one person to order the salsa and chips for it to be refillable for the whole table. so that's a plus. I use the bathrooms for like a minute they were pretty clean they smelled all right it was okay. the entrance and exit was pretty decent and yes there is definitely handicap accessible. the staff was very kind and welcoming and very patient with us there. was a bunch of us all so they did not rush us. you know they were not rude to us or anything else my group was very indecisive and took a very long time to figure stuff out. lots of questions honestly if I was a waiter I wouldn't have wanted to serve us. but they were very patient I didn't want to point out the atmosphere was as a restaurant comes it was nice it was clean it was good it was you know everything you would expectall in all I want to give him a good five star but like I said the prices are really high so I'm not a fan of the prices so that's why they're getting four stars on everything but other than that the food was great and we did get a deal that day so we got it cheaper that day than normal but if you paid normal prices you're looking to spend like $20 or more per person possibly but if they got deals going on like I said the 10-dollar deal they got going on right now definitely jump on that it's definitely worth it I'm not big on meat I'm more of a vegetable person but I do eat meat and I got a burger and some asparagus and drink and then like I said there's salsa and chips and everything was really good even the burger tasted good so you know go figure they're roasted asparagus is great you've got to try it if you like asparagus it is amazing. I will say you do not have to tip but it is an establishment where they like tips because...