Chuy's — Restaurant in Harker Heights

OK everyone it's been a very long time since I posted a review, but I must post a few tonight. So, I went to Chuy's restaurant this evening with my daughter and while the food was good the Waitress Kiana C was HORRIBLE. So, let's review first she comes to the table and gives the spill about them taking donations for St. Jude's Childrens Hospital, ok I can get with that. She goes to get the Queso and Chips comes back & asked to take my order. While I am telling her what I want, the table behind me starts talking to her asking her for to go boxes, she turns walks over to them, and leaves me talking. YEP, you heard right in mid-sentence. I get upset and I get very quiet, well she gets an attitude as though I just left her talking while she was trying to give her order. Finally, after a minute or two, I ordered. So, she walks off. Someone else brings our food to the table (Cool no problem) but Kiana NEVER came back to address any of our needs during our visit. I told my 14-year-old daughter to ask the Hostess for silverware, then she went back for napkins and after 25 minutes I sopped the hostess after she seated some customers and asked her if she would bring me two carry out boxes and the check. The hostess said yes and walked away. She (the hostess) brought back the carry out boxes and said that the manager would come with our bill. NOPE--that did not happen, so after 10 minutes I walked to the hostess station and sked for the receipt. They went to the back and finally Kiana came back with the check (she started asking what was wrong, and I kept silent), and she had an attitude while she was asking, and she finally walked away (after I gave her NO response). So, I got up after 5 minutes went to the hostess station and asked them to ring me out. They said that they had to get a manager and it would be a few. Ok but again NO manager came, Kiana came and said she would ring me out. Did she ring me out? NOOOOO. I saw her serving another table, so I pointed it out to the hostess and asked her to go get my debit card. Here is the FINAL kickoff.. Kiana had laid my card down and was serving another table, so she had to go find it, bring it to me and guess what SHE HAD AN ATTITUDE. NO MANAGER CAME!! I snatched my card from Kiana and left. I WILL NEVER EVER GO BACK THERE. And I pray that Kiana C and the manager will receive much better service WHEREVER THEY GO, than they were to me. I would rather make a run for the boarder from...

Cliff notes up front - bland food, understaffed, poor communication of menu shortages, lead to a regrettable dinner out. Leaving a restaurant with the family agreeing "we should've went to...."

We showed up at 3:55pm and it was still slammed with a 10-20min wait. That's understandable for a new restaurant, especially for something as popular as Chuy's. It quickly became obvious it wasn't necessarily busy, but moving slowly due to not enough staff. Those servers were damn near jogging through the restaurant in every direction, table turnovers were about 2min once the party left but the tempo of service was very slow. Our server (Jayden, who was a very nice and professional young man) was working no less than 7 tables spread on both sides of the restaurant - on top of bussing tables, and cleaning as he went.

The food was bland. The chicken in my Chuychanga had all the exciting flavor of boiled chicken. The only thing on anyone's plates (including the kids') that have measurable flavor was the sauces. Even my 9 year old daughter remarked on how her food was "boring". There are several locally owned small business Tex-Mex restaurants around that serve better food at equitable prices.

The kicker was at the end of our service we were told they were out of the kids desserts (included in the price of the kids meal). This is where this sort of review may run people the wrong, however I believe that if you pay for something you get what you paid for. Nothing more. Nothing less. I asked our server why he would wait until the end of the service to let me know that. I have two kids that read the menu and order on their own, so they were expecting dessert. I asked Jayden to see about substituting it with something. He left and returned to explain to me his manager said there is nothing to be done. This is when I became frustrated as the overall experience had been lackluster. I asked him if I could speak to the manager myself about even serving a half order of the churros for the kids. He left and returned to explain that they would be serving a complimentary tres leches cake. Now if you have had this cake at Chuy's it's damn big. To me that wasn't a good substitute from the restaurants point of view but at least the kids would get the dessert they had expected to come and that we had paid for.

Sadly I don't think Chuy's ever recovered post-COVID. There are better, and locally owned, options for any number of cuisines. Skip...

We chased being able to eat here for days. Two days ago they hadn't actually opened yet. Yesterday, they were full with 1.5 hour waits, and I couldn't place an online order. I got an error "due to increased demand you order will not be ready until 7pm", however it would not let me accept those terms and submit my order. Finally today we got an order in. I ordered the deluxe chicken enchiladas. My enchilada sauce has no spice/heat it was oddly sweet. The beans were good, the rice was like zatarans. My daughter ordered a beef burrito with texmex sauce. The sauce was ok, but they really poured it on. The burrito was poorly stuffed, almost 50% of her burrito lacked meat filling...all of it was in the middle. My mother ordered the chicken burrito with boom boom sauce. Half her burrito has beans, the other half had chicken - we assume it was rolled the wrong way is how that occured. The boom boom sauce she said was good but definitely hot...again they poured it on. The salsa, for me was too much cilantro but a good heat. It is closer to pico de gallo than a typical salsa. The jalapeno creama is unique, I personally liked it. The Tres Leches cake was not a win for me. I knew it was a milk soaked cake. However it said it was topped with creme fresh, strawberries, and caramel. I saw no creme fresh, the caramel was barely there, certainly couldn't taste it. The strawberries were fresh. The cake itself didn't have much flavor. Overall, it was not worth the hype it had and it is not a restaurant I'd visit again.

On another note the parking lot is terrible...even when things calm down no one planned for Texas being a truck-loving place. The driving lanes on turns are too tight for two oversized vehicles to easily pass each other. The placement of curbside-a spot that should rotate in and out quickly- right next to the entrance of the parking lot was a...