Chuy's — Restaurant in Huntsville

While visiting friends in Huntsville, my wife was thrilled to find Chuy's had come to town! Years ago she went to one and had an amazing dining experience.

The place looks awesome with cool decorations, something to see wherever you happen to be looking. The sound of classic rock was playing throughout the restaurant!

Walking in the front door you'll find some Chuy's merch for sale. My wife picked up a cool Nightmare before TexMex T-shirt!

Chips and salsa were brought to the table immediately after being seated. The chips were warm and freshly made. The salsa was a tad spicy, but the creamy jalapeno dip was nothing short of amazing! We took home a 64 Oz container it was that good!

For drinks, I ordered a grande house margarita on the rocks with salt on the rim. Typically in an $11 grande Margarita is ordered I get a very big drink. I was shocked when I got a plastic cup that held no more than 10 oz of a truly awful margarita. All I could taste was lime juice and salt. It was very little salt on the rim of the cup because most of it was inside. When I asked my server if this was indeed the large she said it was. Buyer beware.

For my entree, I ordered the Chuychunga which was their version of a chimichanga. The description is listed as a flour tortilla filled with roasted chicken, cheese, cilantro, and green chilies deep fried and served with one of their signature sauces. For my sauce, I chose Tex-Mex, their homemade red chili sauce made from scratch chili con carne. The entree was also served with refried beans rice and a dollop of cream cheese and a couple of shreds of lettuce.

I love a good chimichanga, and this was not one. The chicken was dry and overcooked, with no cheese or green chilies apparent, and the sauce wasn't covering the deep-fried burrito. The beans were tasty as long as you didn't look at them. They had the appearance of some sort of animal excrement. The rice was dry and unremarkable.

A quick survey amongst everyone in our dinner party and we all felt like the kitchen was off tonight. That's pretty bad because we had six people that had marginal meals. Because we are staying with our friends in Huntsville, I picked up the tab. For the $150 we spent we could have gotten a much better meal elsewhere today.

We expressed our concerns to the server and she offered to remake our dishes but time did not permit so we just finished our meals and left.

Speaking of service our server was exemplary! Kayla was attentive and make sure no one's drinks were empty and we never ran out of chips or salsa or creamy...

The salsa and jalapeño ranch were fantastic. Their chips are thin and crispy, and I personally love that because I fill up fast. The thicker the chips, the faster I fill up. Of course I could just skip the chips and dips all together, but they are too good to pass up!

For my meal, I got the chicken/steak combo fajitas and they were just okay for me. The steak was very chewy and did not have much flavor, so I wouldn’t recommend them if you’re not into ripping half your taco apart trying to take a bite into the steak and then chewing your food forever. The chicken was much better as far as tenderness goes, but it was still lacking flavor in my opinion. The beans and rice were brought in a bowl smooshed together and on top of one another which was okay with me, but some people have an aversion to things being mixed together, and I could see where this would be an issue for some. Their homemade tortillas are great! They are soft, light and fluffy, and they don’t fall apart on you. My husband got the Tex-Mex enchiladas and there were no complaints from him. We were never offered refills on our waters, we had to ask for napkins and she only brought us 2 which made it seem like they were trying to be skimpy with them for some reason, but you are serving salsa and tacos that drip everywhere! Napkins at the table would be nice or at least hand out more than one per person. I’m sure we could have asked for more, but we should not have to and we try to not be too needy. We also had 2 to-go boxes and 2 cups of jalapeño ranch that the server was so kind to bring me, but no bag to put them in. Those are just little things in the grand scheme of things, so other than those little things, our sever was fantastic!

Nice atmosphere. The decor is bright, colorful and fun! Interesting to look around at all of the different artwork and decor pieces. And of course they always have fun t-shirts up front by the hostess stand that you can buy...

I've always loved Chuy's. I've had it in Nashville and Birmingham but this was my first time at our very own Huntsville location!

The food is still top notch Chuy's but it was far less of an experience than the other Chuy's locations I'm used to. The service was terrible. They didn't ask if any of us were new to Chuy's so they could talk about the sauces (something the other locations have always done). I asked for two sauces on the side and most of the table had finished their meals before I got my sauces. I even asked another waiter to get them for me, only for our server to come back and explain that she was waiting for them to "come up in the window." Since when can a server not go back and scoop some sauce into a bowl?

Really, for me the Chuy's experience is all about the fantastic sauces. Once, I even ordered a bowl of all the sauces (Birmingham). The first time I ate there, the waiter brought out a plate with a spoonful of each sauce for me to try.

I've spent many birthdays at Chuy's (Birmingham) so I was delighted to spend this birthday there without the drive. We told the server it was a birthday party (we had 14 people) but got nothing. No free fried tortillas with honey. No song. No awesome pictures of people in the giant birthday sombrero. We always get the best experience when we drive to the Birmingham location!

I was so excited to have a Huntsville Chuy's and even more excited to celebrate my birthday with my friends there. It was a massive let down. I'll still go for the food, but this is like a really toned down bad version of Chuy's chains. They didn't even try to sell me a t-shirt which I was planning to buy as a birthday memento. Oh well. Go to Huntsville for the food. Drive to Birmingham for...