Chili's Grill & Bar — Restaurant in Los Angeles

It had been years since I've been in a Chili’s restaurant for dinner. I remember going there in high school in the late 80s with my friends and we thought it was the best thing ever. But my experiences over the last few years have been more informed by having breakfast at the Chili's in the airport, which honestly was not very good. I was in the mood for a veggie burger and remembered that they had one and thought what the heck it's been years let's give it a try, so we headed to the chilies in Northridge. Overall it was a surprisingly good experience. When we arrived at 6 PM the restaurant was also super crowded with a very long wait.

I was in the mood for a veggie burger and remembered that they had one and thought what the heck it's been years let's give it a try, so we headed to the Chili’s in Northridge. Overall it was a surprisingly good experience.

When we arrived at 6 PM on a Friday the restaurant was already super crowded with a fairly long wait. No one likes to wait forever to be seated, but at the very least this was a sign that it was a popular it's not good place to eat.

The one odd start to the whole experience though, was that the silverware it was delivered in a brown paper bag that said right on it "this bag is 100% green, because it's made from sustainable and biodegradable materials." You know what would be even more environmentally sound and sustainable, Chili’s? Not serving your silverware in disposable brown paper bags. If you need to wrap it in something Alabama the paper napkins that you also bring to the table? These “green bags quote or an insult to the earth.

And the vegetarian items on the menu are somewhat limited, but they did seem to be willing to modify anything. Also we signed up for their free rewards club which offered either free chips and salsa or a free non-alcoholic beverage every time we came. That's pretty cool especially since drinks are usually pricey items at restaurants, even the non-alcoholic ones. We chose the chips and salsa which was very generous size and fairly tasty.

My wife ordered guacamole with the chips that she thought was good.

Their veggie burger is a black bean patty, which they can do on any of the burgers on their menu. I ordered it with their southern smokehouse burger, eliminating the bacon and their special signature sauce. The veggie burger tasted really good, it was Hardy and didn't fall apart like something I do burgers do other restaurants. It came with onion rings lettuce tomato cheddar cheese pickles and Panko onion rings. I am joyed it. It was Harty, all around flavorful, though the veggie patty itself was slightly over cooked.

I also subbed the fries it normally comes with with a side of their loaded potatoes. This was a good mashed potato dish with cheese and scallions on top. It tasted good and they were willing to serve it without the bacon crumbles it normally comes with.

My wife had the corn on the cob, which she thought was seasoned well and delightfully sweet.

She was a little disappointed with the house salad that she ordered. And then you described it as spring mix as the base, but really it out a little bit of spring mix and a whole lot of iceberg lettuce in it. Iceberg is the unnecessary and unwanted stepchild of the lettuce family, and it doesn't really do anything for us in a salad.

Also at the table is a tablet mounted on a stand, which you can pay your bill from and play games on during the meal if you're not into human interaction.

Overall we enjoyed the food at this restaurant, and would give Chili's...

Main issue : we were trying to figure out if we were charged twice or if we messed up on one of the transactions so we wanted a full receipt.

Server's Unhelpfulness: The server didn't listen to our request for a full receipt (the one prior to splitting), which could have clarified the whole situation. He seemed unable to handle at least hearing us out and got a manager right away. The girl we initially addressed the issue with was very helpful; she seemed like she was the only one actually listening. We explained to her that we thought we paid our own items but we needed a receipt to check because we were already charged. Our first red flag with this guy was when we told our server that my friend’s Dr pepper was charged even though a soft drink is included in the “3 for me”, and he replied with “oh it automatically charges the lowest drink on the order”. So my other friend got his lemonade pretty much free and the other had to pay for a drink that should have been included in his own combo because it was “more expensive” Charging a drink that should have been part of a combo was frustrating enough, but the explanation that it “automatically charges the lowest drink” seems odd and honestly dumb but we let it go.

The General Manager's Response The general manager came in and gave us a receipt of the items that were actually paid for and what remained. That is quite literally all we were asking for; we could've figured it out from there. But what really made us mad was the GM’s response. It was baffling. He seemed to blame us for the issue, suggesting that splitting the check caused the price to go up.(I hope that’s not actually true) and if it is there was NO attempt to fix it so I think he was bs -ing his way out of a situation to continue to push the narrative that it was all our fault and just pay the bill. It's unclear whether this was a policy issue, a misunderstanding, or just poor communication on his part but there is no way we could’ve known that prior to being seated. Also, the suggestion to use Venmo as a solution instead of addressing the actual concern with the bill felt dismissive. Instead of providing a detailed explanation of what happened, they gave an unclear, almost accusatory answer. He finished off saying that NEXT time we should just venmo each other. We only tried to use the tablet because we never had this issue happen at other restaurants and we didn't want to make our server split it if the system gave us an option to do it for them.At that point he should’ve just voided all our payments and gave us ONE bill so we could then zelle or Venmo each other since according to himself, that’s the...

Now, let me start out by saying that we have a 4 year old who is obsessed with Chilis, mainly because he can play games at the table. We go once or twice a week. Granted, we usually go midday, so there are less people, but, since I went to the Rams game today and my house was a mess, I really didn't feel like making dinner. With that being said, we went to Chilis. When we got there, it was packed. We were told there would be a 10 to 15 minute wait, no big deal. But when it turned into almost 30 minutes, our kids got a bit ancy. So, we finally get to our table and we then waited another 10 minutes or so for anyone to come to our table. Our server, Alondra, finally comes and asks what we would like to drink. The kids ordered soda, husband ordered a beer, and then I ordered a Shirley Temple. She asked me if that was a sprite drink. I said yes. Then, she asked of we were ready to take our order, we said yes, we ordered chips and salsa as an appetizer and ordered a kids dinner. Then mid us ordering she walks away and we don't see her for another 10 minutes. When she finally comes back, she says that they are out of the beer my husband ordered. Ok. So he orders something else. She walks away again and comes back about 5 minutes later probably after she realized we still haven't ordered our food. So we order. 30 minutes later, our food comes out. None of us had fries When they dropped the food off, I asked for the other kind of bbq sauce. I had to ask 2 more times before recieving it and having almost finished my meal. Also. The fries came about 3/4 the way into eating. Granted, they were hot so can I really complain about that? I guess, since I am airing my grievances here. Also, my 4 uear old ordered the mac and cheese, he hated it, and when I asked for chicken tenders instead, Alondra tells me, we don't have chicken tenders, we have chicken crispers. Really Alondra? Are you for real? All in all, we were at chilis for about 2 hours. Of course we will be back, because our 4 year old is obsessed, and since out of the 100 times or more that I have been to this Chilis, this is the first time we got the worst service ever. Can I give this place my stamp of...