Chug's Diner — Restaurant in Miami

A severe fall from grace

A few years ago, after getting gover the sticker shock of the chug burger and the demise of the Mayfair Kitchen burger (best in the grove at the time except maybe the grove sailing club), we came at everyone's recommendation for the Chug burger. We were hooked!

Nearly every weekend, we came for the Chug burger. It was a very expensive weekly treat, but worth it. If we left town for a week, it was automatic where we would go for our first dinner when we returned.

Since they removed the Chug burger (literally right after the bib gourmand nod), this restaurant has been rapidly descending into the "why continue to exist" category. The diner burger is an insult to the chug burger with the meat downgraded to worse quality and the brioche bun not complementing the burger. We even chased the original chug burger between the ariete group restaurants - Chugs, then Taurus, most recently Gibson Room...and even more recently, the Thursday Chug Burger special at Chugs diner. I was shocked not to see Chug burger on the menu at Eva for the faithful as even the Gibson Room version has lowered itself to the quality of the diner burger.

Well, I won't be fooled any more to go to this one time great. Given the (somehow) continued praise, we were convinced to try other dishes. The frita came highly recommended; however, even for a frita, I am shocked at the visual - the meat appeared to be like a patty made of dog food at worst or an impossible burger at best. The original Chug Burger was a proud burger - not overmixed, quite thick, and on rare and amazing occasion medium rare and deliciously tender.

The flavors didn't mesh, it will surely cause heartburn, and was unappealing to eat the cross section.

At one point I thought it might be fun to have a "Save the Chug Burger" instagram page, but now I think it's better not - let something once great fade into old memories instead of seeing it empty, with the food at its worst, and with the other tenants of the menu also tired and past...

Decided to have a brunch on a Thursday morning. Upon arrival we were immediately told they were understaffed which I completely understand. Waited about 30 minutes for a table and were seated then had to wait another 30 minutes for someone to finally come to our table. Our table was under an AC vent which kept dripping all over me and the table. We finally ordered all the food and drinks immediately since it had been a while already. Unfortunately they told me they had run out of pancakes which was a super bummer considering that’s the reason I came to try their pancakes… interestingly there was people taking pancakes to go in the tables around us so I guess they took them all. The drinks took another 20 minutes and the food about 30 minutes. I did see our order under the heat lamps for about 15 minutes so I’m guessing that’s why when we got the food it was not hot and instead room temperature. Apart from the food being room temperature the food itself was a complete miss. The breakfast sandwich was okay but nothing out of this world considering the price. The pork belly was over-seasoned and in fact not chicharrón like the menu said. We then had to wait another 10 minutes for the duck coquetas which were not good either. Apart from taking our orders we never again saw the waiter as they were busy with other tables. Overall the hype and anticipation for this place is completely undeserved. I completely understand being understaffed but you would think an extremely popular “Michelin” recommended restaurant would be better equipped to handle its clientele. The food was completely underwhelming so I don’t really understand the hype and of course I didn’t even get to try what they’re most famous for since they ran out… I will probably never visit again and I am completely...

Our first two visits here in the last year were wonderful. The food and service were both excellent. Our family went last night (Saturday evening) around 6pm and had a really subpar experience. The restaurant was not very busy, but the service was very slow (and generally poor).

After being seated, it was about ten minutes before anyone stopped by to take a drink or food order. We ordered both, but it took a while to get our drinks (almost as long as it took to get our food). The server who brought our food and drinks was different than the person who took them, which isn't necessarily problematic. But, they were not familiar enough with the menu enough to know what she was actually serving us. For example, my father-in-law waited longer than the rest of us to get his dish (Camerones Enchilados) because the server thought she was serving him snapper (which he didn't order) when it was actually the right dish. It was about ten minutes before the server taking orders came to check on us, so he had to wait at least that long before they brought his food to the table.

In addition to this, servers only sporadically came to check on us to see if we had what we need and if we wanted to order additional drinks or entrees. There seemed to be four different people serving the same tables in the restaurant and unfortunately, they weren't coordinating with each other and nobody seemed to be aware of what one of us asked of the server who was last at our table. At no point during our time there was the restaurant very busy, which made it seem more obvious that things were really off last night.

To the restaurant's credit, the food was pretty good. But, the slow and disorganized service left us wondering when or if we'll be back. Hopefully this was just...