Chili's Grill & Bar — Restaurant in Monroe

Was my first experience here. I am don't try new restaurants very often. Order the sirloin steak, loaded mashed potatoes, and steamed broccoli. I usually love broccoli, but I had never had it steamed. To me, it tasted like the flavor was gone. Not blaming the restaurant. I'm just saying I had never had it prepared that way before. So I know now to never steam my broccoli. The loaded masked potatoes were not for me either, again, not the restaurant. I just never knew they had several toppings I don't care for. Ever since I got covid, my body has changed. If I eat onions, regardless of how they are prepared, it feels like I become short of breath. So even though it was chives ( the blades of the onion, not the onion itself), it still happened. So, I definitely did not continue eating them. The sirloin steak was absolutely delicious. It's probably one of the best restaurant steaks I had ever eaten? Again, I don't try new places very often, so it was nice to try them for the first time. Also, in reference to my body changing. Before I had gotten covid, I never cared for steak. Now I love it. Yes, I know what you're all saying... A man that doesn't like streak? I know it seems weird, but it was true. Anyway, to sum this up. The restaurant was super busy but very clean. We sat over near the bar (didn't order anything, if you know me, then you know I don't drink) But even neat the bar, ppl minded their business, and carried themselves well. The lady that served us was very friendly and quick with the food and tea we ordered. considering how busy the restaurant was, our food was still on the table in less than 10 minutes. which really surprised me. So definitely recommend the restaurant the staff are super friendly and quick. my tea was refilled before I even got my steak, and it was refilled again as I was eating. ( No, I wasn't guzzling the sweet tea.seems if your glass gets half empty, they refill it immediately? ) Definitely an overall good experience. Again, I can't blame the restaurant for my quirky food issues, but the steak was absolutely awesome, in my homest opinion. I usually leave a 15% tip. However, as good as the steak was and how quickly they kept our tea refilled, I went ahead and did 20% tip. I felt badly as it seemed I was ungrateful or dramatic to the waitress, with my crazy food issues. She kept apologizing, even though it had nothing to do with her or the restaurant. Also, I was raised to never waste food. So I asked her for a box, brought the food home and my kiddos ate the potatoes and...

I've been here 3 times and have waited waited till now to see if I should write a review, partially because I was hoping that things would be improved upon. But that doesn't look to be the case.

Now I don't really have a problem with the wait staff since everyone here is friendly when they attend to you. My problem is the amount of time one has to wait to he attended. I clocked out for my lunch break at 3:45pm on 11/06/2020 and I have the luxury of having an hour break to enjoy it. When I arrived, someone was waiting for a hostess to seat them somewhere and there was no one to greet them. I didn't want to be rude and walk past her to the bar so I waited along side (also the bar looked empty so I didn't know if it was closed off or not) it took 2 minutes for someone to come up to us and let me know that the bar was open and took another 10 minutes for someone to grab my drink at the bar.

I would blame it on it being close to 4pm and perhaps shifts were changing. I can blame it on covid messing things up for us. But here's the thing. I've been to other establishments in the area, and I haven't experienced nearly the same amount of time waiting like I do here. I don't even want to go into my first experience here because that's a long story in itself.

A bar should be a priority and not an afterthought and if there's issues with the staffing, than maybe things need to be prioritized. Going forward, I'll be heading over to Olive Garden during my lunch break. It's right across from my the parking lot of my store and haven't been made to wait unless...

This was a To Go Order pickup You know..where you park in one of the designated parking stalls and wait for your order to come out. Once received, I stayed on the premises and simply parked in another area of their parking lot to eat it.

I still can't figure out why my fries were so hard. People, how does this happens? I don't ever recall something like this happening to me before. Were they someone's left over fries reheated? Kidding! 🙂. Hope not. One of our fears, no? Were these fries old or maybe just over cooked? They weren't burnt. Still scratching my head. Ate only some of the softer ones but the majority were unedatible. Felt I would break a tooth if I attempted. Taste wasn't really all that great either. I threw the rest out. I didn't bring it back or complain to them.

One thing I learned from today and every day forward from now on is that when you use Chili's online ordering app (or any app) and you're asked to add a tip as you're checking out? Don't! Pay without a tip. If the app allows you to later go back to add a tip, after you've eaten the meal, after you've had a chance to evaluate the service and you feel inclined to tip then go back and do it. Think about it. Would you tip your server at a sit down restaurant before the food is even brought out to you, before you've had a chance to eat it? Heck no!! So why would you tip on an app before you know what...