Chili's Grill & Bar — Restaurant in New Llano

Summer 2022: went on a Friday for lunch. Their hours online didn't match the hours on their door so we arrived too early (submitted Google edit). We were seated immediately. Our server was nice, however seemed a little all over the place. Struggled to take order and repeated orders numerous times to try to get right (maybe nervous, but not new). They were nice though, so not a big deal. When we got our food, I noticed mold in my cheese. I got the opinion of others at my table just to make sure & they agreed. I quietly and politely informed the server who told me I was wrong and that's just how pepperjack cheese looks and there's no way it could be moldy because it is freshly shredded in-house. I know what pepperjack cheese is, but this was white/fuzzy and blueish. They took my food back for a new plate but returned with a commercial bag of pre-shredded cheese and pointed at the label to show me it is pepperjack cheese. Pretty rude and contradicted their previous claim of "freshly shredded in-house" 🙄 no desire to return.

Summer 2021: arrived on Sunday at 830pm. There were only 6 table seated at the time. A family of 4 was waiting, us (2), another group of 4, 2 men, and another group of 4 but nobody ever greeted us for 15-20 minutes. We informed wait staff and asked if anybody was hosting and they simply said they were short staffed. One group walked out. Another group walked out when told it'd be another 15 minute wait. We got seated about 5 minutes later. Waitress was nice but extremely unattentive. We only saw her when she took our order and brought the food. We had to ask other wait staff for refills, napkins and to go boxes. When my food finally came at 940pm (they close at 10pm), it had cilantro which I asked to be removed when ordering (tastes like soap to me). It was in the tacos and the beans. I picked through it to remove. Wait staff noticed and offered to remake the dish but I told them we couldn't wait another 30+minutes, especially near closing. It would have been nice to even get a discount but they moved on and we left. It'll be a very long time before we go back.

2019: Got there when opening at 11 on Sunday. Seated immediately. Not crowded. Availability to sit at the bar, booth, table, or tall tables with stools. Waitress was very attentive but not over bearing. Good variety on the menu- soup, salad, chicken, tacos, steak, shrimp, pasta, etc. We ordered the blackberry sweet tea, sunrise margarita, southwestern eggrolls appetizer, chicken bacon ranch quesadillas and steak. Nothing was disappointing. Amazing flavors, everything hot, steak cooked to correct request. Options to pay to the waitress or at the electronic tablet...

Y'all. Never have I ever.

I took the kids to the Tree Farm massacre for Halloween and had a great time. We went to Leesville, Louisiana to eat at chili's- because it was getting late and chili's has never disappointed me....

Until now. Y'all. Our experience tonight was scarier than the haunt!!! I never write reviews or anything like that, so this is a first for me- but I just couldn't believe it. We get there, and 5 of the tables are filled. We're told we have to wait about 15 minutes. 5 of the like 30 tables were filled and we had to wait. Okay, sure thing.

When our table is "ready" we sit down. The table was soaking wet, we had to ask for paper towels to dry it. She unapologetic and handed us comes paper towels. There was literal trash under our table (big, dirty napkins, not small trash). Our waitress comes and gets our drink and appetizer order. She brought drinks, no straws, and left. We could not get her attention for the life of us.

So, I had to get up, go to the bar, and get straws. Keep in mind, there were a total of 5 tables there. Total. Okay. I was a bit annoyed at this point.

She brings our appetizers and takes our orders. One of our appetizers did not arrive at this point.

Food is brought out, and y'all. I would have NEVER expected this from a chili's.

One of my sisters ordered a pasta. It had one single piece of corn in it. Weird, right? But not a huge deal. My entire quesadilla was BURNT. Like obviously burnt. How could you walk out with obviously burnt food and smile? My boyfriend got a steak- medium rare with mashed potatoes. At least, that's what he wanted. What he received was raw meat and mashed potatoes with OLD RICE in it!!!! It was as if they used a dirty dish to cook in. On top of that, we had absolutely no silverware, and had to attempt to flag the waitress down again.

At this point. I'm beyond confused. We asked where one of the appetizers went. The waitress kind of shrugs, days oh I knew I forgot something! And she brought out my sister's cheese fries and they received soggy fries with burnt cheese.

So long story short, the food was bad. The restaurant was dirty. And The waitress was inattentive and unapologetic.

We won't be eating at chili's...

I was in town for the week during a conference and we stopped here for a quick bite to eat. We were seated immediately upon entering.

Grant it I am aware we are in a pandemic, but for anyone else who may not realize it - you may be waiting a while for your meal. It was ok for us because we were catching up.

Atmosphere:

I think they were severely short staffed because there were about 6 tables near us that wasn't cleaned when we arrived and when we left. It stayed that way for at least an hour.

The restrooms were decent - but I only washed my hands.

I also think our waitress may have been having a bad day - but we tried to be as polite and as kind as possible.

Food:

My spinach queso was missing the queso. I'm not even joking. I asked about it and immediately our waitress said it's supposed to be thick like that and as she continued talking while I lifted up the spinach and shredded cheese - she paused. Then she said yeah that's not supposed to look like that. I agreed and explained it was missing queso. They were happy to fix it. It was delicious!

My goddaughter's chili was burnt. The smell was so pungent - but she didn't want to make a big deal out of it because we noticed how overwhelmed the staff looked. She just ate around it. Her chicken crispers were old too.

My friend's chicken sandwich tasted very dry like it had sat under the warmer way too long - but her onion petals were really good.

My sister's chicken crispers had sat too long too and one of her pieces of street corn was old.

Overall, it was ok. Our waitress' attitude got a bit better towards the end as we tried to be as kind and nice as possible.

Of course we left a nice tip to encourage the staff. I hope when we visit again - we'll have a...