Chili's Grill & Bar — Restaurant in Olathe

Usually my wife and I have a good experience at Chili's, but tonight's experience was far from it, and it was all due to a server named Lydia.

We arrived at about 8:45pm for a late dinner. There were maybe a dozen people in the restaurant, mostly sitting on the dining side. The host got the attention of a server sitting in a booth in the bar area chatting with her friend (or maybe another server) and indicated to her that he was going to seat us in her section. She shook her head "no" but he smiled and nodded and proceeded to seat us at a booth in the bar area. She reluctantly got up from sitting at the booth to come serve us.

Admittedly, at that point we should have asked to be seated at a table with a server willing to serve us, but we went with it.

While Lydia was friendly, she obviously didn't want to be serving us. She brought our drinks quickly and our appetizer soon after. While taking our order, she didn't write anything down. I've seen many servers do that, and with no one else to serve I thought she could handle remembering our order.

My wife ordered the chicken quesadillas, which were correct. I ordered an old timer cheeseburger with bacon, fries, a side of mayo, and a side of honey mustard. My burger didn't have bacon, but did have mayo on the side, but had a tub of regular mustard. When I asked for the honey mustard, I told Lydia that there was no bacon on my burger, so just take it off our check. She mumbled something about another customer ordering a cheeseburger and walked away.

Uh, okay... After bringing out my honey mustard, Lydia disappeared until we were finished eating and she brought us a couple of to-go containers for our leftovers. We paid via the on-table kiosk and left. We would have spoken to a manager, but we were in a hurry and there were no staff around. It sounded like they were all gathered in the kitchen laughing and talking, so we just left.

Far from our usual experience at Chili's.

Our Check...

Upon arrival, it was not busy but it took several minutes before we were even acknowledged, then it was by a waitress who was across the floor and called out to us to "have a seat here," and pointed to a booth. We sat, waited a couple of minutes for menus to be brought to us, whereupon our drink orders were placed. The tea was rancid, so my husband asked for water instead. No apology. Food order was taken and when it finally came, it was brought to is by a girl who appeared to be a manager of some type. She had her thumbs on top of the plates, nearly touching the food. Husband's fries were not delivered, so he asked for them and I asked for some extra butter for the dry looking corn on the cob. After she left, we realized we had not been given knives for the country fried steak, so when she came back, we asked for that, too. She then gave a sigh and headed back to the kitchen. Our actual waitress appeared with the knives. The country fried steak was dripping in grease (a first for this dish, which I order often). The mashed potatoes had so much paprika dumped on them they were inedible. After adding the butter, the corn was pretty tasty. The garlic bread was tough, clearly indicative of it having been laying out in the kitchen too long. We were never asked if everything was okay, if we wanted refills on our drinks or if we wanted anything else, such as dessert, or even if we needed a box for the leftover food still on the plates, only if we were ready for the check. We simply ate what we could and left. We eat at this location quite often, as well as ordering takeout weekly, and it has never been this bad. Let's step up our...

Walked in yesterday evening, friendly greeting. I had to wait on my husband. Was served promptly. Ordered my drink and two appetizers. The waiter was training a waitress. As far as service, my husband and I felt like the waiter hovered a lot. We were thankful that he was trying to give great service. It would have been nice to enjoy our meal instead of being interrupted every 5 minutes. He did keep our drinks filled and was very pleasant. The food was basically what you would expect. It was good but probably not for the price. We loved the Nashville Hot mozzarella sticks. I was really surprised that the asparagus they gave me looked like grass. It was very thin and tiny and cost an extra $4. . Mushrooms were okay but very salty. I ordered the new honey Chipotle chicken crispers I was expecting a mix of heat and sweet. It was more sweet than heat. But otherwise good. I also ordered a side salad with blue cheese and I never received it. We paid and left and I didn't really think about it until I got home. It really wasn't worth me making a deal about. As far as atmosphere it needs a little work. It was pretty dull in there with lighting and absolutely no decor. It didn't really bother me that much. The biggest thing for me was the host and manager were standing behind a booth the entire time we were there. And they were both on their phones. Manager never moved. Overall the experience was good. I like to give detailed reviews when I go...