Chili's Grill & Bar — Restaurant in Santa Clara

My wife and I had been to this Chili's maybe 3 times. All 3 times, we ordered the same thing: the smokehouse BBQ combo with 3 meats (sausage, chicken, and ribs). All 3 times, we received good service, got free chips & salsa, and the food was excellent despite us sharing a single order and ultimately not paying very much.

This time, I had a $50 gift card from my aunt for my birthday, so I thought we would splurge a bit on weekend lunch. The first strike is against the chain. I get that chains are trying to get people to sign up for their loyalty programs, but come on, chips & salsa have been standard at these "Southwestern" chains for decades, and now you have to earn some kind of rewards status to get them included. I already knew this because all my online account offers had expired since the last time we visited, but still, what a joke. Each serving probably costs the restaurant $0.50 at most.

Then there was the service. I hate to point out their age and gender because quite frankly, I've had all levels of service from all types of servers, but the best way I can say this is that everyone working in the restaurant today was a stereotypical teenage girl. We walked in the front door, and the hostess just stared at me with this vacuous expression of disinterest, until I said, "Party of 2." At which point, she just grabbed menus and said in the most monotone of voices, "Follow me." Our server was the same way. None of them did anything technically wrong. They passed by frequently enough, were reasonably prompt in taking and bringing out our orders, fulfilled our requests for napkins, take-out boxes, etc. But I never saw a single smile or hint of emotion from any of them.

Now the real reason for giving 2 stars. We ordered a 2-meat smokehouse combo for my wife and a fajita plate for me. Her combo was supposed to be ribs and brisket. Instead, they brought out ribs and chicken. Virtually everything was correct except that she received chicken instead of the brisket. Here's what gets me so angry about modern chain restaurants. Instead of talking with us to see what kind of sensible resolution we could come to, they immediately took the entire plate back to the question without asking. I hate this. I've had this happen at everywhere from Jack in the Box to fine dining establishments. I honestly don't understand why restaurants today do this. My father owned multiple restaurants when I was growing up, and I could never fathom just taking a customer's food away without discussing it first. The reason is that in most restaurants, returned food must be thrown away due to health regulations. Taking back perfectly good food should be a last resort, not something you rush to do the first chance you get. My wife was simply pointing out that she didn't order chicken. For all they know, we might've been fine keeping the chicken. Honestly, it doesn't even really matter. A real restaurant run by caring and invested staff would have said, "As long as you're not allergic to the chicken, please feel free to keep it, and we will bring out your order of brisket at no extra charge." It's not like they can serve it to anyone else anyway, so at that point, it's a loss. I guess maybe they might just be trying to prevent abuse from losers lying about what they ordered as a means of getting free food, but come on, I highly doubt that kind of theft is so rampant that it's not worth treating your honest customers well.

So they immediately took her order back, and apparently made it entirely from scratch, because I was completely done with my food by the time hers came out again. When it came out, my goodness, it was beyond nasty. The ribs were so dry and had very little meat on them. What little was there had a sort of freezer-burnt texture like it had been frozen for months. Even worse was the brisket. It was excessively fatty with very little meat, criminally under-cooked, and felt like chewing a rubber band. It did not crumble apart like a well-cooked juicy brisket should. It was nowhere near their previous standards. Completely...

4 stars - Great portion size for the price, tasty. Get the chips!

This review is for a togo order. I got the Big Mouth Crispy Chicken Sandwich with fries, a side salad, and a drink (mango iced tea) and the Dip Trio (guacamole, house salsa, skillet queso).

Big Mouth Crispy Chicken Sandwich - 3.5 stars. The 'secret sauce' is a bit overhyped because it just tasted like fancy mayo, and there was only one sad slice of tomato in my sandwich, but otherwise it was good. It's a big chicken sandwich. You get what you think you're going to get. Fries were not the absolute freshest but had the right amount of salt. Mango iced tea was a surprise hit! Would recommend.

Dip Trio - 4 stars. I am obsessed with the extra thin corn chips. Enjoyed this app more than the sandwich. The Dip Trio was $8.69 so I was not expecting the massive bag of chips it came with. Pleasant surprise. Guacamole was fresh and chunky which I like, house salsa was mild but not tasteless. 4 stars because I did not enjoy the skillet queso, which was also chunky but in a bad way.

Service - Don't bother ordering curbside because you will have to go in to pick up your order anyway aha. Saw three other curbside customers give up and go in before I decided to do the same after having checked in on their app 15 minutes prior - there was no one at the counter but my order was the first one on the shelf. This location clearly understaffed, but my order was still hot and packaged well, so can't...

This is my first time ordering from Chili’s. Extremely disappointed, really the only thing that I was able to eat or the mozzarella sticks there’s no complaints about that item. It was extremely flavorful and very cheesy.. however I am so disappointed in the rest of the food. The chicken wings are extremely dry and not edible at all. They’re too hard to even chew each bite. I had to spit out because of how hard it was. The cheeseburger that I ordered for my kids also a huge disappointment there was little to no lettuce and the lettuce that they did give was like shredded lettuce, which I don’t know about Chili’s or anything cause this is my first time eating there, but it was not appetizing at all if I wanted a cheeseburger like that then I should’ve known to go to Burger King cause it seems like they use the same lettuce. And the last disappointment was the dessert portion. It was supposed to be like a scoop of ice cream and they gave me a tiny little half spoonful of ice cream in one of those little sauce holders is just really disgusting and it didn’t taste too good either. I’m not sure what’s going on. If it’s the cook that’s on shift right now but I would suggest Chili’s reevaluate what they’re doing because it’s such a disappointment. I know $60 wasn’t much but I honestly really regret getting this from there cause while my kids can eat their cheeseburger I won’t be able to eat none of the wings and it’s just a huge...