Chilis
Bad experience - complaint

On Aug 13th my husband and I went to the Chilis located in Houma, LA (70360). I had to talk my husband into going because he had eaten there a few months ago and was very unimpressed with the service and the food. I wanted to try the "two for $20 ribs" so I told him we should go to dinner early so it would not be busy and see if he had a better experience. We entered the restaurant a few minutes after 4pm. We were told by the hostess (who never once smiled) there would be a 15-20 min wait. To my left I could see 10 tables, some clean, some just needed to be wiped down and some with dirty glasses still on them. Out of the 10 tables, 1 table had customers. To my right (the bar area) I could see 12 tables with 2 tables with customers. Several people came in and some looked around and decided to eat elsewhere, some went to eat at the bar. During the 30 minutes we waited only 2 additional tables were seated somewhere in the back of the restaurant. The discussion between the waiting guests was how we could not believe there were so many tables available, but so few were being seated. It was amazing to me the waitstaff did not seem to be concerned either, even though they only had one or two tables in the areas I could see, with customers. At the end of our 30 min wait I finally asked to speak to the manager. A very nice man by the name of James came to the front and asked if we were being helped. I explained to him the above concerns and his takeaway was the hostess had told us we were going to have a 30 min wait. I explained that she had said 15-20 min, but that was not the point I was trying to make. Again I showed him the empty tables to the left and right and explained that two other sets of customers had been waiting longer than us and that made no sense for the number of empty tables and adequate staff. He apologized and we left to go next door to the Outback (I found out they have ribs also). Outback was much busier, but there was no wait. We were seated immediately by a very friendly hostess. Within 10 minutes we were eating our salad, bread and had our drinks. The two experiences were completely different. I remember several years ago when Chilis was one of our favorite restaurants. Now we will not waste our time ever going back.

Company: Chilis
Country: USA

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