"Met friends for a casual lunch. Started with drinks an appetizer. When meals were ordered, one of our foursome ordered her lunch plus a take-out order. I was dismayed when her takeout order arrived before our lunches, and it was not prepared to-go. She told the server it was to be to-go, so it went back to the kitchen. When it came back, in a clear to-go box, half of the meal was missing! The fries and corn which had been part of the meal the first time it came out was gone. Then the server told her those don 't come with an appetizer--apparently it somehow morphed from being a lunch special (as it was initially prepared into an appetizer. Then my friend had to explain that she had not ordered an appetizer. When the server still said these don 't come with it, my friend asked for a menu to show her what was included on the lunch special. Later, she got the fries.I don 't know what happened to the corn. Our lunches never arrived 'til after the take-out order. What restaurant does that???We were calm during all of that. Then came time to pay. Our checks were never brought, so one of the group asked for them. The server said You pay on that and pointed to a credit card processor (or not! Keep reading . She said they don 't take payments. One in our group asked What if I want to pay cash? Then the server said she 'd take her payment. For the rest of us, we took our turns on the machine that I had thought was an online menu. One in the group had an incorrect bill. The manager came to help with that but didn 't seem at all concerned that their customer was overcharged. Then it was my turn. My payment did not go through, and the processor gave me a message saying it did not go through because someone was adding an item to our (cumulative? bill. I assumed it was the manager who was trying to fix the errors on my friend 's bill. It also said I 'd have to re-do the payment and that I might see a posting on my credit card account from my initial payment. I certainly didn 't want a double payment, so I said to the manager I did not want to pay using his card processor because it had indicated to me I might see a posting from the initial attempt. He said they do not accept payments other than through their processor. I replied (not heatedly that if that is so, it should be made clear to customers upon arrival. He looked at me but made no apology or even acknowledgement of what I 'd said. He merely took my credit card to see what he could do . Then he passed our table a couple of times with no follow-up and of course, he still had my card. When he came back, he said I 'd have to pay through the processor or else use cash. Fortunately I had cash for if I had not, I would have been an even more unhappy customer than I was. Neither the wait staff nor this manager seemed even slightly concerned at all the missteps and errors in how they handled our orders and payments. People reading this will probably think, Poor Chili 's; they probably don 't have enough staff. That 's not it. They had plenty of staff for the small number of tables occupied with customers. I like Chili 's, but this one is off my list."
Loaded Mashed Potatoes
