Gerthantis

Review of Chili John's, Inc.

This is a legacy review from a year ago, with an u...

This is a legacy review from a year ago, with an update that is pre-covid. I certainly hope that they use this down time to improve things. I'm switching accounts and migrating all old reviews.

Past Review
I seriously love the idea of Chili John's. I've been there a few times now and the chili is ok. Is it the best? No. But the place has a great 'old world' feel.

A year ago I took my son and wife there for the first time. His favorite food is chili, and It was his birthday. Right when we got there (12:15pm) they had already run out of onions at the counter. We asked, several times and instead of onions, what we got was complaints about what a pain it was to cut up onions now that the machine was broken.

I don't get it. It's a focussed menu (chili). If you run out of onions at the beginning of lunch, either chop some more, go buy some chopped onions at the grocery store or local Costco, or just tell us you're out so that we can leave and go somewhere else.

Instead we waited and waited for the onions that never came. (we asked multiple times and were never told they weren't coming)

As you might expect, my wife will never go back and my son's birthday treat was a big dissappointment. I've put up with CJ's spotty service in the past as part of their charm, but this was too much.

Counter point this with the old guy coming out and giving my son some fresh whipped cream right off the spoon and you get a very mixed bag on the service. I'm guessing that the woman serving us was new and really just didn't get the concept of customer service. Maybe this review will help straighten things out.

Updates (all before Covid)
Chili John's wrote a lengthy and heartfelt apology and offered up a scoop of ice cream for my son's birthday, if we came in again. I guess the scoop was supposed to be offered the first time for birthday goers.

Since that time, my son went back once with a group of friends and in his own words, "It wasn't much better." Apparently they ran out of something else, service was spotty and he wrapped it up by saying, "I like Chili a lot, and I think a place called Chili John's has no excuse for not giving a great chili experience." Well said. We have since closed the book on CJ's.

It gets an extra star for the apology.