Chili’s Grill & Bar didn’t start off a chain. It was to be a great burger joint serving good tasting food with beer and a nice warm atmosphere. Founder Larry Lavine must be laughing all the way to the bank for the success of the now large franchise with over 1400 stores in the group.
Chili’s is known for its American food influenced by Tex-Mex Cuisine and it does struggle to be true to that theme. I do enjoy a good chain as defined by consistently good... food; service; atmosphere. I used to meet a friend at the Chili’s in Santee regularly for a friendly business meet and to catch the game in their bar.
The menu has changed a bit over time, but for the most part it’s still the same formula: One dash of hospitality, a couple of cute servers with great charm, reasonably fast food prep, and a good mixologist to keep the buzz just right.
Nancy and I were in the midst of wanting a decent burger without a map to take us to it so we did the Chili's Grill & Bar at 9804 Mission Gorge Rd in part because I remembered some good burgers I’d had there in the past and in part because I wanted to know if the Lakers were winning.
I enjoyed the PHILLY CHEESESTEAK SANDWICH which is a seasoned, shaved steak with peppers & onions with cheese sauce on a Philly roll while Nancy did their MUSHROOM-SWISS BURGER with sautéed mushrooms, Swiss and mayo on a nicely toasted bun. We also enjoyed a couple of domestic brews and the fries were good enough to eat.
The servers were good, though I didn’t receive my sautéed mushrooms I’d ordered until asking a second time yet they arrived in short order and because of the failure to communicate the first time, my server served the shrooms up for free just to make amends and I appreciate it.
My Lakers seem to be getting back into the swing of things as does Tiger who was shown over and over winning our little local golf tourney, and he did look good doing his thing.
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