Chili's Grill & Bar

We walked into Chili's and gave our name. We were told a 5 - 10 minutes wait time. There was 1 person sitting there ahead of us waiting. We saw 3 empty tables. We were there for about 5 minutes or so, and a party of 4 walked in and was seated. The person waiting ahead of us was then seated. Then a party of 3, a party of 2, a party of 5 and another party of 2 walked in and were all seated ahead of us. After the 4th party was seated ahead of us, I walked up to the hostess and said that they had seated 4 parties that had walked in after us, ahead of us. She said they were all call aheads. I understand about call aheads. However, none of those call aheads were physically in the restaurant when we walked in. They all came in at least 5 to 10 minutes after we were already there. It is my understanding that call aheads do not have a specific reservation, but are to be fit in as they come, between already waiting customers. I have never experienced it being done the way Chili's does it. At the very least, if they intended to wait for all of the call aheads to come to seat them first, they should have let us know that so that we weren't sitting there for over 15 minutes waiting for a table, watching all of these later arrivals being seated right away. And, we ended up being seated at a table next to the 1 person who was there waiting when we walked in and was seated second. She was waiting for 2 other people, who did not arrive until 15 minutes after we were finally seated. So she was taking up a table and was sitting waiting to order until the rest of her party came. She should not have been seated ahead of us, since her whole party was not even there until close to 30 minutes after she was seated. This is a very poorly run restaurant in terms of managing seating and call aheads. So be prepared if you go on a busy night and have not called ahead!!!