The Denver Phantom Diner Visits Chili’s Restaurant

We visited the Lakewood Chili’s at 88 Wadsworth Blvd., on July 2nd, 2006 at around 6:30 PM. The experience was additionally interesting because it’s the day after Colorado’s recently-passed smoking ban went into effect for bars. Now I’m a libertarian and didn’t feel that such things should be legislated on private property. It should have been up to the owners to determine how their property is used. But, that being said, I’m also a non-smoker and mild asthmatic who used to have horrible problems in the workplace until most employers stopped allowing smoking, and in restaurants, until so many restaurants stopped allowing it. After that, we just avoided the ones that continued to allow it and didn’t ventilate their establishments very well.

The reason this is interesting with regard to Chili’s, here and now, is that they also have a sports bar right in the middle of the place. Truthfully, this never used to bother us much in that particular restaurant. They must have had it ventilated out above the bar, so the smoke stayed out of the restaurant areas. But it was particularly interesting today because so many bar owners have been crying that this ban would put them out of business. Well it sure wasn’t hurting the business at Chili’s. The place was packed.

And we noticed something else unusual. Families were now sitting in the area around the bar, with their children. When I mentioned it, the waiter told me that more people were dining in the bar area now, because the TV’s are only in the bar area. He said that before the ban, if people wanted to watch a sporting event while they dined, they either had to sit in a smoky bar or stay home. So apparently the lack of smoke has brought more people into the bar area to watch sporting events, and they feel safe bringing the kids there with them while they all watch the events, drink and dine. I don’t have to tell you what effect that will have on their alcoholic beverage profits. The rest of the place was packed too, so it appears that the ban has given them a lucrative boost in business. I saw one lonely smoker wearing a sports shirt, lighting up on a bench out front.

A recent Denver Post article, before the ban went into effect, quoted a bar owner out in the Burlington area of far eastern Colorado near the Kansas border. They feared that the ban would cause all the people who wanted to smoke while they drank, to drive over the border into Kansas where they could still do so and put them out of business. But that owner really needs to pay attention to loopholes in the law. The law exempts cigar and smoking clubs, so I’m guessing that they could just turn that one into a private cigar and smoking club, with free membership on the terms that anyone who entered would accept the fact that smoking was allowed there. Aren’t loopholes wonderful?

But back to the important business of dining. It’s a tough job but someone’s got to do it, and yours truly, the Denver Phantom Diner bravely steps up to the task.

We were greeted at the door by a young bright cheery attractive hostess who lit up the place with her charm. She ushered us to our table and informed us of the alcoholic beverage menu, but that she couldn’t serve them to us because she was under-aged. Poor thing. ( smile )

This evening I ordered the Fajita Trio ( $14.79 ), which comes with beef, chicken, and their popular spicy lime shrimp grilled up with the usual fajita fixings. The little plate with the diced tomatoes, guacamole, sour cream and lettuce could have had more of it on there, for my taste. I like to really heap those trimmings into my fajita. It also would have been nice to have some rice and some refried beans with it, but they didn’t. But overall the dish was excellent, absolutely delicious. It will be my favorite at Chili’s from now on. I also enjoyed the lightly sweetened blackberry iced tea with it, something you just don’t see everywhere.

My dining companion had a half order of baby back ribs with a half order of lime shrimp and rice as her side dish. ( $13.99 ) She didn’t care for some of the other side dishes and wound up with a large double side of yellow rice which she graciously offered to share, so I did have some rice for my fajitas after all. Where would we all be without such congenial human cooperation? It makes the world such a better place. ( smile )

The service was about average. It was like they were trying hard but then forgetting the simplest most common sense things along the way. We didn’t have napkins and silverware at the table and had to ask a couple of times. We finally got them after the meal was served. I had to ask for a knife too, twice, and finally got that after we were served and I got up and went looking for one.

We ordered the chocolate molten cake for desert, which is their featured desert dish. ( $5.39. The waiter was pushing it at all the tables, we could hear. I love capitalism. ) It consists of a nice-sized volcano shaped mound of rich double chocolate cake, with a nice big serving of vanilla ice cream on top, and a thin hard chocolate coating on that. But don’t try this alone. We were fairly well stuffed from the generous servings of the main meal, so we asked to split the desert between us. Only the waiter didn’t fully understand, and brought the desert on a large plate, and set it on the table between us with two spoons on it. Before I could say; “but we need small plates too”, he was gone. So we had to stretch to reach it in the middle, and eat it from both ends, off the same plate. It was delicious, we didn’t mind much. ( smile )

Tipping The Scales From 1 To 10.

That kind of thing, combined with “5” service, turned what would have been a “9” overall experience into a “7” one. We’d still recommend the place, the food was great, but we would urge the management to do a little extra wait staff education on the finer points of serving these things and setting the table.

As for the bar smoking ban issue, the restaurants that had bars played it as a political football to cover their own cowardice. They feared angering the smokers if they’d simply stopped allowing smoking in the bar areas, yet they probably realized that it would be good for business overall, from the previously documented experiences of other states. So they went to the government and asked them to, “please twist our arms and tell us we can’t have smoking anymore”. Twist twist. Ok, so now the smokers can be angry with the government and not blame the restaurants, at the expense of yet more damage to private property rights. The employees will no longer have to face such workplace breathing hazards to keep their jobs. The restaurants will probably make more money, and likely even the bars too. Everyone will be happy, except of course for the smokers who may wind up out in the rain, snow or cold at times, to get their fixes. But smokers are, after all, only about 25% of the population, and that’s “democracy” for you.

I think overall, it will turn the bar areas of restaurants and the bars themselves, away from the images of sleazy smoke-filled rooms where people drink, to more of an atmosphere of a family pub kind of place, where the family can go sit and have a drink for awhile, maybe some dinner, and even bring the kids. For better or worse I suppose. Will the alcoholism rate increase, now that non-smokers can drink without being exposed to smoke? Stay tuned.