Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Ann Arbor

One aspect of restaurant dining that I particularly enjoy is being made to feel as if I am a guest at the restaurant. Especially with young waitresses, you will find that they act as computers. They will greet you favorably, serve your drinks, get your order, deliver the order, check back in a few minutes, and finally give you the bill. All six checkboxes are satisfied just like computer work. I find that older waitresses often times go beyond the six checkboxes and make you feel at home. The tip I leave reflects it.

When the six checkboxes are satisfied, I am generally satisfied and leave forgetting the event not having any interest in leaving an online review. However, when the waitress makes you leave the restaurant feeling as if you have been visiting friends, that is online review time for me. Such is the case now.

This evening, December 19 of 2024, my wife and I dined at the Eisenhower Applebees about 7 PM. I wish I could tell you the waitresses name but she mentioned that today was her birthday. That tells you something right there.

With respect to the chain, I particularly like the combo deal they have where you can order from a menu for two diners. With respect to Eisenhower, the environment is always warm in the winter and favorable in the summer.

My wife and I have ALWAYS had stellar service and finely prepared dishes there. There have been NO EXCEPTIONS. I know that when I leave reviews, it is probably more often than not that I am complaining. I absolutely cannot tolerate service that detracts from my dining experience. I can cook food at home and it looks like a non-professional cooked it. It looks fine, tastes fine, has balanced nutrition, and is consumed fine. Later in the day I can usually tell you what I ate for that meal but likely not two days later. Dining at a restaurant, the memory lingers but especially lingers if I was not happy with the service. I have found that it takes me two years to forget an unfavorable experience. However, there is an Outback restaurant in Jackson that I have not been inclined to visit for four years!

When I dine at a restaurant, I demand the best if they want my repeat business. There are way too many excellent dining establishments for me to repeat a visit where I was dissatisfied or even merely had the six checkboxes checked.

In view of my most recent experience at Applebees, I highly recommend patronizing the Eisenhouwer...

If I could rate this a .5 star I absolutely would. I took my sister here for a girls day lunch even though it’s not our normal Applebees I figured it would still be okay. I was completely wrong. The experience was awful from the time we sat down, our server came over to get our drink order with an AirPod in her ear on the phone, she then forgot our drink order and returned 15 minutes later to get our drink order again and take our food order. 19 minutes later we finally got our drinks, and she then had to ask us again to confirm our food order since she did not write it down & had the AirPod still in her ear either still on her phone call or playing something else. The food arrived 30 minutes later, and it was awful. The cheese sticks were cold and there was no “cheese pull”, the chicken was burnt (kids chicken fingers. I got the 3 cheese chicken penne and it was so bad I took 3 bites and didn’t eat anything more, it was dry and tasted as though it was microwaved to warm it up. If you’ve warmed up pasta before you know how it gets all oily and the noodles get mushy, that’s exactly what my pasta looked like. After asking for the bill it took another 15 minutes before we could leave as our sever just kept disappearing. This was midday 1pm, there was 8 tables 2-4 people each 3 servers and management sitting in the bar areas talking. It was not by any means busy, I have worked in customer service before I get being busy this was not it. Sad to say we were not the only table with issues and the ladies behind us in the next booth also were having issues, along with another mom and 2 kids. I will not be back to...

Food was good, but service sucked. I asked for ranch with my appetizer. Literally couldn't get anyone's attention, ( waving hands, eye contact) no one came by. A food runner dropped off our food and walked off. The server didn't even bother to come see us until we were half way done with our entrees. All the while my cheese sticks sat on the table cold, waiting on that ranch that was definitely on the presented bill before ranch ever found itself at my table. Our server had a table of 9 in the next row, and she was way more worried about them. She personally delivered their drinks, appetizers and came back twice to check before taking their order. This whole time we were sitting there trying to get her attention. She didn't bring us our drinks or appetizers. She didn't even bring us our dinners. She had runners do that while she kissed a larger party's rear end. The only reason she got a tip at all is because I'm sure she had to tip out the runners and bussers. I was a server for 20 years and completely respect the job. I'm also the first one to way over tip a server just for being good and attentive to their tables. Her lose. I had $100 sitting, waiting just in case a server decided to make our night good. It was a special night for us. We will revisit this location because the food was good. Next time the two of us visit this location, we will unfortunately feel obligated to sit at the bar. This way we know we will get service. The bartender looked like she was on point. Doesn't really set the mood for a nice night, but unfortunately I cannot count on the...