IHOP — Restaurant in Austin

I arrived and there was no one else in the restaurant other than the employees. Shortly after I arrived, two other people came in and sat at a table. My server (Sakinah) finally came to take my order. I told her I'd like a glass of water. She entered my order and then proceeded to sit in the empty dining room next to me and count her money, without bringing me water first. I had to get up and go to the kitchen to request it. The table of two that came in and ordered after I did got their food before me. Then, five minutes passed.

I got up to look in the kitchen and saw my meal sitting on the expo counter. I asked another server to bring me my food, as my server had been outside smoking for a good while. My food was cold upon delivery and I had to ask for silverware.

I settled the bill with cash, and my server brought me only the cash (and not the coins). So, she got to keep the .50 cents that she didn't give to me, and got nothing else. I've been a semi-regular in this restaurant. This place has traditionally had rough service and mediocre food that is lukewarm/cold upon arrival, but this particular visit was extremely unsatisfactory.

I get it, working in the service industry can be challenging, customers can be jerks, and everyone has bad days, but this felt like deliberate neglect (since there were only three guests in the place, including me) and I wondered if racism had something to do with it.

In this restaurant, I've routinely seen servers yell at customers, liberally and loudly drop F-bombs, and play hip hop music with the kinds of lyrics that I don't normally associate with the IHOP brand, or really any respectable restaurant for that matter--a bar, absolutely, but a restaurant? Give me a break. I'm not offended by any of this but it doesn't contribute to a good experience overall.

I'm not expecting anything more than to be able to order in a somewhat timely manner, have silverware and water, and receive my food while it's still hot. Pretty simple expectations that this place consistently fails to meet. I'm a chill, patient guy, especially when everyone's in the weeds and I'm a decent tipper. Also, I recognize this is an IHOP, not some fancy establishment, but to have to ask several times for stuff and actually have to get up from my table to get it when it never comes--especially when there's very few guests in the place--is really kind of ridiculous.

Also, why do I always arrive to find several unbussed, empty tables (like a bunch of them) and staff hanging out by the kitchen, each and every single time I visit? Even when it's slow, there are always several unbussed tables. I care less about THIS than the service I received, but it's not a good look.

I guess this review also sums up my experience here over the six years I've been coming here, but my last visit was absolutely unacceptable. It went from being a zen practice to actually making me angry.

Note to the owner/manager: Yeah, it's hard to staff a restaurant with good people...but I see nothing but apology responses to all of the low ratings people leave for your restaurant, and nothing is really changing over...

Unbelievably negative experience from a simple order. For reference, I’ve worked in the food service industry, including To-Go and delivery for years. Came in to pick up an Uber eats order. Based on when I accepted the order and when I got there, I knew the order was probably ready by the time I arrived. As I stood in the lobby mid Saturday morning, there were people waiting to be greeted but no one there to greet. The dining room was close to half full and there were 2 waitresses and 1 food runner or maybe 3 waitresses. After waiting I finally walked into the dining room to a waitress and mentioned my order. She said she would check on it. As I continued to stand in the full lobby, I see the same waitress and another employee take guests, take orders, and bring out food, all while avoiding looking up to make eye contact with awaiting customers and myself, walking right past me as if I were a sightseer in a park. After the umpteenth time of being ignored I stopped one of the employees, the older woman with the tattoos and let her know I had asked about a delivery order about 15 minutes ago. She said ‘idk who you talked to, but I’m sure that if they haven’t brought the food out, it’s not ready.’ In this exchange I mentioned my grievance about the fundamental expectation of receiving eye contact, i.e. not being ignored as a customer being the least they could do. She incredulously asked ‘really? Eye contact?’ And walked away. When she came back from seating a party, she went into the kitchen and I heard her mutter something about me ‘thinking I’m more important than everybody else.’ She immediately came out with my order. It was cold. I said ‘look at that, the order is ready.’ She then SHOVED the food into my hands. So, what we have here is avoiding customers, not paying attention, hostility toward customers, blaming customers for their own incompetence with simple tasks, a bad attitude, and literally LYING to guests—you DIDN’T check on the order, and you’re NOT SURE that the food is not ready. You should not be staffing people who are not fit for customer service. Maybe they are better suited for work in an independent role where they don’t have to be burdened by customers who inspire them to spread negative attitudes and toxify the workplace. I don’t know who oversees the iHops in the Austin area, but this isn’t my first experience with long wait times and hostile employees at this chain. Disgusting service. If you can’t conduct the basic processes, and you avoid interaction with customers, and act with hostility towards customers, then there is definitely a lack of competent management. I am not insensitive to high workloads and low staffing, but that is reason for, not against, a positive attitude and adherence to fundamental food service operations. I suggest you directly address this before more customers are...

Let me first start off by saying I’ve worked many years in the food industry, specifically being a waitress and I know how beatdown and tired you can be after a long day, but that’s not an excuse. Or waitress, Amy B (only know her name from the receipt because she didn’t introduce herself AT ALL), was very unwelcoming. First when we walked in the restaurant at 9PM we were expecting service to be a little slow because they only had 2 servers, okay cool. We get there at 9, 9:20 rolls around and we are still waiting to be seated. By this time, we have made eye contact with Amy about 8 times, she finally walked over and just looks at us and says “2” grabs 2 menus and walks away. My boyfriend and I just look at each other and assume we are suppose to follow her. After being seated she tells us she will be back and leaves for about 10 minuets. After coming back she rushes through asking us what we need and leaves again. So now it’s 9:35, give or take 2 minuets. This is the last time we see her until 10PM. I know that there is only 2 lady’s serving about 10 tables but the other waitress was busting her butt and Amy was no where to be found by any of her tables including the cooks. The table we were sitting at had a perfect eye into the kitchen and could see our food sitting in the window for at least 20 minuets. Amy was just walking around as slow as possible picking up cups off tables and disappearing at least every 2 minuets. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt several times but bring your tables their food then clean the other tables. It’s like rule #1! Come on! So after we make a comment on it, she finally goes and gets our food, not before putting it in the microwave first to make us think it was fresh. We aren’t stupid. My boyfriends pancakes were hard as a rock and mine were so dry. After deciding we were just done and over it, we wait another 15 minutes to pay. SHE NEVER COMES. So we get up to go to the front to pay and she is still no where to be found. Another customer with his young son also said he was having a hard time with her and had to walk into the kitchen and ask the kitchen staff to find her because they have been waiting to pay for the past 20 minuets. She finally comes over to ask us if she are ready to pay (DUH!) at 10:30 we finally get to leave. We were there for an hour and a half and spent about 5 minutes eating a dry brick basically.

In a nut shell, of you ever have Amy, do yourself a favor and leave. The other waitress seemed like she was more attentive to her sections and she was always on the...