IHOP — Restaurant in Branson

Well, I can't rate the food because we never got our order. First, we were told they could seat our party of 7 in "just a sec" just as soon as they could wipe down a table. After about 40 minutes we saw them seat the party of 5 that came in after us at a table big enough for us. So, I went and checked to make sure there wasn't a problem. A different person was at the counter and she said we were on the list and she would make sure we got seated next. I heard her talk with the person who took our name initially who, when asked why we weren't seated first, just said, "Oh, my bad... my bad." At this point it would have been nice for an apology, but nothing was said. We were seated next in an attempt at an amends, but they put us by ourselves in part of the IHOP they weren't using at a table that obviously wasn't clean. We were given paper menus that were stained and still had to wait for someone to come take our order, which we had ready as we'd had, by this time, over an hour to view the menu. We finally got to order hopeful that our long wait was over even though our waitress informed us that there were already some large orders ahead of us. After about another 40 minutes at the table after we ordered, we asked for some crackers for the children in our party who were very hungry at this point. They offered to bring grapes and/or a salad because of how long it was taking. Ten minutes after that we finally had a few grapes and a handful of spinach with a slice of tomato cut into 4 pieces in bowls for each of the kids. When the salads came out we again asked how long it would be for our order as it had now been an hour since we had ordered and 2 hours since we had first given our name to the person at the hostess stand. We were again met with, "there are large parties ahead of you," etc. At this point we were through and told the waitress we would be leaving. She offered to comp the "salads" and grapes, which we hadn't even ordered, but told us we'd have to pay for the 3 sodas we'd gotten. When we said that this whole thing was ridiculous, short staffing or no, she reiterated we'd need to pay for the drinks. When we asked to speak with the manager she told us she was the manager, which was a surprise to us as she was the one that messed up with seated another party ahead of us. She finally agreed to comp the drinks and we left. Upon exiting, we could see the party of 5 that was sat ahead of us happily eating their food. Needless to say, it was not a stellar experience and we won't attempt to eat...

Issues with the unlimited pancake promotion BEWARE POTENTIAL OVER-BILLING…. Food was good and server was overall kind and attentive less what follows. Currently, IHOP has a promotion for unlimited pancakes for $5. With that, several combo meals present on the normal menu are listed with unlimited pancakes for the same price as the normal menu. When we ask for a couple extra pancakes to go with one of these meals, the waitress ask if a short stack would be fine, which we agreed to. Everything was fine until the bill came and we were billed almost $9 for the pancake stack. I ask for the unlimited pancake menu to point out the error, to which the waitress claimed ‘you have to ask for that and it is an extra $5’. It isn’t though, if you look at the menu. Additionally, why charge a customer $9 for a short stack of pancakes if unlimited pancakes by themselves are $5?

The waitress refused to bring me the menu for unlimited pancakes to discuss the error and simply refunded the charge for the short stack. Normally, I would chalk this up to communication error, but I heard several other tables complaining of the same or similar errors, and with the unwillingness for the waitress to bring me the actual menu we ordered from, appearances are this is something from management pushing to charge for items that shouldn’t be charged for. Saying you ‘have to ask’ for unlimited pancakes when the menu has it with items present on the normal menu for the same price isn’t anything that would normally be done. The same thing with ordering a short stack, you shouldn’t have to ask for the unlimited when it is cheaper than a single order. This clearly shows this restaurant has management encouraging these practices, especially when the waitress refused to bring the promotional menu back to the table when requested and simply...

I have never been more impressed with service at a restaurant in my life. I walked in after a minute or two the manager(Summer) walked up to me and she said "I'm sorry but we're closed." The door says open 24hrs though I replied. She proceeded to explain to me how the cook had not showed up for her shift so they had no choice but to close. I decided to wait for the cook to show up(which never happened) after about 5 more minutes the manager returned and then seated me herself, brought me coffee etc. Then she went above and beyond her duties as a manager and prepared my food herself, AFTER she was informed that someone forgot to turn the stoves on... I was astounded! Not only did the lazy cook not show up but on top of that the freaking stoves weren't preheated. So Summer prepared my food in a skillet HERSELF and I only know that it was her cooking because a waitress was seating someone else and I overheard them ask for the manager and she said "I'm sorry but she's in the back cooking."COOKING! Because the cook was too lazy and didn't care about the problems they were causing enough to show up. I am so amazed with not only the service, but the dedication of Summer! Regardless of the trials and the daunting task of serving 30 some odd people UNDERSTAFFED Summer was not only cooking but in between cooking the orders herself she was also seating people and taking orders to boot. And not once did I hear an impolite word cross her lips, through all that stress she remained professional and extremely polite even with the impatient and in my opinion, annoying customers... astounding. Well done IHOP you made the right call hiring her. And to all you tourists, stop at the IHOP in Branson! You will...