IHOP — Restaurant in Brownsburg

FIVE STARS! WOW WERE WE BLOWN OUT OF THE WATER OR SHOULD I SAY SYRUP! we were driving home from a long lasting movie theater experience when we were taken aback by a beautifully designed glowing sign in the distance. we both looked at each other and knew instantly what had to be done. we immediately turned into the parking lot and were welcomed by a neon red smile, we knew were in the right place…I HOPped out of my car with exhilaration. we walked to the front door and were met with the smiling face of the host. we immediately felt like we were at home, the warm and cozy environment drew us further in. after we were seated we were quickly greeted by our server. he got our drinks within thirty seconds, some might call him the flash. i wanted extra ice but was too worried to voice my opinion as i had been shut down in my previous endeavors, but it was like the flash read mind and brought me my cup of water with a 75% ice and 25% water ratio. directly after receiving our drinks, he gave us lots of knowledgeable answers to all of our tough menu questions. we eventually decided on the legendary pancake of the month, THE COOKIE BUTTER PANCAKE STACK. my associate also inquired about some hashbrowns (who am i to say no…) after finishing our order our food came out in what felt like three minutes (time goes by quick when ur having fun) we were speechless as our waiter placed a perfect stack of cookie butter pancakes in front of us. where do i even begin here. when i say perfect i mean PERFECT. when i stuck my fork in that stack i could feel my heart melt just as the butter on top of that full stack was melting. I could feel myself salivating as the deliciousness came closer towards my mouth. our waiter also brought us his own personal recommendation, a chocolate syrup side dish. he told us that this was his secret touch to the already perfect stack of pancakes. he deserves a nobel peach prize to be honest. the hashbrowns were incredible. those beautiful crispies, so golden, they made my heart drop. after all of this i was convinced i had to be sitting in the single greatest establishment in america. on top of the PERFECT FOOD AND SERVICE, the ambience and interior design was top notch. i was extremely surprised when i did research on this establishment that it did not even have a michelin star. i would recommend this restaurant til the day i die. FIVE STARS THROUGH...

UPDATE: After leaving the review i was finally contacted by the store and then had a rather curt call with the district manager where he said if i would come back to the store physically they'd give me cash in an envelope to refund the order. Went and got and had a handwritten note from the original person who tried to help me appologizing for the situation, which I thought was very kind.

Cut to today and we decided to give it another try. 15 minutes late getting the food out. Got home with the food and the side of crispy hash browns was nowhere to be found (was supposed to be in the entree). Called to the store and they said they'd be glad to try to do the online order refund of the $4 for the side, but they admitted the online order refunds have a lot of trouble. So, I figured oh well. But then Kyle the manager called back and offered to drive over the order (5 minutes away but it was 1° outside today). That made a huge difference to me, so we're up a star and we'll try again and hope for continued improvement. I've got hope now that one day this will be a 5 star review.

Original review below:

After 6 weeks and promises of callbacks and refunds, there's been no change after we had an online carryout order where 5 or the 6 orders on a $75 check that had things wrong with them. Missing items entirely, wrong ingredients, a total mess. Their phones were down in an endless loop all day (and I was told for an entire week) so I had to go back physically the next day, where I spoke to a manager who told me she couldn't do anything directly because it was an online order but that she'd get back to me. Then I was told it would take a few days for them to process the refund. Then nothing. I called again last week and was told the store manager would call me back the next day. Nothing.

Unfortunately, I don't think this is a one off issue. We've had similar problems of food not being ready on time (15 minutes late on a pickup time), and the place is consistently understaffed and overwhelmed, which is what leads to the consistent mistakes.

I don't like to leave a review like this, but considering the experiences, this is my last communication to anyone from ihop on why we're no longer going to be...

First of all, I DO NOT blame the staff for the quality of food. Though, their lack of efficiency and inertia was alarming. But, I also wish I took pictures and/or video because the experience in whole was remarkably unsatisfactory.

To begin, we watched as three tables were annoyed by the service wait times. It took a total of 10 minutes to order our food when four tables (total, including us) were being served. That’s two servers attending to two tables each. One Uber Eats driver came to retrieve food during this time as well. He was met by an equal share of lackluster attention.

We watched our food being made fairly quickly after ordering, but then witnessed it sit under the hot range for 14 minutes. We didn’t order anything crazy. We received the majority of our food, but still needed two items; a salad, and a side of ham. 9 minutes later, because of the overly tasked staff (at this point, two servers for eight tables), we got our items. From walking into the store to receiving even our first portions was 36 minutes. That’s a LONG time no matter how you cut it or attempt to justify it. Our sever apologized adamantly.

The lettuce for the salad was brown on every single piece. The tomatoes were INEDIBLE; flimsy, and somehow still tasted freezer burned. The red onion slices were dry, discolored scraps. The ham was at that point… tepid, at best. The pancakes were dry and also luke warm at best. The sauce used for strawberry pancakes was shockingly sweet and somehow still tasteless.

A couple waited in the front area to be seated from the time we got our food to when we left. At one point, the man approached the staff near the kitchen and let them know they had not been seated “in case you didn’t know or see us”. As soon as he was out of view, one of the cooks went on an expletive-laden tirade about “not giving a f#€&” and how “now he can wait longer.”

We were polite to our server and gave her (I believe) about an 18% tip. I rarely make statements, especially negative ones about places of business but felt obligated to tell corporate and now Google about the worst place I’ve ever eaten, in any state, or country, in 40...