IHOP — Restaurant in Capitola

Edit #2: I got a generic response saying that I should go to their link and franchisee will follow up. So, I went to the link, filled out their quick survey and haven't heard from them since then. It's been a week. I looked over some of the other recent negative reviews and most of them mention oily nasty food. The response from IHOP is the same as to my review -- a generic copy-paste. It's a shame... the first couple of visits were awesome and something clearly has gone wrong with this location.

Edit #1: Our family's first two visits were great. You can see my old review below. However, after two more visits, I can no longer recommend this place.

During our third visit, we waited a very long time to be sat down, even though it was not busy, lots of tables were empty and staff were just sitting and chatting at a few corner tables. Maybe they had a staff meeting... not sure. It took a long time to get our food and my burger tasted very stale and everyone's food was very greasy. We were out of drinks halfway through our meals and our waiter never came by to check up on us during our dining session.

On our fourth visit, the place was not busy either and we sat down pretty quickly. However, it took about 15 minutes for anyone to come by to take our order. It took about 40 minutes to get our food. Everyone's food was so gross and greasy that most of us couldn't even finish it. I felt very sick afterwards from all the grease. My daughter couldn't even finish half of her pancakes because grease or oil was sipping out of them. When I went to the bathroom, I observed two of the employees do their business and then walk out without washing their hands. Disgusting. Lastly, the place was absolutely filthy, with food all over the floor. Before we sat down, I had to brush off food from my chair and table.

Old review: Very good food. Lots of selection and tastes great. I've been here with my family for lunch and dinner, so far, and both times were great. Service is pretty decent -- wait times are not long and...

I’ve always loved the IHOP brand but honestly, this place is just a terrible example of one. Same menu items and the people seem nice but that’s all the positives.

Places too small for how popular IHOP is. That means insane wait times on the weekend and in summer in general. They don’t pick up their phone and they lag with online orders. They were out of sugar for coffee and the waitress only made a slight effort to find some more which she couldn’t. Not end of the world, but gave an accurate impression of this IHOP.

Something I want to mention, this IHOP had numerous groups who pushed “customer satisfaction” to the limit. I mean, they were seated already done with their food when I got there, I waited to be seated over 30 minutes (party of 1), finally got seated, and by the time I ordered my food, ate, and paid my bill, those groups were STILL there! Not eating or anything literally just sitting there while people complaining that their expected wait time just to be seated was now over an hour.

I’ve never experienced this at an IHOP, and I’m not sure if IHOP has a policy on this. I mean, I’m all for people enjoying their time when they pay money, but there must be a limit at some point. I have politely been asked for my table in the past for other restaurants (not IHOP) when it was clear I was finished with my meal because they were really busy. That specific restaurant DID have a posted time limit policy, which was very fair. But like I said, I’ve never experienced people hogging table time like that at an IHOP but I must point out that there was no effort to collect the table from those groups...

AVOID this place at all costs if you're in a hurry or you don't enjoy waiting forever to get a order in or recieve your food!!!!! I've been in love w/ their "Philly Cheese Steak Stacker" for many years now so this is the only reason I still frequent this place.

Even if you call in your order you still have to deal with and put up with LAZY/ RUDE STAFF! The Staff would much rather get paid here for looking at their PHONES and not in customers directions so they can avoid eye contact and pretend they don't see you. The managment at this place is a complete JOKE as well! I've now dealt with about 3 different managers in the past 7-8 years or so and trhey all don't do too well!

I was finally influenced to write a honest review after all these years when I ate here a few days ago. Even though I knew what I was getting involved in when I ordered to pick up. I still delt with LAZINESS and RUDE interactions from the TERRIBLE STAFF!

The entire place was EMPTY! 2 other cumstomers were there before us and were eating. Just trying to get seated took about 8-10 mins. With the staff purposely putting their back to us and then haveing a fight in front of us about who would come seat us is just too much BS at this point!!!!

STAY CLEAR FROM THIS AWFUL BUSINESS! BUT IF YOU NEED TO LIKE ME JUST ORDER TO PICK UP IF YOU STILL LOVE THE...