IHOP — Restaurant in Catonsville

I really only want to leave positive reviews, but this IHOP is so horrid, I have to go negative. The disrespect that we experienced from the Host, to the lack of care given to the food for carry out by the kitchen staff; then the fact that I gave them another chance and they messed up again-forces me to write these things.

I am all about good customer service, from behavior to cleanliness. The best way to do this is to have staff do their jobs. Seems simple, but it seemed like it was an issue this day for this IHOP. I don’t know if there was no bussers at all, or they were all on break , but the Host- who was supposed to be greeting all incoming customers, making them feel welcomed, and appreciated; was doing partial table cleaning. It looked like every table was dirty with barely any customers sitting, (this was around 11 am) and there were mad customers waiting to be seated. I say partially because he was also only giving attention to customers he believed to be part of a large party in the back, or that he could be flirtatious with. My gf was totally ignored by him until she asked him (after a full minute of standing and waiting) “I am here to pick up my food … any updates?” He had none to give, and didn’t attempt to get any information. He had time to go for a smoke break, come back in, make nice with a party of women coming in to be seated -no time to assist her or others waiting he didn’t see fit to give his attention. After 12 min she finally went up to another member of the waitstaff, (everyone was wearing Ravens jerseys, so figuring out who was customer and who was an employee wasn’t easy) and asked her to check on our food. This day was the game-day deciding if the Ravens were going to the Super Bowl or not , so people were amped. I am on the phone with her , so I hear and see everything. Unlike the host this person was way more helpful, but she didn’t come back with information. After another 10 minutes she came back with the food. Long time to wait wondering and watching others being treated just as badly.

When my gf got home, I unwrapped the food, and her order was destroyed. The cook put the hash browns into the sunny side up eggs (which should’ve been put in a separate container) and they broke and spread into all the hash browns. It looked like they were thrown into the container hard and hot, or the container was roughly shaken. So basically, it was ruined. She also got the pancakes ; I got the steak burger and a waffle, which wasn’t bad. This made me give them another chance , despite the bad service. The next set of food we got makes me dead this IHOP as a place to eat again-except the waffle weirdly. Steak burger-over done, tough , tinier than the first one; pancakes-half raw in the middle, batter poorly mixed, just bad. Because I got 2 good waffles, I gave the food 3 ⭐️, but doesn’t help the average grade of...

I would not recommend anyone dine at this IHOP location on route 40 in Catonsville, MD. Myself and my family of 5 went in around 1130p. Our server was as sweet as can be I did forget his name. The server did express that if we were ready to order he would take all of our orders because he was the only server on the floor and 3 other tables walked in after us. My family and I placed our order. We did wait a bit (about 15min) for our drinks my kids got the apple juice, pineapple splasher, blue raspberry splasher, my fiance got a coke and I ordered a coffee. Our food comes out with our drinks. A short black man about 5 foot tall helps our server bring the food out. Not everything comes out. A few minutes later my son food comes. My fiance never got his sandwich I never got my coffee. So I asked a young lady that I'm going to assume was off but trying to assist her coworker. she seen he was getting swamped with tables. I asked her to speak to the manager and the same short black guy came out. I asked if he was going to help his employee. This man had the audacity to tell me he was doing PAPERWORK and to have a little patience. At this point what's more important paying customers, your employee who is clearly in the weeds, or paperwork? Never have I experienced such a nonchalant attitude from a manager in the restaurant industry. The sad part about this is I worked for IHOP #549 for 3 out of my 10 years of working in the restaurant industry.Managers usually stop by talk to the tables and are more hands on with their employees. It's a team effort when it comes to customer service and to experience someone who blatantly does not care. Really saddens me. The response from manager was unacceptable and very distasteful. If that's who IHOP wants to be the face of this location so be it but the manager needs more training on how to deal and communicate with his customers, because tonight it was...

This by far was one of my worst experiences at an IHOP or any restaurant for that matter. To give some background I was a server in high school and through college. The first sign was getting seated I noticed several tables had customers that were scanning for service and had no waters at their tables. The table right next to mine actually walked out shortly after we were seated and promised they would never come back after never being seen for 15 minutes after seating. At this point I flagged down a server and just put in our full drinks and entrees order to avoid a long wait (big mistake).

During my hour long wait for the food to come out, I saw at least 2 more parties Walk out after not being served. Several people walk in and waited at the host station without being greeted. Some left and some waited and were eventually seated to wait forever for someone to take their order. The party next to me reviewed their bill only to notice that they were charged for several items they never ordered. People were complaining left and right and there was no manager in sight to address their needs. You could see several staff conversing just inside the kitchen entry way ignoring customers. There were easily 6 front of house employees and not even up to eight tables, if even that many, and yet everyone was disgruntled. Once the food came out my particular server was attentive on refills and checking on us after I voiced my concerns and displeasure. Overall you could tell that this place was poorly managed.

In summation I too left assured that I would never return to this location. I heard several people say this was why they would travel to either of 2 other locations about 20-30 min away.

As a current business owner I am penning this review to let ownership know they are likely losing money because of poor management/leadership and because I would love this type of intel on any...