IHOP — Restaurant in Columbia

THIS IS A LONG REVIEW ABOUT THE ASSEMBLY ST LOCATION SO PREPARE YOURSELF. WE ARRIVED AROUND 1 AM SATURDAY MORNING (JULY 17th) So...to start off, no one would answer the phone. My husband and I tried to call so we would not have to wait in the lobby. So eventually we drove down there. Walked past who happened to be an employee in the parking lot. We found out he was an employee because about 5 mins after we had walked in and was waiting, he greets us and says he will get someone to the front to assist us. A male came out and placed our order. I ordered the spicy poblano omelette combo with an orange juice, a side of sausage gravy and cheese grits instead of hashbrowns. My husband ordered a short stack of pancakes, 4 sausage links, and cheese grits with a sweet tea. It took 33 mins to get our order🙄. To make matters worse, my omelette looked a mess and was missing the avocados (my main reason why this omelette is my favorite) (Compare my picture to the picture of the Spicy Poblano Omelette on their website to see what I mean). My grits were missing the cheese (he did go back and add some cheese). I was told the orange juice was watery, so i chose coke instead. However, the grits were watery as well! And had no flavor AT ALL. I had to add more butter and salt than i usually add to the grits i cook at home, as well as pepper, garlic powder and more cheese to thicken it up. The omelette was not spicy, not in the slightest bit so i had to add a good bit of hot sauce. My husband's grits were watery and bland as well. His pancakes were bland. Now I was a waitress and restaurant cashier for about 11 years altogether so my patience is greater than most patrons. But i have to say i did not like my experience this time and I used to LOVE this location! I meant there is one right up the street from where we leave and we would choose this location the most anyway. When we tried to call in our order and no one would pick up, i told my husband "well maybe they are busy. They are located downtown and its a friday night". But then we arrive and we see they are nowhere near busy. While waiting, i called to see if maybe the phone number was disconnected or whatever. We heard the phone ring....but it sounded like it was a phone far in back, no ring at all up front with the cash registers. Another thing that bothered me was that there was not one person keeping an eye up front. 2 servers came up front to check and see if we had been help but that was all. Nobody was watching the registers. We were very disappointed. I hope...

I JUST WANNA START OFF BY SAYING THIS. I GREW UP EATING IHOP. I'VE HAD JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING ON THE MENU. FRENCH TOAST, PANCAKES, WAFFLES, EGGS, BACON, ETC. IHOP USED TO BE VERY GOOD AND FILLING. SINCE CORONAVIRUS, IT HAS DEFINITELY WENT DOWN HILL. IHOP ISN'T AS GOOD AS IT USED TO BE. THE EXPERIENCE ISN'T GOOD ACROSS THE BOARD. I DON'T EAT HERE AS OFTEN ANYMORE. I came yesterday with my pregnant friend for brunch. It wasn't busy at all. We waited 10 minutes to be greeted and seated. We got seated and the server asked if we wanted something to drink. Things were fine. We ordered our food and she brought it out. My food didn't look good at all. My omelet was very small and it looked like they just threw it together. My pancakes were overcooked and brown. I told the server I wanted to speak to a manager. The manager came over and wasn't friendly or polite at all. I told her I've been eating here for years and my food has NEVER come out like that. She said the omelets always look like that and I told her no they don't. I've been getting this SAME ORDER for YEARS. The omelets used to be big and long. The omelet I had was short and more square looking. That's a big difference. IHOP is known for pancakes. Mine were terrible. I told her I wasn't paying $15 for this and I wanted another meal. I ended up getting a combo with pancakes, eggs, bacon and sausage. My server brought that out and that was better. My eggs were okay, the bacon was good and the sausage was okay. The pancakes were better. I ate that and was somewhat satisfied. This was my first time here in almost a year and IHOP hasn't changed. I will not be back anytime soon. IHOP IS SLACK, UNPROFESSIONAL, NOT FRIENDLY AND THEY HAD THE NERVE TO GO UP ON PRICES. BULLSHIT. THEY NEED TO GET NEW EMPLOYEES AND NEW MANAGEMENT AND MAYBE THE RESTAURANT WILL BE RAN HOW IT ONCE WAS WHEN THINGS WERE BETTER YEARS AGO. I will give them this. The atmosphere is pretty. There's pictures of food and breakfast all over. I'm an esthetics girl so I care about how things look, feel and are. For IHOP to not be busy and fully staffed, the restaurant should be more up to par. There's no excuse for...

My little boy and I went here on a weeknight at 6:20 PM. This is of course a major meal time. We walked inside and waited to be seated as the sign instructed. We waited there for a few minutes and didn’t see anybody working. There was one person sitting at a booth, but I don’t know if they were a patron or not. One lady walked out the side door to the back area right as we were coming in the front. We waited, and waited, and then got fed up so we walked out right back to the car in the empty parking lot that we had just gotten out of five minutes before. There were four staff standing on the back porch smoking just watching us fifty feet away. One of the guys had been sitting in his car smoking something when we pulled up. They all had on the ihop tee shirts. One would think that if this father and son that just parked their car and walked into our empty restaurant at dinner time and now walked right back out might’ve been planning to come and do business. Perhaps they should acknowledge them even if they aren’t going to be stationed inside the restaurant. Nope, too much to ask. Honestly, if they would have asked us to come back in, I was too grossed out that they were all out there smoking by the dumpster and in their cars doing who knows what and would have left anyway. The parking lot was also filthy and covered in litter. It’s really quite a shame that this property right across from thousands of state office workers and a huge student housing complex literally two doors down is in such decline. Hopefully the owners and operators read these reports since they are the ones that lose money when the staff they pay to serve customers neglect to do so. My family and I went here a while back and service was super slow then, but I thought we would give it another chance. Hopefully this location will get new management and give this place a facelift and maybe some more attentive employees. On a positive note, my son and I had a good experience when we ended up going to the Waffle House on Greystone and at least you have to sit feet away from the people cooking your food so they can’t ignore...