Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Cottage Grove

We've always used this restaurant for our business lunches and dinners and late night snacks. Typically we've never had any major problems. However, this time was the worst. We arrived into the restaurant at a very non-busy time. Tables were not filled up nor was the bar.

This is an essay so read if you'd like.

Our server was a young pleasant lady named Nura. She was polite, tentative, and served everyone the best she could with all her tables on her assigned area. However, the arrival of food was extremely terrible. We had a team of 14 people arrive, separated to sit at 3 different tables.

Here's the excuse we all heard the front of house supervisor to all the tables that arrived after us: "I'm so sorry, a huge group came before you guys and that's why your food isn't ready. Can I buy an appetizer on me for you?"

Here's the excuse to us why our food arrived extremely late, most of the food not even made: I'm so sorry, we didn't expect to be busy at lunch time."

Notice, we are only three tables, six+ tables arrived after us. Not once were we offered an appetizer on the house, a discount but because most of the plates weren't even made and mind you by this time it's an hour late, she wanted us to pay everything.

Not on my clock honey. That unprofessional supervisor took off only $30 worth of food when $100 worth of food should have been taken off. We had to get to our business meeting, and mind you at this point we were 10 minutes late because she couldn't figure out the bill, we just paid what she finalized and "out" we had to go.

First of all, never tell customers it's another customer's fault. You just pointed to that customer that it's their fault for the next table's food issue. Second of all, it's a restaurant--tables separated due to covid so half of your business is even slower than full house. Thirdly, train and set a system should parties arrive . If they sit at different tables, conduct bills per table--not the entire party on one bill. Folks are paying separate anyways which was clearly instructed in the beginning. Always hold your ground calmly and if you can not catch up due to lack of staff or whatever is happening, make the situation right. Remember, making customer's pay when they don't have their food and offering a $5 coupon for the next visit doesn't really make it right.

Just saying.

The server did all she could do and we saw that. She received a very kind cash tip and received kind words from our team. The supervisor?? Come on,...

I am not the type of person who likes to complain about things or food. I like to enjoy everything and treat others with kindness. But the last sunday my family and I had a bad experience at Applebee’s in Cottage Grove. It was around 8:00pm on 10/13/19 and my husband, my eight-year-old daughter, and I decided to go out to dinner. We got to Applebee’s and walked through the front door and waited to be seated. After we were seated, our server, a young man, came to our table and asked what we wanted to drink. In Spanish, I asked my husband what he wanted to drink. I told the server we would like water for now, but I would have a drink after we order our food. We waited and waited for our server to return. The restaurant was not busy. The server was in the bar talking to other people, and he looked back at us a couple of times, but he never came back. Neither did the other server who was in the nearby section. She walked by several times, but no one ever asked us if we were ready to order. It was about 8:30 when we decided to leave the restaurant because my daughter was very hungry. Then my husband stopped by the door and said excuse me to the other waitress and she just kept walking and said “bye”. Then he asked another server that he wanted to speak with the manager and she was told that there was no manager in the restaurant. I felt that we were excluded because we are Latinos. I am also a waitress, and I understand that Latinos sometimes don’t leave tips, however, I don’t exclude my services to them. I treat every customer the same, even though I know that sometimes I won’t get a tip from them. I worked at Applebee’s in Stillwater for two years. Applebee’s was also the first restaurant I went to when I moved to Minnesota. It is a shame that the personnel at Applebee’s in Cottage Grove lack customer service skills, and not only that, I feel that they were racists against us. I am writing this note because it is a shame that people like us have to go through...

Update: they sent me to an automated system that wouldn't let me go any farther without sending and email address for it to take another 3 to 5 days.....

Arrived for my wife's birthday, had 6 groups in front of us, based off the list 3 wait staff, host/manager. 14 open tables. Waited 10 minutes before anyone even showed up at the front. Waited another 10 minutes to be seated. Took 15 minutes before we even got water. Already up to 35 minutes. Took about 15 minutes for drink orders to be taken, another 10 minutes for them to arrive. So 1 hour in we got drinks. By this time there is 7 tables with people at them for 3 wait staff. When drinks dropped off we ordered our appetizer, this comes out and we have by now asked our waitress to take our order 3 times. As you can tell we are already having extremely poor service. Long story short after close to 3 hours from time arrive to leaving it was almost 3 hours for 2 adults and 1 child to eat. Tried 4 times to get our bill, finally said heck with it and used that thing at the table to pay. Food tasted like charcoal, table was sticky, used water from our glasses to clean it, waitstaff was way below zero. Even was double charged for somethings. I wasnt going to wait another 5 hours to get that straightened up, so paid and left. I even went in the next day to apply for waitstaff since I use to manage restaurants and could run 350 people in 6 hours with 5 waitstaff and everyone had fun and rarely complain that we didn't have enough staff and customers happy with service. Applebees use to be great and even this location, but looks like we will say goodbye to coming and find somewhere else to dine.

Not to mention when I went in around 3 to find out how to apply, to the time of my interview after 8 pm the same day, the same dirty table water bucket and the 4 straw wrappers was in the same place for...