Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Covington

Ok, I'm giving this an overall FIVE STARS, due to the fact that my experience was overall a 5-star experience. To me, this means that I'll be going back to dine again and I feel that I received service and a product that was worth my money and time. This is our first time going to this location since the re-model and grand re-opening. For reference, we are a family of two adults and four children under 10. Upon entry, we were greeted warmly, however we did have to wait approximately 3-5 minutes for our table to be cleared down and sanitized(no big deal). We were seated at a clean and tidy table with Donna as our server, she was very energetic and delivered OUTSTANDING service (warm, kind and attentive). We ordered simple fountain style drinks, so I cannot speak to their bar service at this time. Our drinks were dropped off to us in no time at all. As far as the food, it was truly better than I expected from a local Applebee's. We ordered two appetizers for the table, chips with spinach artichoke dip and onion rings which came with BBQ sauce dip. Appetizers were simple but very good; hot, fresh and good portion sizes, maybe a bit pricier than I'd like but this is to be expected in 2025. As far as entrees, my wife and I opted for the 2 for $25 deal. I had the Burger and my wife had the fiesta lime chicken for a $3 up-charge. I was honestly blown away by my burger, perfectly cooked, juicy, tons of flavor and a great portion. The chicken meal was great as well, again...fresh and tasty. My kids all had the kids meals; and for the price and ability to customize the meal to their liking, it was a great deal. They were out of apple juice boxes, but simply substituted strawberry lemonade at no extra cost to us. We opted out of dessert due to the generous portion sizes of our main courses. For reference, for my family of six it cost approximately $100 with a generous tip included; this seemed pretty fair for a large family in 2025. If I had an constructive feedback for management, is simply that they could use more help in front of house. All the servers were friendly and excellent, but, I could see they were running a little thin and from my experience in management in the restaurant industry...the lack of help in front of house could hurt morale eventually, which would affect customer experience eventually. Again, this is just something for management to think about. Other than that, kudos to the chef and line cooks, if they are treated well and retained, this Applebee's has a chance to revitalize. Good work...

Worst experience ever. I never complain, very patient at restaurants... However... We arrived at 6:30, we saw the waitress maybe 3 times, did not receive our food till 8:15. The manager arrived at 8:13 saying " your order is coming any minute" I said that we had been waiting for an hour and a half.. He said " well no, your appetizer was put in 67 minutes ago.. So let's get that straight, it was an hour... and your food was only put in 15 minutes ago... I said, "uh no... We put the appetizer in on the tablet on the table AFTER we had already ordered." He said " well I don't know what you want me to do about that, what do you think I should do?" (At this moment the food arrives) "I'll come back to you guys later". Well, food was cold, awful, two of us ate most of ours, the other two barely touched it, and the manager never came back.. He passed the table and said "Ya'll have a great night" So..We had to ask our waitress for him...and I said, "Look we're pissed.. We've been waiting an hour and a half for our food and it sucks.... What can you do about it.." He then proceeds to say, " Well I was going to do that but I was letting you get finished with your food first" (note that he has been rude this entire time) He then took off $5 of our entire meal.... I and the rest of our party were livid. Finally one lady from our table of four called him over and said "None of this came out at a reasonable time, except the two beers, which we think is fair and will definitely pay, but the other thi...."(manager interrupts) " that's fine, have a nice night" and snatches the receipt out of her hand. Now yes, I get it, in the end we got a free meal, but its not about that, that's not what we went in there for, I was willing to pay $30 for a great meal for me and my girlfriend... But I will still never step foot in that Applebee's for several years till they get new staff and management, will never reccomend it, and will continue to disgrace it....

The server said that my credit card didn’t go through and I didn’t have enough money in my account because the chip reader would not process it. This was not true because I put extra money in this account just for this purpose. She would not re-run it and would only accept another credit card. I gave her another card from the same bank. She came back with a smirk on her face and that this card didn’t go through either but she noticed that the machine was malfunctioning and there was actually nothing wrong with my first card. So she went ahead and used the second card since she already had it on her hand. I was upset because I knew I had money in that account and she wouldn’t try to see if there was a problem with their machine versus me and my card having issues. I did NOT want to use my other account so I had to transfer money into the account that I used into the account that should have been processed originally. I felt like she was calling me a liar and her smirk just made me more mad!! Got to do better Applebee’s! On the other hand, the food was lukewarm. The only food that was hot was the breadsticks. I had a 3 cheese chicken penne and breadstick along with a mango sweet tea. I tipped her but only 1/3 of what she would have got if I was treated more properly!! She brought out the silverware in a napkin clumped together and said that she didn’t have time to wrap them individually. There were 3 of us at the table. She only gave us 2 napkins! Never gave us anymore napkins!! My daughter asked for no ice in her drink and it had ice in it and was told that she can “scoop” it out with a small black condiment cup that she will bring her. What?!? I know that they were short staffed but come… you got to do...