IHOP — Restaurant in Covington

We arrived and were sat right away. Not exactly busy inside, but a fair amount of customers. I sat in an area where there were hardly any people around me.

Sitting for a bit of time until another pair of customers came in and were sat right behind us. We had already figured what we wanted to eat while we were waiting. Still waiting for a server to show. Another was helping another set of customers a few tables down, and I was beginning to wonder if they were our server or not. They were super attentive to their table, and I was wondering when my server would show.

A few seconds after the table was sat behind us, another server walked over quickly to grab their drink order, saying another server would be helping them. Completely passing us up in the process. That table received their drinks, as I sat still drinkless, and waitressless.

Another number of minutes pass by, and a different server walks up and mumbled about getting our drink order. I take it English isn’t her first language, as she sounded like she stumbled a bit with understanding me. No problem with that, but her energy level told me she’d much rather be elsewhere.

Come to find out IHOP no longer serves Dr. Pepper, or even carry Mr. Pibb as an alternative. Just Pepsi and tea. I settled for tea.

She says she’ll back to get our order and starts to walk away to go to the table behind me to get their order. I stopped her and said we’ve actually been sitting for much longer than the people behind us, and I was ready to order. Kids can’t wait long to eat, else they can get out of hand, no matter how hard I try to keep them preoccupied. We already had been sitting a good 10 minutes, at least.

Come to find we and the people behind us were her only customers.

She takes our order. I threw her for a loop when I adjusted my order to take away two things, and add one thing different. It took her a minute to understand my request.

She leaves, and skips the table behind us.

I don’t see her for a good while. I figure she’s putting in our order, which I’m fine with, but it took another uncomfortable long time to even bring us our drinks.

Drinks eventually came, she left out a straw. I had to ask a passing waitress for one more.

A decent bit of time passes and the food finally comes.

Everything looks right except the one thing I added to my meal. I asked for it again, plus the condiments I mentioned when ordering.

My addition was brought - lettuce that looked well past its prime, but pieces would be salvageable. In all honesty, I should have sent it back for fresh lettuce, but my children can eat quickly, so I didn’t have much time myself to eat.

She left and eventually came by at some point to check on us in passing. My glass is well below half full. I paused to give her a moment to assess my table to offer a refill before I had to ask. Fortunately she caught my drink could use a refresher.

I received my refill and didn’t see her again until she brought my check. By now I have plates, trash that can be pre-bussed to clean our table a bit - especially with the kids. She never grabbed for anything.

I grabbed the syrup and the old fashioned stuck to the caddy. The entire thing was covered in syrup. It was even on the blueberry. After every table, servers need to clean those syrup bottles, regardless if you think they were used or not. Because people can be disgusting.

The meal came to an end, and I still hadn’t seen our server, so I assumed I had to pay up front. It had been a while since I had been to an IHOP, and couldn’t remember if you paid up front or not. I know you can, but wasn’t sure if that was an always condition.

As I’m gathering my kids, she comes out of nowhere and mentions the check. I thought I had to pay up front, but she says she takes it. Ok, fine. And offers me a to-go drink.

She comes back with my check, with no to-go drink.

I have to wait, again. She brings me my to-go, and the drink is wrong. I don’t realize this until I took a sip when I left.

I used to train servers. This staff needs...

My fiancee n I recently tried I-Hop of Covington again after numerous past negative experiences ranging from a server taking our drink order and never returning to the table again to being blatantly ignored at the front door with no greeting from any staff member or anybody visibly in the store at all. Despite these experiences we decided to give it a shot again and see how it went. The store in Covington with their newly revised hours was without any patrons. No customers inside except for my fiance and myself . Our server was courteous enough but not exactly attentive being that it was late and I think they were more focused on working their side work and getting out of there than they were on taking care of us at the table. The food was just mediocre but not terrible unfortunately my fiance's drink stayed empty most of the meal experience and his entree came without his sides that showed up after he was almost finished. My order the salad came at the same time as my entree ...I have never had to go to a restaurant and ask for the salad to come out before the entree before so maybe this is just a policy they have there at the IHOP just to bring everything all out together I'm not sure. The dressing appeared separated and tasted a bit off flavor so I didn't enjoy it. My potato pancakes were very dark n greasy and my sirloin tips were rather dry n not the usual standard I have experienced with I-Hop in the past. Now I worked in the service industry for almost 25 years of my life I understand at the end of the night sometimes you just have to accept what is and what is not. But quality of food should b consistent from one store to another no matter what time of day u dine. Employee's from managers to dishwashers should be attentive to customers needs especially if that's the only table that they have. If they are lacking business they franchise should look inward at the glaring reasons as to why. We will in the future choose other locations to dine in...I would say our satisfaction with the restaurant on a scale from 1-100 with 100 being a perfect score would b about a solid 25 percent. I hope the store can work it's problems out because Covington could use other dining options that stay open later. We wish them luck resolving the challenges that appear to be consistent in their...

My daughter and I visited the iHop in Covington, GA, this morning for a quick meal before I needed to get home and go to sleep after working 12 hrs overnight. We got there around 10:15am and placed our order with a waitress who must’ve decided that if she has to continue being an employee there she has to become “robot-like” (with how she verbally communicates) and display no emotion or empathy, regardless of what’s taking place at any given moment. We ordered our drinks first which took 15-20 mns to receive. We then ordered our food sometime between 10:30-10:40. Twenty minutes later, our waitress came by and apologized for the delay and stated she has asked the cook ‘a thousand times’ to hurry up with my omelette. Twenty more minutes later, she came by with my daughter’s food and my side order of bacon and fruit. I needed my entire meal at one time in order to truly enjoy it, so I didn’t touch it believing the rest of my food would be received a few minutes later. Twenty-thirty minutes later, my daughter was finishing off her food. Mind you, the waitress has not come back to give me an update on my food or suggest I order something else...nothing! By this time, my bacon was cold and my fruit looked dried out. The waitress finally brought my food to me at 12:05pm!!! As she robotically said, “I’m sorry for the delay” I simultaneously told her I didn’t want the food any more because of all that I just stated above and I wanted my bill. She robotically said, “Ok, no problem” I was like, ???. She brought me my bill which included the bacon and fruit that was still on the plate on the table...untouched. I told her she needed to remove it from my bill before I paid because I didn’t eat it. She again said, in here monotone robot voice, “Ok, no problem”. I signed the receipt and she said , “Thank you for coming, and again I am so sorry for everything, and I’ll see you the next time.” Again, I was like, huh??? So not only did I not receive my food in a timely manner and lost my appetite when it finally made it to the table, but I also was dealing with a waitress that was most likely part robot who was from Planet...