Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Creve Coeur

After a long day of travel we ordered from here because it was next to our hotel. Side note we have never eaten at an Applebees but the convenience was what we needed at that point. The whole experience was awful. We ordered around 8:30 and showed up on time to pick up. The hostess did not attempt to greet us or assist us in any way so we went over to her and another person just standing around. We told her we had a carry out order and she went to check on it. She never came back to give us the status of our order so we waited. 20 min later we asked another server who was just wandering around and he said he would check into it. He also never came back. Meanwhile DoorDash orders were being picked up while we sat there wondering what was going on. Finally someone came over to hand us a little bag of food. We knew instantly that couldn’t be our order, we had paid for over 100$ of food. The woman with an amused smile on her face told us they had given the food to the DoorDash driver by accident because we had the same name. Both drivers who came while we were there were male and appeared to be Middle Eastern. My wife clearly was not and I’m guessing the names were not even close. Through all this we kept smiling and were very polite as we have both worked in customer service. Meanwhile it’s now almost 9:30 and my children who I promised we could take swimming at the hotel pool which was about to close were hungry and crying because they had no food and were told they weren’t going to be able to swim. Finally they refunded the full amount then recharged the order with a small discount. The food was done close to 10 and was pretty disappointing. The burgers were ok but the rest was gross. We threw over half away. They even made the decision to swap out a dessert we ordered with something else which was disgusting. After all that they forgot a shake which we had to remind them of and wait even longer for that. The staff was unapologetic and it was clear they did not care at all. What an embarrassment. I will never ever step foot in another clown show Applebees. And unless you have zero standards you should find something...

I’m still shaking as I write this… Yesterday,August 4, my family and I were dining at Applebee’s located at 11950 Olive Blvd in Creve Coeur, MO, when something absolutely vile and racist happened right in front of us—directed at my 7-month-old Black baby boy.

A white waitress by the name of Amanda Honaker looked at my son and had the nerve to say: “Make sure you bring the little monkey back.”

Yes. A grown woman looked at a baby and called him a monkey—to our faces. We were in complete shock. And yes, she admitted to saying it. We have it recorded.

And if that wasn’t enough to break a mother’s heart what came next will.

The General Store Manager, Jordan Vitela, was made aware of the situation and refunded our meal. But let me be crystal clear—that doesn’t rectify what happened. A free meal doesn’t undo the damage. A refund doesn’t take away the sting of hearing your baby dehumanized like that.

My husband contacted Applebee’s corporate office and got a call back from the Area Director, Chuck Ansell. You know what his response was?

“The most we can do in situations like this is give you a gift card.” A gift card? As if we’re just looking for some money or free food.

No. What we want is accountability. What we want is for racism like this to be taken seriously especially when it’s targeted at an innocent child.

This isn’t about a meal. This is about a line that should’ve never been crossed. This is about a family that came in to eat—and left shattered by hate.

And we are NOT sweeping this under the rug. Not today. Not ever.

✨ Please share this post far and wide. Let Applebee’s know this is NOT okay. Let the world know we are not tolerating racism

‼️especially not when it comes to our babies.

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I always wonder why a Restaurant that is surrounded by Office Buildings and Clinics is not packed at Lunch time. Do the Locals know something that we do not? This Applebee's is a close to major Roads (Olive/Emerson/I-270) and at lunch time it should be packed, since the only other choices are standard fast food and a few (woefully inadequate) Sandwich Shops. When we came in the greeting was friendly and the place only about half full. We were seated quickly and our Server appeared a bit too quickly to take drink orders. We didn't yet have time to look at the menu for drink choices, so we stuck with plain old water for starters. Our Server (Cody) was friendly without being intrusive and knowledgeable about the menu. Our order: Two house salads, a shared Onion Ring appetizer, Bourbon Street Chicken for Hubby and three cheese Chicken Cavatappi for myself. The Salad was fresh, the Appetizer hot and the food very good. The Appetizer and Salads arrived quickly, again thanks to Cody, who seemed to be the only Server in the Restaurant area. Another Server was in the Bar Area, but she was mostly busy talking to the Bartender. The Manager made several appearances, glanced at our table but failed to remove the dirty Salad plates and empty Appetizer dish. Cody kept up with refills, asked if he could bring us anything else, recommended Desert and presented the Check. Great Service overall. This Applebee's could probably do a bit more business if the Manager would be more attentive, the Bar Area Serving Staff wouldn't walk around with a scowl on her face and not pay attention to guests seated at the bar and if there were more Servers. However for us it was a great visit and I"m sure we'll repeat it...