IHOP — Restaurant in Delaware

Absolutely the worst experience I've ever had anywhere. DO NOT EAT AT IHOP.

I took my mother and father to breakfast on Father's Day. We were told it would be 15 minutes to be seated. It was 20 minutes, which would not have bothered me, if the host didn't make a super sassy comment when they finally called our party, "Wow, even less time than I promised!" So that started off this entire debacle. Then, the waiter came over and took our drink orders, and I specifically asked if soft drinks were free refills. He replies yes. Obviously acknowledging that I'm going to be drinking my drink pretty swiftly and I would obviously need it to be refilled often. He returned to our table about 5 minutes later to take our order. My cup wasn't empty yet, but it was just about getting there. Every other restaurant I've been to in my entire life has offered a refill even before they see an empty cup. Nonetheless, my parents order something very simple, pancakes eggs turkey sausage. Now me obviously being the least intelligent human in this entire situation, decided to order a steak medium rare, French toast, pancakes, and eggs. At ihop. I guess I kind of brought this on myself. Moving along, the food takes a whopping HOUR to come out. You would think during this time, the waiter would have come to refill any drinks at some point! Of course not. I watched him stop at multiple different tables right in my view and deliver drinks AND refills, and completely forgot that I ordered Sprite and not coffee, so I couldn't refill myself. The food finally comes out, and it's the worst display I've ever seen. My French toast was clearly prepared first, completely cold and the strawberry topping actually gelling over. The steak was god awful, the worst slice of mystery meat I've ever had. It was like lunch meat, but well done lunch meat, thick cut Bologna more than anything. Oh and you better believe it cut like the finest, absolute grade-a premium fire place wood. So the waiter comes back, finally after being seated for nearly an hour and a half, to refill my drink.

THE STRAW THAT BROKE THE FREAKING CAMELS BACK PEOPLE:

The waiter brought me an ice cold Sprite, featuring the sloppiest napkin I've ever seen, like I don't even know how he missed it. Like I'm almost convinced that it was either done on purpose, or the waiter was blind. It was literally like lining the cup! Like a protective layer of garbage, wrapped around the inside of my cup.

Make a long story short, the person who I assume to be the manager, and I emphasize this part because I work in a field requiring extremely strong customer service skills and very frequent T.O.s (turnover).

Did not attempt to shake my hand, did not introduce themselves and the waiter NEVER came back to apologize himself. Anyway, at this point I'm red with rage and anger, so I can't really make out what the person was saying. I tell them about my entire experience, basically it's the worst outing I've ever been a part of, and do you know what they do for me?

They were kind enough,

To take care,

Of

......... The freaking soft drink. This sprites on the house sir. This dirty glass of Sprite a la paper ball of trash is on the house.

Gee, thanks Guys. You really went out of your way, above and beyond the service call there. You certainly did me a huge favor, and made sure that I NEVER and I mean NEVER eat at...

I'm DONE! I have been receiving sub par service at this Ihop for years now but today pretty much takes the cake and I won't be going back. I don't even know where to start. First we wait to be seated, normal, standard not a problem. We wait about 10 minutes for our seat while an obnoxiously loud server comes and tells the hosts that the manager is going to come yell at them about how people were sat in a section got their drinks and never heard from their server again. Internal business is always being yelled around all the time there. This place is always a mess when I go there but I tend to ignore because I like the food...ANYWAY, we finally get seated and the hosts takes our drink orders and our food orders before our server comes and when he comes, of course he has no clue that she has done that already so I let him know, no big deal. Then I order mozzarella sticks as an app and then we order our entree's at the same time. He brings back our drinks and then we waited FORTY MINUTES for our APPETIZER. 40 MINUTES. Just for an appetizer. So by now I'm a bit ticked. But I play it cool, it happens, they are busy. We finally get our food and my hash browns are BURNT. So as soon as I look at them, I ask for another. Our server brings back another and those are STILL burnt just a LITTLE less so I just didn't eat them. My eggs were over cooked and extra greasy as well. My husband then decides that he wants to speak to the manager because this has been ridiculous. The manager comes over and my husband talks to her about our experience today. She's apologetic but not very empathetic because obviously EVERYONE has been complaining today. Anyway, she decides to comp my meal, and apologizes 4 times. She leaves and I figured, she's done talking to us but then she gets a customer that tells her that "This is the best Ihop" that SHE has ever been to and this customer told the manager to come back and tell that to me and my husband and she DID. Instead of being gracious and thankful to her crazy I love Ihop t-shirt wearing crazy lady customer she comes back over to myself and my husband and gloats how awesome it is to leave from our table to go and be "uplifted" by another customer that comes often as well. She tried to smooth it all over by trying to relate to my husband and his sales background but like What? No. I'm done. Never going back. EVER. I am a loyal consumer, ask my husband, I don't change my service providers very often, I don't eat at different places very often, so when I like something or somewhere I'm dedicated at that point. So Ihop in Bear, DE you have definitely...

1st of all I called them way before I even came here and they told me I didn’t have to reserve a seat, 2nd when I got here I waited a hour to be seated, 3rd we had 2 different waiters which was fine because it was 14 of us one of the waitresses was out of it she had no clue what was going on.. Half of the table put their orders and drinks in at the same time but the other waiter told the rest of the party they had to wait to put there orders in. Then when the food finally came after another 40 minutes it was cold and people’s orders weren’t right. So when they came with the check after we told them from the gate we were paying separately it became an even more mess.. We get to the register then they were even more confused it took them at least another half hour to figure it out. While doing so the waiter continued to get smart as well as the manager and she even got smart with the manager several times. As for the manager he was also very rude because he literally didn’t wast to deal with the situation until he got tired of us standing there holding up the line and when he did he continued to get smart. The manager was confusing hisself and the waiter. I asked him who is who because the way she was talking to him was outrageous but then soon as he began to talk I seen why she talks to him like that. They both are a hot mess and very unprofessional. I seriously wouldn’t recommend this place to anyone the only reason it has one star because it’s makes u select at least one smh I’ve never seen anything like this place in my life. I literally had a full blown argument with the manager and walked away from him because he’s disrespectful and unprofessional on every level. What do it take to run this place because it seems to me anyone can run a restaurant these days.. Oh and let’s not forget that we overheard another waiter telling someone that the manager had just got into an argument with the cook before all of this because we asked for egg whites but yet got...