IHOP — Restaurant in Elizabethtown

This IHOP location is having a competition for the servers to see who can close tickets the fastest. It makes for some pretty obnoxious server behavior. They asked if I was ready for my check before all my food even arrived. Then, about every 45 seconds I was asked if everything was alright. Just really annoying. There were plenty of open tables. Never any need to rush people out of there. Just an obnoxious competition that corporate probably thought was a great idea. Just stop. Take the order, Serve the food, Be available. Don’t crawl up my butt and live there.

update So It’s a month later, and now I can never go back to that IHOP ever again. I just wanted a breakfast restaurant to sit and relax with some coffee. IHOP, in the past, has been a great place to do that. They give you a whole thermos of coffee so you never run out… it’s the absolute best way to guarantee that the servers don’t have to come messing with you all the time. God I wanted that today. Just give some coffee, bring my food when it’s ready, and generally leave me alone. I was dreading IHOP because of that last experience I had there. It was the most manic, obnoxious, nightmare of a time. But I thought if I just go in there and explain myself, “I don’t want to play the corporate games this time, It was just sooo much last time” that they’d be cool. Like, “Oh yeah, I know, it sucks. Corporate makes us do that. I can see you’re not into it. No problem.” The waitress who was going to seat me was the same waitress I had last time. She did not see the humanity in the request. Her emotions were not just on her sleeve, but blasting out in every direction. She was mad. I’m sure I didn’t say it right. I’m not exactly versed the coddling GenZ emotions. And it didn’t help that my main desire was to have the exact opposite of the service SHE provided. I think if I had been explaining my situation to someone other than my previous server it probably would’ve gone better. I did get seated. It was a bit hot. But mostly I just kept thinking about how unlikely it was going to be to get anything but disgruntled service. Not to mention the idea of what servers might do to the food of people they don’t like.

…I use to like going there, then corporate messed it up, then I put the nail in that coffin. There’s no way they’re not gonna remember me.

Btw. Just because you say “No Rush” doesn’t change the fact that you are...

So let me describe my ihop experience to you, upon walking in and with less than half the restaurant being full we were seated after a few moments by a nice gentleman who was not in uniform but in a sports jersey, or rather i assume he is nice.

I would not know as instead of asking us how many in our party he simply waved us over silently around the corner and waved again to get us to follow, bringing us to our table, wait sorry not this table maybe this other table was better for some reason, and then he left without another word leaving us hoping we had a waitress as he didnt give us a name or say someone would be with us soon.

Luckily we had a fairly nice waitress, though she seemed slightly busy she still took our order and was polite and even refilled our waters. The food however was another matter.

I ordered the Cheeseburger Sliders with a side of fries and my girlfriend got the chicken and waffles. Now I want to be clear I don't expect the world from my food but I do expect it to vaguely match the description, and after waiting an hour for said food I'm expecting it to at least be worth it.

Due to this when i ordered "Three's company with these sizzling sliders. You'll get three 100% USDA Choice beef sliders" that are "topped with american cheese, lettuce, tomato, and onion" I expected at least three sandwiches with some type of veggies on top, what i got was somehow TWO plain sliders with only cheese (hey at least they got that right) and an apple sauce pack.

They gave me my fries but at that point i didn't want to wait and see how long another slider would take to cook as it had already been almost an hour for two, I don't blaim the waitress but someone needs to learn the difference between two and three, I am not happy with only getting 2/3 of what I pay for.

Two stars because of the nice waitress who seemed apologetic throughout this all, otherwise it'd be one.

P.S....

Was told it was a 30m wait, which turned into 1hr15m. Then, when our food arrived, my steak was overcooked vs. being medium well. Asked for cheese in eggs, and it was just placed on top, un-melted cause the eggs were cold, and the butter on the pancakes wouldn't melt cause they were cold. The food was returned to the kitchen, and the next time it came out, it was perfect! Was told my meal was going to be comped, but it wasn't.

The person who bought out our food asked if we needed anything else and I requested hot syrup, she said sure then politely walked it over to our waitress who was helping someone else and gave her the bottle to heat it up. Then snother customer said he was ready to place hos order to two of the waitresses that were standing by their computer talking. They yelled across the restaurant to the waitress whom the table belonged to to let them know their table was ready. I couldn't hear her response, but the response of the other was, "Well, he telling everybody over here he ready to order." Clearly, there was no teamwork here.

Was told there were 3 cooks, and we counted 7 waitresses, and about half of the restaurant was with empty tables. We can hear the hostess say the kitchen was behind on 9 orders prior to us being seated.

I was wanting IHOP, particularly the sirloin tips and pancakes, but this experience was subpar. I appreciate my waitress Mars - as she was attentive and didn't give no push back when I told her my meal was cold. She politely took it back and had it corrected. She appeared to be working all over the restaurant v just a section, but she did her best.

No manager came by to apologize for the cold food. Sometimes that's all it takes. Just to show the customer you care, especially if you want their business to return. This location lost out on a lot of...