Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Fargo

My girlfriend and I were at home ordering dinner. She chose Applebee's, but I wanted Jimmy John's. She ordered to-go from Applebee's located at 350 45th St S in Fargo, on 10/20/2023 18:29:34. She ordered:

8oz Sirloin (Medium Rare) topped with garlic and mushrooms Substituted 1 side dish with a house salad, Bleu Cheese dressing, French Dressing and croutons Cheesy Macaroni and Cheese

When she arrived at the restaurant and parked in the Applebee's to go area, she received a message on her phone saying, "We see that you are here. We'll be out momentarily".

She waited for 5 minutes. Nobody came out.

She went into the restaurant to look for her order, and was completely ignored. Several employees walked past her without acknowledging her presence or asking if they could help her.

She finally stepped in front of a passing waiter and said, "Excuse me, can you help me find my to-go order?" The waiter pointed and said, "Sure, they're right over there" and walked away.

She went to the corner where the to-go orders were. There were several orders sitting there, and since she hadn't brought her reading glasses (she didn’t think she would need to read anything, as the restaurant was supposed to bring her order out to her car), she could not see which order was hers.

She turned around and waited for someone to come near her, and again had to step in front of someone to get them to pay attention to her. This time, due to the fact that he was wearing a shirt and tie she assumed the person to be the manager. She asked if he could help her find her to-go order, because she didn’t have her reading glasses. Without a word, he walked over to the corner where the to-go orders were, found her order, handed it to her and said, “We’ve been slammed”. Without another word, he turned and walked away.

We live a 4-minute drive from Applebee’s, so it’s not like there was a lot of time for the to-go order to cool off on the drive home. However, everything in the order was, at best, warm. The steak was cooked medium-well, not medium-rare as requested. It was tough, not tender. The order was missing the requested bleu cheese dressing. The mac & cheese had an unappetizing, gloopy texture (not the hot and gooey mac & cheese texture you’d expect, but barely warm, and gloopy).

The fact that the manager thinks that “we’re slammed” is a valid excuse for ignoring customers and sending out substandard food doesn’t leave much hope for this location improving any time soon.

It would be one thing if we were dining in and had to wait longer for our food because the kitchen was “slammed”, but ignoring customers is not likely to generate repeat business.

P.S. My Jimmy John’s Country Club sandwich was delicious.

Edit: My comment regarding Applebee's response - I received a copied and pasted response from Applebee's, requesting I go to a specific site for further information. The site is just a corporate chat bot basically asking me to repeat everything I had posted in my review. Yeah, no, not gonna happen. If you're too big to respond personally, you're too big for my patronage. I'd rather go to a restaurant like Plaza Azteca where the staff are attentive to...

I first want to say, my rating is based on my overall experience at the 45th st. Not this specific review. Applebee's in Fargo. My wife and I go to this Applebee's even though there is one closer to our house. Over the last 8 years or so, we have had great service. I have even asked to speak to the manager, not to berate him and our waiter/waitress but to compliment him and his staff on excellent service. I feel people often only say things to management when they have a bad experience. Giving them good feedback is very important! This last experience was the complete opposite of our past experiences. My wife and I, along with our 3 year old and 11 month old had our worst experience here ever. We arrived and we're seated promptly and drinks were ordered right away. About 5 minutes later we ordered our food (I got the special, my wife a salad and my son a kids meal cheese burger. We waited nearly 50 minutes before anyone checked on us. The table behind us was seated 20 minutes after us and received their food by this time. I spoke with the manager and let him know what was going on. If it had been just my wife and I, it probably wouldn't have been as big of a deal. Having two young children makes the experience a lot harder. Our 11 month old was getting g very tired and fussy and my 3 year old just kept saying "daddy I'm hungry." I think our children were very well behaved given the situation. My sons food was brought out and I thought "finally." I soon realized that his food was cold. I was very upset. I made it known to our waiter who was very apologetic and he spoke with the manager as well. Approximately 5 minutes later, all of our food was brought out hot. The manager informed me that he was going to comp our entire meal and apologized for the experience. We will go back to this Applebee's as i believe one bad experience does not outweigh years of good...

Not many places to chose from in Jamestown. Came here on a Monday night while staying in town for business. Mostly every table had dirty dishes and drinkware on every table and no one sitting at those tables. No busser to be found. Server showed up 10 min after sitting down. She only wanted to take our drink order and not our food order at the same time time. We ordered both due to how poor and slow the service was. The beers alone took over 20 min to be poured. The bartender was paying more attention to the patrons around the bar than the tickets coming thru the machine. The server finally asked the bartender if our beers were poured yet and didn't realize there was 6-8 tickets for drinks waiting for him. He finally poured our beers and placed them on the bar to be delivered. Next thing you know the server was no where to be found. I went up to the bar grabbed the beers myself and delivered them to my table. Once our food was brought to the table the food seemed like it had been sitting there awhile. I ordered a steak with pink in the middle and it was well done more or less it had been sitting in the warmer for a little while. We would have like to order more drinks but knowing it would take forever to get another one we decided to close the tab. If you are coming here for a half quick and good service place I would...