IHOP — Restaurant in Florida

I rarely write reviews, but my experience at this restaurant today has left me shaken and traumatized. While I can compliment our waitress for her customer service, it does not remove the stench of racial profiling that my friends and I experienced.

After we paid and were sitting at the table conversing, I noticed someone approaching. At first, I assumed it was another patron until the man stood at our table and refused to leave. He asked, “Do you know the other people at the table?” For reference, there was another group of African Americans at the table in front of us. When we asked why he was asking, he did not change his tone and repeated the question aggressively. This immediately put our whole table on alert. Mind you, we had never conversed with nor arrived with the other party. His question, delivered in such a manner, led us to assume the other group had dined and dashed.

At that point, I felt embarrassed and ashamed. Other people in the restaurant were watching, and I saw the waitresses at the food service area staring and pointing at our table. This made me feel like I had to play the caricature of the black woman he believed us to be. Despite repeatedly asking why it mattered if we knew the other table, the man (a white man) would not provide an answer.

After noticing how upset we were, he offered the most degrading and defiling explanation. He claimed he was asking because our table was clean, while the other group had left theirs dirty and messy, and he wanted to compliment us.please note at this time, both tables were messy as we JUST FINISHED eating. This excuse was clearly a lie. We had paid for our service and were not causing any disturbances, but his implicit bias led him to target us, making us feel like the “colored” folks in the “white” side of the room.

After we left, I was tearful, and we had to console one another. As I type this, I am still in tears, brokenhearted. No apology or PR attempt from the company will make me feel okay about this interaction.

Cassandre Saint...

Today on February 6, 2021 my husband and I went to this IHOP to get breakfast. We actually frequent this particular IHOP quite often and is normally very pleased however today was a different experience, one that will has made us decide to never return again to this location. When we first walked in it was a little problem in my husband asked if we could just sit anywhere. The girl at the register he said you know you must wait. Then after 5 minutes a older gentleman walked up again still nobody has Bo clear said hi to us and then said to us after a bit I follow me as we begin to follow him the manager turned around it's not ready yet go back yelling at me and my husband to go back to wait. Finally when we sat down we were discussing the rude employees that we had met just so far and the waitress came over with an attitude and says are you just going to sit here or we going to ask you to order some food today. At that point we should have just left but there were starving and we thought we would just move on. However it progressively got worse and the other waitress is that section of Standing Room ignored all my efforts to ask for coffee quiet we're finally my husband had to take his coffee cup and put it upside down there so she would see that it needed coffee. After that or truth came and half of his order was forgotten about. At that point I decided I had lost my appetite I didn't want to be in the building one more second so I walked up to the front I refuse to leave without paying cuz I'm not that type of person so I ask for the bill pay for it and I was just curious and trying at that point they offered to give me the food for free but it wasn't about the price of the food that was so upsetting to me... I paid for the food and I left!!! We are now sitting at a nice restaurant in West Palm Beach having breakfast even though...

I arrived to this location with one person to get a table for 5 people. Although there were many people waiting for a table, we were seated quickly by a friendly hostess. As the rest of our party arrived, the waitress was attentive and friendly while taking our orders. Being extremely patient with the amount of requests and substitutions that were made. We are excited upon receiving our food and extremely enjoyed our meals. The crowded restaurant began to dwindle and it was just our party of 5 and another table with 2 women and a baby. We had finished our food and our waitress began to clear the table. As we were talking, a separate manager approached our table 20 minute’s later and interrupted our conversation, asking if we knew the party that sat behind us. Most of us were confused as to why he was asking this question because we did not walk in with them or converse during our time there. We had also paid for our food 20 minutes prior. We quickly understood that the party behind us possibly dined and dashed due to how the employees were speaking. The party was a group of black people and it felt terrible to be racially profiled by the manager of this location . There are multiple cameras around the establishment, so I wish they would have looked at the cameras before asking us if we know the other “black” table in the restaurant. Though I enjoyed the service, that moment really soured the experience for us. We were extremely offended and had to be aggressive to get our point across. He could have asked our waitress for the needed information rather than approaching us in an aggressive manner. His excuse once we caught on did not suffice for his approach. There was nothing spectacular about our table. It was filled with dishes, napkins and cups. Please do better with this...