Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Fredericksburg

Easily the worst dining experience I've ever had. Now, we were a party of 9. I understand that can and sometimes will impact service. Two people in our party arrived 45 minutes after everyone else and they were served within 15 minutes of being seated with us. The rest of us had to wait another 15 minutes after they were served to get our food. Our waitress, Amanda, was terrible. We had to ask a passing busboy to get our refills because she was nowhere to be found. We had to hunt down a hostess to get knives for steaks because again, Amanda was nowhere to be found. Before our food finally arrived, after an hour of waiting, we asked for a manager and he said he would handle it. He too disappeared for another 15-20 minutes before bits and pieces of our food started to arrive. I can say that when we finally were served everyone seemed to enjoy their food....with the exception of me. My burger was dry and overcooked. I asked for mayo and waited another 15 minutes to get it. By then the burger was cold and I only took a couple of bites of it. Then came the check. Mind you, when we were first seated she asked us if it would be separate checks and we told her yes. At the end of the meal, she asked us again how will the checks be handled and we explained to her again how to separate them. We waited an additional 20 minutes for the checks. When we finally received them, surprise, surprise, they were all wrong. There were extra items on EACH check. One check was missing an entire entrée and the EACH check had an extra side mac and cheese. After the mistakes were explained to Amanda, she took the checks away to fix them. She returned and they were still wrong. By this time, we just wanted to leave. All of us just paid the ticket with the exception of my aunt who was still being overcharged. She again tried to explain this to Amanda and Amanda proceeded to argue with her about why my aunt's check was right. It was finally settled. The check was still incorrect but less so. I left the restaurant at this point. My aunt, who is a much better person than me still tipped her. After which she proceeded to yell and complain about how she couldn't believe the rest of us didn't tip her. My aunt came out the restaurant to where the rest of us were and told us what happened. My cousin and I proceed back into the restaurant and asked to speak to the manager again. He assured us his waitress' behavior was inappropriate and action will be taken. For some reason, I highly doubt that. HIGHLY!!

This was a very brief synopsis of my Applebee's adventure. There were quit a few "incidents" I left out but to include them would make it seem as though I was picking on poor Amanda. You would say to yourself, "No waitress could be that inept." You would be terribly wrong.

I will NEVER be visiting...

I enjoy Applebees most times, this location in particular, because of the service. Granted it was Veterans Day and the special that they had for free meals for veterans had a serious effect on service, not to mention their $0.25 boneless wings which were phenomenal by the way , but the fact that they did not prepare (I arrived purposely early around 11:15) , they were severly understaffed. I was sitting in the booths on the riser near the windows next to the front and one person was handling the entire section and was flustered. I understood and tried to give her time but she was very short with us almost throwing food on the table and disappearing before I can ask for anything else. I felt I needed to cut my visit short and hurry up and leave because there were people continuing to flood in, but I was told that more people came in to work but I did not see a change in service. As I left, or at least tried leave, I couldn't get ahold of my waitress who I'd seen in my area numerous times. I asked another waitress could I just pay and she grabbed the machine on our table so I could pay and THEN our waitress who was in the area saw and came over and took the machine away from us and said she will handle it as if it made any difference which I'm not sure. In fairness I gave her her cut of a tip but I gave the waitress who helped as I left I found her and gave her a little extra for her help. I just feel that they should have done a better job in preparation for a day like that, and maybe no fault of management? Maybe other employees decided not to show up and they had to scramble, but all in all a team is as good as its coach and I know that from experience. The three stars were for the boneless wings and the help for the one waitress who just took care of a customer in need....

Wednesday October 7th 2020 My friend and I stopped in after an absolutely horrible experience at the IHOP next door. The service was super super friendly and extremely quick. Our food came out in a very timely fashion piping hot and cooked to perfection. Our order started with a tall Bud light and a mucho red sangria.we continued our order with an appetizer which was an order of the Buffalo boneless wings which came out super quick piping hot crunchy and just the perfect amount of buffalo sauce.we then continued on to our main course my friend ordered the quesadilla burger with french fries as always it came out beautifully the tortilla was crisp but not too crisp everything on the burger was nice and juicy and tender hot and cooked to his requested level of perfection. my entree was The Bourbon Street chicken and shrimp I have to honestly say my heart skipped a beat when I heard the server coming out of the kitchen with this beautifully sizzling order. The garlic mashed potatoes were perfect they weren't dry they weren't too soggy with just the right amount of parsley on top. The chicken again cooked to perfection.it was beautifully well done but nice and juicy with a wonderful thyme style pesto sauce. I do not recall the manager's name but our server's name was Daniel b and he was also our bartender this is the best service we have ever received from this restaurant and it has renewed our spirits and feelings for Applebee's in Fredericksburg. We will indeed be coming back very soon bravo...