IHOP — Restaurant in Frisco

This is written to showcase an example of a failed opportunity for a Location to generate more than a dollar for a day but to maintain a lifetime customer. We currently stand as a country were business of longer heritage and strong community presence have been forced closed. With that it has put a halt in what seems to have been real customer service and for most this is the norm but I refuse to accept that!

Jan 24, 2021 - I choose out of an array of options to show patronage to the Frisco, TX IHOP located at 9509 Dallas Pkwy, Frisco, TX 75034. Using the IHOP app not a third party to avoid any issues at pickup I placed my order for my 3 kids and I - this process started at 10:30am. I was sent a confirmation with a pickup time of 10:50am, I arrived and had check in by 10:45am. Upon arrival I noticed that there were several parties standing outside the lobby waiting to be seated and thus expected a reasonable delay to be communicated via app or employee since I was checked in. During my wait there another customer also waiting for her order prior to my arrival got out her vehicle and knocked on the window nearest to the hostess station to remind them she was waiting, approx. 3 min later they delivered her food. By 11:00 I called the location which now had a clear lobby and 2 employees could be seen interacting at the hostess station and the call rolled after a few attempts to voicemail. At 11:05 I entered the location in which I had to get the attention of the wait staff and requested to speak to the manager on duty. A few moments later I had to complete this process once again since no one showed up.

After the second attempt Ramon finally presented himself and stated he was the manager and did not have time for me because he had to cook for everyone seated in the restaurant or they would be mad and that’s his focus. He then stated that I needed to leave because he was not in the mood for this and walked back into the kitchen. I requested the staff have him come back to refund my order since I no longer wanted nothing but a refund receipt from this representation of IHOP. Ramon returns even more aggressive advising that I was an embarrassment to myself and that I needed to leave his restaurant because this is not what I want to do, now at this point I have been Chastised and threatened by a IHOP manager for merely being a customer. He also stated that he was not going to provide any contact information for corporate management/complaints and neither would his staff. Before he exited this time, he gestured that I better leave as he attempted to intimidate me with threat of law enforcement and instruction that I can return after 4 pm to have the refund considered.

This was the final point of disrespect and resulted in myself contacting FPD to assist before this issue escalated further. Within moments they arrived and the officer advised that he would attempt to de-escalate the situation and get the necessary information to file a grievance and provide a refund. The officer entered alone and returned to provide what little information he was able to get from Ramon, and advised that he too could sense the hostile mode and had to advise the hostile tone was unnecessary and has led to an avoidable escalation. One in which he mentioned in different environments, persons, or temperaments this could easily have turned into a criminal situation. I was requested to return to the location after 4pm to have the refund process and I left the location and IHOP lost this lifelong customer at approximately 11:45 am. The refund confirmation was received just before 1pm. If this is what represents IHOP’s newest brand perspective at a time when eating out is truly a luxury in a great number of American families. I can definitely say I respect myself too much to hand my money to any company that allows this...

Update from 1/17/19: Okay, tried again.Third time's a charm, right? Somehow this experience managed to be even worse. Arrived at 10:20pm, no one was in the restaurant. Took five minutes to get seated. When the waitress took us to a table, she couldn't find one that was clean. She ended up taking us to a table that had duct tape across the seat. Our waitress brought water then disappeared, another waitress took over but never introduced us or explained what happened. It took her almost fifteen minutes to take our orders. It then took almost 25 minutes to get an pancake combo and a basic burger. During that time the waitress never acknowledged us or our waiting forever to get food. When the food arrived, the eggs had hardened, the bacon and pancakes weren't hot, and there were random pieces of other food (peppers, onions) in my fries. We immediately ordered a second helping of pancakes (AYCE), which took another ten minutes to arrive, also cold. The waitress never once asked how anything was, if she could get us anything, or even said anything as she put the second order of pancakes down. We quickly put our card on the table, knowing that it might take forever to get helped again. She took it and returned out receipt without saying a word. During our meal, we observed about four or five groups of people enter the restaurant. They all had to wait at the front. One group left because they waited so long. One group set their own table and sat themselves. We will NEVER come here again, and advise you to do the same. Seriously.

Update from 1/3/19: Tried this location again on a Thursday night at 9pm. Seemed like there were only two workers. Despite being the only ones at the front, it took several minutes to get seated again. The location was beyond dirty. The waitress/host/everything was nice enough, although forgot to give us the specials menu. Given that the current promotion is one of IHOP's most popular (all you can eat pancakes), you'd expect the menu and signage to be visible and touted, but it was not. A man dressed in all black clothes that were extremely dirty kept wandering around and through the kitchen, despite not having gloves or any other sanitary measures. Our server turned out to be extremely sweet, and the food was good. Still a disappointment, but better than last time.

Original post from 9/15/18: Stood at the front desk waiting to give our name while there were three people at the desk, none of whom acknowledged us. This was 11am on a Saturday, hardly a rush. One of the workers was calling names off the list. She called the wrong name, then told them they'd have to wait because she had accidentally called them. She called another name several times, inside the restaurant despite many more people waiting outside. She finally made a "last" call to the outside, where a family who had been sitting promptly responded because it was the first time they had been called. The other worker at the front answered the phone to take a call from someone who was clearly angry about their experience. She asked several times if they'd like to speak to a manager. The third person at the desk was the manager. He leaned against the wall, helping neither the person seating tables, the person on the phone, nor the line that had now formed behind us to give our names. After several more minutes, another table being sat, the phone call was passed to the manager. The woman who got off the phone began getting ready to call more names. At this point we have still not been acknowledged, after nearly ten minutes of standing at the counter. We decided to eat...

I am absolutely appalled at the level of inaccuracy of my most recent delivery order!

I used a delivery app to try to avoid any errors in my order, thinking that would make it very easy for the restaurant to get the order right; I even used the app that the IHOP itself recommends on their website. I was greatly disappointed to receive my food order - not only with the wrong food items and the wrong preparation but completely missing food altogether!

I had ordered a meal for an elderly person residing in my home, then two more combos as advertised in the app. The meal for my elderly family member was completely excluded from delivery altogether, therefore I had to give her some of my order (which was missing the pancakes!) just to help make up for the missing entrée. The first combo was to have over-medium eggs, but they arrived scrambled; clearly not accidentally "overcooked", but someone was just not paying attention. The combo was also to include sausage but came with all bacon pieces with no sausage. Furthermore, combo number 1 was to come with an extra side of pancakes, but it only came with two pancakes with no extra side of them. Combo number 2 was missing the meat!

As a Generation X'er, I can understand that technology is not always infallible and things do sometimes occur and mistakes are made; however, try explaining that to my 81-year-old grandmother who was NOT amused. As she is immunocompromised, it is important for our orders to be correct and at the very least, include HER food!

Unfortunately, the app I used does not allow an order to be remade unless you pay for it. I did receive a small credit towards this order, but it didn't even cover all of the delivery fees and the tip! I had two choices:

#1: Accept the small credit and re-order her food at least, but I would be charged for another $5.99 delivery fee and another tip (which isn't the delivery driver's fault!) just to get her meal.

#2: Accept the small credit and try to take portions of the other two orders to put together to make her something to eat - which is what I did.

I am not quite sure I understand the difficulty of reading out an electronic order that has been placed; when I double-checked the original order I placed through the app, it was indeed correct. Therefore, one can only ascertain that the IHOP staff is not paying attention to the order - either in a hurry or they have no concern for customer service.

Since the restaurant included this little slip of paper requesting a review, they are definitely getting one now. I would expect the management of this IHOP to reach out to make things right - mainly for my grandmother who doesn't deserve to go without her meal. One of her favorite things in this world is breakfast from IHOP.

Do...