IHOP — Restaurant in Gulfport

Stopped in at 1a.m. on New Years Eve/ Day. There were two parties seated in booths in the dining area. One party at a table. There was one short server walking between them. There was no one at the cash register. No one was hostess. There was another girl just standing in front of the counter where food plates were being placed. But she was just standing there not talking, not looking at the plates being set up on that bar nor did she or anyone else greet us. There was one other party of three seated at the entrance. They asked if anyone was going to come seat them. They received NO response. I started looking at my watch. We waited twenty minutes just to be acknowledged. And that was by the short server coming from waiting on the tables. In the meantime the tall server was still just standing at the "plate bar". So the ppl ahead of us were seated. Then we, three, were seated. Again I looked at my watch. Ten minutes went by before the tall server came. We were ready and gave a full order. A tall stack four pancakes with blueberry, regular coffee, A salad with chopped fried chicken / ranch dressing, with hot chocolate, a BLT with mayo and one pancake on the side with decaf coffee. The tall waitress was so slow. She walked slow. All her movements were slow. I don't think this is a job for her. I guess she was exhausted from it being New Years. But it was really bad. More ppl came in behind us after we were seated. The short server was already tending to them. Four tables seated. That short server took care of all four of them quickly and efficiently. Our server had yet to return with our coffee before they all had their meals. The tall server brought our coffees and fancy hot chocolate. And disappeared again. Finally after another 15 minutes, we asked the short server to check on our meals. Then the tall server appeared with our meals. Our food was good but not hot. No telling how long our food sat up at the "plate bar". She promised to bring an extra plate as I was sharing my pancake. We were almost through with our meal before we stopped the short waitress to get an extra plate which she brought right away. We were through sharing the pancake before the tall waitress appeared with the extra plate. Did I say she moved slowly? She really just needed to go home. She really was not doing any good there tonight. We travel extensively. We enjoy stopping at IHOP. We consider it a good place to get good food at a fair price with friendly service. But this waitress at this location was some of the worse service we have ever experienced at any IHOP. Kudos to the short waitress who was so diligent in caring for her customers and her fellow servers customers as well and handling the register. She deserves recognition...

We dined here tonight and let me start off by saying this: I’ve never had an experience this bad here at this location in the 20+ years I’ve been going here. It was SO bad, we will not be returning at ALL. First off all, when we walked in, it took a while to be seated. When we were prompted by the server to find a seat wherever we would like on a certain side of the restaurant, there were barely any tables available in the designated area as all the other ones were dirty. We had to push aside dirty dishes in order to find a table big enough to accommodate our family. The dishes sat there the whole time we dined. Our server was not professional or kind in the slightest. She seemed annoyed at our presence and rushed our order taking. She had to ask us to repeat our order a few times. She was very fidgety and didn’t seem to be paying much attention at all to us. By the time we got our drink order taken, 10 mins had already passed. Our food order was taken and then we proceeded to wait almost an hour to get our food to the table. Keep in mind, there were only 2 other sets of customers there with us and there was a cook and 2 servers staffed. This was approximately 730/8 pm. When we got our food, it was mostly overcooked, but we were so hungry by that point that we ate what was in front of us for fear it would take another hour to get fresh food. When we were done with our food and needed a to go box, it took us about 20 minutes to physically track down one of the servers to get us one. Both servers had been outside smoking and when they came back inside, they had sprayed so much perfume on to cover up the smell, it was accosting to the eyes and nose. I immediately started to get a headache from it. At one point, both servers were dancing in the back with the cook. One set of customers left due to waiting so long for just their drink order. This was the most awful experience, which is a shame as this was a good spot for my family to come to have a meal once in a while. The last time we were there we were treated so kindly by one of the night managers that was there by herself on Christmas Eve. It was the most wonderful experience, but this time has absolutely ruined it. I will be contacting corporate regarding this incident as you do not need to be staffing employees that cannot or won’t do their jobs properly. I understand everyone has their bad nights, but this is a place of business and should be treated as such. The customers shouldn’t have to suffer for this. Beware of this establishment and if you go, let’s hope you have a better...

I went to ihop earlier tonight, it was busy bc it was the free pancake night, i had about a 15 minute wait, fine, FINALLY get seated and we're waiting, waiting, waiting,...looked over the menu, waited, waited, FINALLY, decided to leave. On the way out, i stopped to tell the manager about what happened. He was like, "yes ma'am, yes ma'am," all while never looking up and grabbing menus and walked away to seat someone. TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE. Anyways, i called about 20 minutes ago and asked to speak to the manager, it was him, MARK WEISNER. I said, "yes, i was up there earlier and the customer service was-----"he instantly cuts me off with, "MA'AM, UHH, I GAVE YOU 2 FREE MEALS! WHAT ELSE, I MEAN YOU HAD 2 FREE MEALS!" so, i cut him back off and say, "hmm no sir! No sir!! You have THE WRONG PERSON, and evidently if you had someone else complain, the service must've been bad all night....HE HANGS UP THE PHONE! i immediately call back and he doesn't answer! I got in my car and drove BACK UP THERE...he now has the phone OFF THE HOOK, BUSY SIGNAL JUST GOING OFF! after he finished with the customers in front of me, who BTW had to come place their order bc they couldnt get through on the line...anyway, he walks away without asking me ANYTHING, so i went behind the counter and i said, "Mark, I just want you to know that you are THE WORST manager EVER, your customer service sucks, i don't know how you got this position and STILL have it and i hope by the end of the week, you dont have a job AND i want you to be able to put a face to the complaint that you're going to get to the corporate office! He sarcastically, starts reading out sayin, "our corporate number is......i cut him off and let him know, i have it already, by this time i had my finger in his face bc i was so pissed off....not surprisingly, ge threatens to call the cops, which i could care less bc i came to tell you to your face what i had to say! Most horrible experience, Mark aint worth a damn as a manager and ive never wished ill will on anyone but i hope he lose that job, he needs to be somewhere sweeping up roaches with that funky...