Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Indianapolis

Decent food, good options, poor complaint resolution (at least in our experience). Details below:

My wife and I were traveling across the country with our kids, and stopped in Indianapolis for the night. It was late, so we ordered from the Applebee's since it had a good variety of options (compared to other take-out options) and we picked the one off Washington St since it was close to the hotel.

The first issue was doing the Order-Pickup. Definitely a longer process than you'd expect. It seemed like something the waitresses were juggling rather than having a dedicated person to handle it. Anyways, the food was ready in 20-minutes, waited 10-15 when I got there, and got back to the hotel within the hour.

The next issue was there were items missing from my wife's order. Essentially, everyone could eat except her. Had this been a normal night at home, not a big issue; we could have got back to the restaurant, picked up the items, and that would be that. As is, we were at a hotel, needed to get the kids down for bed ASAP for the trip. She couldn't leave because our youngest was still nursing, and I couldn't leave because she needed help with the kids after an already long day of driving. So, needless to say, my wife was not happy so she called the restaurant to see what could be done.

The biggest issue was how this complaint was handled. The restaurant apologized of course and offered to make a new meal, assuming we could come pick it up (since delivery is only 3rd party that wasn't an option), but as previously mentioned, this wasn't what we needed. On the phone, it was more or less left at the missing items would be at the restaurant to pick up, so it was at least an hour before my wife could eat.

Additionally, when she got to the restaurant, there was a general lack of acknowledgement. They basically handed her the missing items, and she had to ask to speak to a manager because one was not forthcoming. Similarly, she felt like her frustrations were not being acknowledge and she was just given excuses as to why the order wasn't correct. We're not the type of people to expect compensation when something like this occurs; had we been able to leave immediately, that would have been what we chose, but given the circumstances, it seemed like something was warranted. When my wife mentioned that it would have been nice to feel acknowledged and some form of compensation (that met our needs) offered, they said they were "going" to do that. That's a very different statement coming after you've expected a customer to be out the door. When that conversation should have happened was one the phone immediately when the complaint was first made instead of it having to be pulled out after the fact.

I'm sure this doesn't happen frequently, but when it does, it should be handled better because at the end of the day, our order was messed up, it created an inconvenience during an already stressful day, and the restaurant didn't seem to have a viable solution until multiple conversations...

We started off our Sunday evening planning to eat at Texas Roadhouse for my sons birthday. We sent someone an hour early to put our name in a party of 15 people including an elderly person and a will chair . They told us they would not put our names in until everybody was there we had the whole group there within 20 minutes we waited an hour and a half and during this time we watched them seat parties of 2, 4 and six people some with children. They never once offered to make any type of accommodation for us not even to split us up. There was one whole section of empty tables we asked about those tables and were told that if we were seated there we would not get good service because they did not have enough servers. Not to mention the poor customer service at the reception desk and the young girls with their attitudes . On a Sunday evening poor management clearly with no scheduling experience ...we will not return. We stood there as a group and decided Applebee’s would be a good choice Someone in the group commenting “we should’ve went there to begin with!!“ We arrived at the Applebee’s on E. Washington St. By this time it was probably around 9:30 PM Even though it was late we were greeted with a smile, we were seated immediately With a smile and our server Jarvis introduced himself with a smile! He was very honest in explaining how he was going to turn in our order as not to overwhelm the only 2 cooks they had. We truly appreciated that and did not mind that it took a little longer because that was very apologetically explained to us in advance. Our food was great, Thank you to the cooks! Our service was AWESOME Thank you to Jarvis Who took great care of all 15 of us by himself!! Thank you Applebees for Jarvis he is an asset to you location on Washington Street, we will DEFINITELY be returning and Applebees will be our first choice...

Had a horrible experience with this location. It started out fine with quick service. But after we asked him for a few moments before we could order it went downhill from there. Cannot remember the waiter's name. But was only man there working tables. There was only two people in my party. He was only working with one other table at the time also so that couldn't have been the problem. I ordered water to drink & other ordered coffee to drink. Never got any napkins at all the whole time we were there. Asked for them. So our appetizer came out in a decent time. But our meals took forever also. He asked me if I needed anything else with our meals. I asked for salt packets for my fries. Never got them. So our meal go on... I ran out of water and other half did not get a refill for coffee until it was empty & 10 minutes goes by. Then 20... He finally showed back up after 30 freaking minutes! I asked him for another water. Got that after 5 more minutes. He then came back and we asked for a take out box. Boy we got that quick(probably because it was at an empty table 10 feet away). He handed me the check never asking if we wanted dessert or anything else. I gave him $40 & started to wait again. By this time the other person was out the door and gone.... I left him a $1 bill. If he had been there many times before like he should have. He would have received at least a $10 tip if not the whole $14+ change coming back. Even though we are in a different situation than last year. Restaurants are open & people are working. If he needed a break he could have asked me if we wanted/needed anything before he disappeared. Big difference between this location and the one in Henderson Ky! I do not plan to come back here....