IHOP — Restaurant in Jonesboro

I love the food, and it’s always cooked perfectly, they never mess up my order, but I am giving it three stars because the entire wait staff were extremely unprofessional, there was a young female who made fun of a tip that was left for her because it wasn’t as much as she thought she deserved. I never even knew she was working that particular table because I never saw her attend to the guest. The other males working were just as bad, though, she was the loudest and most disrespectful. We don’t want to hear about their personal life and we don’t want to hear slander and cuss words, offensive terminology and we certainly don’t want to hear them making fun of someone for leaving a small tip. I brought my mother here for breakfast and I definitely regretted it because we couldn’t even enjoy our breakfast, we had to be forced to listen to these loud, disrespectful workers. Also the hostess needs to be replaced, she was nonexistent as she frequently went to the bathroom every 3 minutes. She had a line of people waiting when I entered the restaurant, we all waited nearly 10 minutes before we could give our name just to be told we have to sit and wait. Also she wouldn’t seem to hear anyone’s name, so many people had to repeat their name and even how many people were in their party. My mother held up two fingers and said her last name, the hostess then confirmed “three” and then said a name that wasn’t even similar to my mothers last name. I watched as this woman would take people that had been waiting to be seated and she would walk them in circles around the restaurant as she searched for a good area. I over heard the rude young waitress saying she would put all the “white people” in someone else’s section so she didn’t have to deal with small tips. Please fire your current staff and hire someone with respect...

The service seems very cold these days, but with COVID that can partially be overlooked. Not completely though!

So we get seated right away and the first thing I notice is the wet table. Good that it was wiped down, but not that it was still wet when we came along. And sticky. There are enough tables that customers could still be separated because, let’s be honest, the plexiglass and a 3 foot walkway between booths isn’t really “social distancing” in accordance to CDC recommendations.

As for our order: I’m assuming it was the hostess, or more likely the manager, who actually waited our table. She initially forgot our drink order and had to ask again, but she brought the correct drinks, so that was good. The food order, however, was the exact opposite. She got the order correct without us having to repeat anything, but when it came out my order was completely messed up. Just mine! I ordered the French toast combo with the fruit; I got no fruit. Over easy eggs; may as well had been sunny side up, or just raw. The turkey bacon looked like it hadn’t seen a griddle, so Chef Mike probably cooked it (the microwave). Ordered a side of white toast; it didn’t even come until I realized it halfway through eating and flagged the lady down. Also, if they insist on these tiny cups of syrup the least they could do would be to warm them up.

It would be excusable if this was a one off happening, but it never fails that whenever I visit this place it’s the same thing! It’s not like my order is some random request with “add this” and “no that” that takes an entire slip by itself; it’s a plate that has been on their menu for as long as I can remember! Yet it never fails that’s it’s my order that’s messed up. Oh, they should bring back the stuffed French...

Told the wait would be 10-15 min, which was fine, but ended up waiting almost 40 min with a lobby full of people. Several angry/disgruntled customers left while we were waiting, and there were MANY empty, dirty, tables that had never been cleaned (the entire time we were waiting) so I guess we should have known it was going to be a bad experience. When shown to our table the booth seats were dirty and had trash in them so the hostess had to clean it up. Ordered our food when we placed our drink order thinking it would move things along quicker...but no. Waited 10 min for our drinks to show up, and after another 10 min our waitress came to ask us what we had ordered. Wait, WHAT? She said something about their system was down and she had to hand write the order, but that doesn’t explain the lack of attention/service to customers, nor the fact that we had waited that long to find out our order was never put in. All of the tables around us were waiting for a server to greet them or even come take a drink order, or waiting 20+min after asking for a ticket and then the waitress just never came back to their table (so they left cash on the table and left), some even had to go get their own silverware. At this point it was a comedy of errors and we asked for our ticket (minus the food order that was never put in), only to be told that there wasn’t a ticket due to the system issue and that she had no idea how much the ticket would be and proceeded to GUESS that our “drinks would be about $8,” but they could only take cash. MAYBE THESE ARE THE THINGS YOU TELL CUSTOMERS WHEN YOU HAVE THEM WAITING IN THE LOBBY, OR EVEN WHEN THEY’RE SEATED...