IHOP — Restaurant in Knoxville

It's a unfortunate situation, A Christmas dinner disaster. I arrived approximately 5:45pm I was happy that I was seated within 1 min of arriving. The first server was a pleasant and polite fellow, he got my coffee and water fairly quick and I told him I'll need about 60 seconds before I ordered. Well, from that point on I was forgotten. 3 parties seated approximately the same time that I was. A party of 6, a party of 3 and party of 1. I waited approximately 15minutes the fellow forgot me. A 2nd server a women assure me that she will take care of me. I had get another 3rd server to get me utensils so can prepare my coffee. The server also polite took my order. It was another 15 minutes before I can get her attention to check on my food I explained to server it's been since 30 minutes since I arrived. I ordered Turkey dinner with the 2 sides. I asked her to please check on my food, she stated taking 30 to 40 minutes for food. I stated there was 3 parties that ordered, received their food and 2 left since I've been there. It was when I received my food a few moments later. The food was placed in front me and I asked for gravy for the Turkey and dressing. The food can only describe as pitiful and poorly presented. It looked more like 2nd leftovers from the 1st leftovers. I was quite hungry but I couldn't eat it. After tasting how cold it was.The food was cold, not lukewarm, not cool but straight cold. The cornbread dressing was cold, the spinach was very unappetizing and the potatoes were cool. It took at another 5 minutes before the server to bring me gravy which was in such a small container there maybe a tablespoon of gravy in it. I told the server I cannot eat the meal and I'll pay for the coffee because that was only thing that was fair during this entire Christmas meal disaster. The server apologized for my nearly 1 hour wait and no food! I was extremely polite during this awful Christmas dinner. The server said I didn't have to pay for the coffee.That was my only consolation for a wasted time and very bad Christmas dinner experience. It was nearly from start to finish, an hour of poor serve and cold Christmas dinner. No manager or assistant manager to address my issues. At no time did server offer management for me to speak with. I understand it's Christmas and it's busy and it's a needed service for those didn't have a place to eat in the holidays. Well l was one those needed that service.I was there at your restaurant, for IHOP to take care of my needs, a pleasant eating experience, treated in a timely manner, leave well fed and the desire to return. Noth of those listed on my list were taken care of!!!! This is the only time that I recall writing about a restaurant in such negative matter, but I did have plenty of time as I opened a can of soup and made couple of grilled cheese sandwiches at home and sat down my recliner to write this summary how dissatisfied I was with IHOP on Christmas day 2018. It was a most disappointing meal experience...

Definitely one of the strangest (and worst) restaurant experiences I've had in recent memory (2020).

TL;DR: Avoid at all costs. Bad food. Bad service. Totally mismanaged.

My wife and I ordered curbside pickup (October 2020). We received our confirmation (no mention of delay) and headed out to get food on the way to our camping trip. Upon arrival the entrance was packed with upset guests and delivery service workers.

(1) No one was at the reception area. The manager walked by multiple times over a 10 minute period and said NOTHING to any of us.

(2) Food was pilled high on four separate tables, recipes stapled to bagged contents. Some of the folks waiting just walked up and started going through the bags. No one stopped them. A couple of the customers found their food and just took it.

(3) Employees looked distressed. A couple of them tried to get the manager's attention, but they just got yelled at. They were clearly overworked and barely able to handle their assigned duties.

I stopped someone and asked that the manager come out to address this problem. It's not getting any better, and someone needs to take charge of this situation. Three staff members (not management) came out and began trying to placate the pile of angry customers. They had no organizational plan, and they just addressed the closest, loudest, and most frustrated guests first. Once nearly all the walk-in customers left and about half the remaining curbside orders were handled, those three waiters just returned to their sections of the restaurant to handle their tables. No one returned to the front for another 10 minutes (we're about 35 minutes in now).

I asked another staff member to send for the manager. She was clearly very frustrated. The manager showed up for about 20 seconds with two staff, made absolutely no eye contact with anyone, and left again. I would not see her during my visit.

My food took another 10 minutes to retrieve. The containers were smashed, my meal a soggy mess, no plasticware (they were out). My wife and I returned to our home rather than continue on our camping trip. The food was so watery our omelets were like soup, and contents cold.

It was terrible. We left for the campsite and had about 1.5 hours on the road. I called repeatedly, once for over 20 minutes, and no one ever...

The service at this ihop is atrocious. I used to call in my order but have switched to ubering the order due to the long wait time regardless of what’s going on in the restaurant. There can be 2 people or less in there and it’s always the same. In addition, they just leave their phone disconnected anymore so they can’t get calls. When I had previously called in my orders, the employees were unknowledgeable, and extremely rude. When I would call back and get a manager, the managers are always extremely polite and resolve the issue. It seems the restaurant just cannot keep any staff and the staff they do manage to have are lazy or rude.

This morning, I placed my order on uber eats around 8:30 and paid for priority delivery since when I don’t the food is cold and gross when it arrives. It is now 9:40 and it JUST got assigned a driver. Meaning it’s been sitting there in their orders for over an hour. When I attempted to call, lo and behold phone is of course disconnected. I’m usually missing items when the food does arrive or they send me something different than what I ordered. Why do I keep ordering from here? Well cause I really like ihop. Just call me insane. It wasn’t always this bad, and to be fair on an extremely RARE occasion it is still phenomenal from start to finish. Kinda like a toxic relationship. 😂 It’s just a shame that the franchise location can’t get the help it needs to be able to put out proper service. You can’t really blame the area because I dine at other restaurants off Merchants as well and I’ve had nothing but great service at other establishments in its vicinity. My goal in submitting this review is to get the information out there so others know what to expect when ordering from this location, and that maybe some big dawgs see it and get the restaurant the help it needs to run efficiently.

-A hangry patron

*Edited to add: for whatever reason my order got sent to the west ihop location which I can now see based on the food finally being picked up. However, the review above still stands as it usually does come from...