Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Lawton

bad enough experience i will not be back. dinner time aug 25th or 26th, 2-3 tables taken in the whole restaurant, my party of 3 came in, waited around 5 minutes for someone to walk up to us casually shuffle in the menus and say "im gonna figure something out" walk back to a table of 2 other workers (im guessing managers) then come back as theyre yelling across the restaurant "theres 3, its just 3, just seat them in servers name section" while he stands there blank expression then another server walks out of the back up to us and says "theres just 3 right" and grabs for the stack of menus, right as the guy who was supposed to seat us originally snaps out of his daze and takes the menus seating us. then immediately seats 2 familys directly next to us. in a full restaurant i expect to sit next to other patrons but in a nearly empty one, in a booth, in the back i expect a little privacy and i dont think im wrong in that. we dont even have time to open our menus and we have a server there asking our drink orders (2 sodas and a beer) was told "ill be right back with your beer" that never happened. the only other time she came back to the table was to ask if we were ready to order to which one of our party answered "im still looking theyll go first" and the server said okay and walked away and started asking the other tables their orders. we saw the guy seating people walking by again (he was sitting at the same table as our server eating at the same time as serving peoples food and seating the rare group of people) so we asked him to tell her we were ready to order, and that was the time he decided he wanted to sit at the check in desk instead of the table across the bar from it that he had been at the entire time we were there. we waited about 10 minutes and she still hadent gotten up to do her job. just sat there eating on the clock. so i can tell you the Dairy Queen across the street is pretty dang good but this applebees is the absolute worst ive ever been to. service was abysmal, and i honestly think the greeter/seater guy was on drugs. the managers seemed to not care that their staff was falling apart (proved by them yelling what to do across the restaurant repeatedly and not showing the guy what to do if he was new which is possible) All of that isnt even mentioning that the cleanliness of the restaurant was appalling, there was a whole chicken tender on the ground next to a empty table, there was trash on our table that we had to wipe off because they werent even wiped off for us. I genuinely wouldnt be surprised if it is closed within 6 months. (for the questions at the bottom. what did i get? 1 drink of flat dr.pepper, how much did i spend per person $0, im not paying for nothing, What dishes would i recommend?...

Friday night was my first night moving to Lawton, I had just driven 5 1/2 hours and arrived at 9 pm for a nice dinner with my SO. The hostess sat us right away and told us our server (Raven) would be with us. Raven seemed friendly and sweet we ordered are drinks and food right off the bat because we knew what we wanted. About 20 min later we finally received our drinks ( a beer and margarita) and raven told us our appetizer would be out shortly( spinach artichoke and chips) we waited another 20 min before she came to us and asked if we had seen her black check book ( we had not) we asked her how much longer for our appetizer she responded with an excuse about the kitchen being overwhelmed ( by this time 2 other tables had already been sat, served drinks and had food on table) we waited another 10 min. We once again stopped her and asked about our food as now it was 10:10 and we had yet to be served anything. She explained she had been looking for her book ( about 30 min of searching) and she would check the kitchen again. We finally received are chips and spinach dip and devoured it instantly. Now it was 10:25 and we had yet to be given our actual food. We asked about it and she responded because of the wait the kitchen was remaking it for us and explained that a few items we had order were no longer available and she apologized as she owes the restaurant $200... not sure what she meant but again an excuse we didn’t need. We finally received are meal at 11:15 and were highly disappointed the steak was well done rather than medium, my food was flavorless and dry, We were not given silverware and when asked for some we were brought just forks, no knifes, we had to get another servers attention for those as well as the check. To say in a sum of words, worst experience ever and would not recommend eating here or being served by raven. Why did we not leave? Because the situation just got worse and worse and we couldn’t believe it that we had to stay for the whole experience to leave...

If I could give them negative stars I would! Horrible food and questionable business practices.

For those who don't like long reviews the above can suffice. For those who do, settle in because this was an awful experience from beginning to end..

I met a friend at this establishment. Our waitress was a bit over the top with friendliness but I guess they are trying their best post COVID. I get that, it is hard however a restaurant should at deliver what is offered on their menus.

I ordered the mac and cheese with the spicy tenders. This was not mac and cheese. It was penne pasta in a highly diluted sauce of some type with brown speck. Zero cheese taste. The chicken tenders were small. I refused to eat all of the pasta. It was too nasty The best part of my meal was the breadstick which most likely came from food service and they baked.

My companion wanted to get dessert. Inwardly I cringed but ordered the Blondie as she did. Whoever came up with the idea of putting hard apples in a sauce and pouring it over everything needs to be reassigned.

They are in a kitchen. How hard would it be to saute the apples a bit to soften? Evidently it is too much trouble.

The Blondie itself didn't taste right and I chose to not dwell on it because given how the meal had gone thus far, who knows?

But wait, this gets even better. When I paid the bill in cash, my change was to be a quarter. The waitress came back to inform me she did not have a quarter and was that ok? She then hurries off. IF my companion not been present this WOULD have been addressed back when my food was brought.

It is not the amount, it is the audacity to say an Applebee's does not have a quarter.

I will never eat here again and waste money. My only satisfaction came when my companion undertipped.

A disastrous meal and remember, Applebee's do not...