Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Lynnwood

I came in last night for my dirty 30. I drove all the way from Federal Way to go to this one so that my sister could come enjoy as well as my oldest son and my friend. Highly highly disappointed I'm so upset about the service. The biggest reason I'm upset is because I was here last week with six of my children and 4 adults total. I gave this to stars because of my experience last week with our waiter Patrick who was amazing and on top of things. So I feel that the service last night must have been a Miss. This could be a hit-or-miss place. Our waitress I did not catch her name but she had a long blonde ponytail and just that attitude from hell. I ordered for my son and myself and we ordered our drinks I said that I wanted to continue to look at the menu I wasn't sure if I wanted a side Caesar salad or if we were going to get appetizer for all of us to share it was not quite happy hour yet so still trying to decide she went and put the orders in and came back and ask for the menu. Told her I wasn't ready yet. Mind you the restaurant was not full of people there were three tables in the bar that had people at it probably 2 other tables near us with people addict. So you have plenty of menus for somebody comes inside. I'm not going on never came back she didn't check on us never refilled our Waters we asked her to refill my son's chocolate milk and she said it was $0.99 / refill I said no it's not I was just here last week with six children and it I've never been charged for a refill it doesn't say anywhere on their menu and it cost $0.99. It does online but it's not indicated on the menu anywhere the menu just says wash it down chocolate milk milk apple juice. During the time she just didn't come back she didn't check on us she didn't ask us if we needed refills we did have in my chicken and fries baskets she just forgot about us since that point even though she was serving two tables next to us we had to keep looking for her looking at her for her to come over we wanted to place an order to go for Burger. Friendly when we were done eating she brought over the Tabasco sauce we had asked for and then she refilled our water when we asked her to. When it came time to pay we had a coupon for $5 off a $25 order or more that we had purchased last week when we were in here from Patrick. We even filled out a little lemon coupon with all 9 of our names on it with Patrick the waiter. Find you Patrick is amazing he was a great Waiter on top of things I cannot reiterate that enough. Which I believe her name was McKayla but I'm not positive. My sister wouldn't even give me the thing to pay because I had already made it clear that I was not giving a tip because of her service but my sister still tipped her because it's about circumstance maybe her boyfriend broke up with her during break or something like that and we really had to think about how things affect us and we had a conversation over dinner about leaving things at the door what is professional what is not professional. So I'm highly disappointed in the service from last night but Patrick you were amazing if there were just more Patrick's...

Well, they finally did it. After trying to give a former Fav restaurant another second chance the relationship is over.

My beef is with the Lynnwood manager, Eric. Yet again when we made a complaint about slow, mismanaged service, he throws his servers under the bus blaming them. Several months ago on our "last chance" outing we complained about an order not being right and he instantly laid the problem on the waitstaff not entering the order correctly. He also stated he was new and was working to correct some problems with the kitchen. We returned a couple of times and things were actually a bit better.

Fast forward to today. We are there at 3:39 pm in an uncrowded dining room. Our party of 5 ordered off the 2 for $22 menu. Long wait, no appetizer, salads arrive, no appetizer. Mention to a delivering female waitstaff that typically appetizers are served before the salad and she stood there at the table arguing with our very polite 81 year old guest. Uncomfortable and embarrassing. We eat our salads and continue to wait. Finally my wife gets up to complain and Eric, the manager delivers the item restarting the argument that salads arrive with appetizers. In short order four of the five entrees arrive and we wait for the fifth. After complaining again we're told the delay was to have fresh hot fries in "60 seconds". Several minutes pass and the late entree finally arrives. I expected this one to be comped but no offer is made just a "sorry this is late".

The food is very good no issue there.

Our original server, Jacobi, is hustling and doing a perfectly adequate job for his first night being on his own. He is obviously an experienced server, just new to Applebee's. Eric, the manager again appears and apologizes for the server's inadequacies at being new.

As this agonizing meal finally comes to an end, having been there over two hours, Eric really show his managerial chops by sending the assistant manager, Crystal, over to our table to check on us but apparently not informing her there is an ongoing complaint. She is very pleasant, professional, defuses the situation and apologizes without blaming. Yeah, Eric, the coward sent his unawares assistant to put out the fire he created and inflamed.

Not everybody is management material. Crystal has a bright future. Eric needs to...

We were seated with no kids menus, so when our server came I asked if they had grilled cheese, as I like to order my kid's food first. Our server didn't know, so went to ask the kitchen. 10 minutes went by and she came back and said that they can make grilled cheese, even though it's not on the menu (that we still didn't have anyways.) She disappeared again and came back with kid's menus a few minutes later. We ordered all of our food and drinks at that time, including two grilled cheeses and a mac and cheese.

Drinks came 20 minutes after we ordered.

Around the 45 minute mark from ordering, and after not seeing our server since drinks were dropped I finally stopped the manager and inquired about our food. He said he'd look into it and it did come out about 5 minutes later. Our server said the reason for the long wait is because of the "off menu grilled cheeses." Which, if true, means their entire kitchen fell apart because of two pieces of bread with some cheese.

That's not where the issues ended, though. The kid's mac and cheese we ordered (from the menu, by the way) didn't come with our other 5 meals. Our server said she'd be back with it but again disappeared. After 15 minutes I flagged down another server and asked about the macaroni. It finally came out, 20 minutes after the rest of our food.

For those who are not familiar with Kraft mac and cheese sold at chain restaurants, but it comes premade and prepackaged. You dump it into the bowl, toss it in the microwave and tada! Mac and cheese! It's even easier than our "off menu" grilled cheeses.

After all this, our kiosk to pay at our table didn't work. And if you guessed that our server was nowhere to be found, you are correct! I again flagged down another server who was happy to help. While asking about our experience she was shocked to learn about the delay not only in our food, but that one kid's meal. She grabbed a manager who did comp our kid's meals, but honestly, I will never visit this Applebee's again.

It's clear that our server was new and in the weeds. However, she had absolutely zero support from her management. They should have recognized that she was struggling and stepped in...