Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Macon

If I could have given my experience an 1/4 a star then I would have after tonight. Me and my 2 sister's decided to get together to celebrate our other sister birthday. I drove over an hour coming from Eastman, Ga to get to this place now while my other 2 sister's drove at least 45 minutes coming from Twiggs Co, and the birthday sister about 20 minutes coming from Byron. Well it started off good being we were seated fairly quickly, but it went down hill from there fast. The waiter who for one had to many tables to wait & lack proper training took our drinks & food orders, but never once asked or offered refills afterward. Our food was terrible. 2 of us ordered the new wood fire porkchop dinner and both were undercooked. The meat was raw & still red. Our sweet potatoes were cold to touch and the butter they had on top of it was even colder. It wasn't gonna melt let along dissolved by stirring it. My other sister had a skillet dinner that suppose to come out sizzling on the iron skillet, but instead they sent only the chicken (no sizzling) with nothing else so she had to wait 15 minutes for her roasted potatoes that went with it. Yes, they split up her meal. My other sister ordered steak & garlic potatoes. Well by this time I had had enough of this poor kind of service so I ask for a manager. Well she came over & we both showed her our undercooked porkchop & cold sweet potatoes, the half prepared skillet they sent out missing food, & on top of that my sister who ordered the steak dinner her potato wasn't even warm enough to melt her butter or cheese. My sister kept her medium rare steak fearing they would dry it out if she sent it back, but asked the manager to go warm her potatoes, but she came back about 20 minutes later with the potatoes, so by this time the steak was cold. They offered to recook our porkchop dinner, but we passed on their offer & decided to eat the burgers we also ordered. Well my slider size burgers (2) I ordered off the kids menu came out with broccoli, but since I no longer had the porkchop dinner I didn't want the side of broccoli, so I asked for fries instead that I never got even though they took the broccoli back. So again I spoke with the manager about not getting my food. She seemed to be confused and clueless to how to handle the situation and address my complaints. Even after all this they had the nerves to charged me for the 1 slider burger ($2.99) I ate off a $5.99 kids meal. It took me complaining & explaining why I asked them to take it off cause I never got my side order of fries & after waiting my burger was cold that she credit my bill for the $5.99 kids meal & of course the porkchop meals were taken off cause we sent them back. Besides that they offered no other accommodation towards our tickets for our inconveniences, dissatisfaction, and there poor services rendered tonight. Not even a dessert or refill on a drink to take out. The waiter was more concern with printing up our bill tickets than making sure we were satisfied with her services and the restaurant. We felt rushed by the waiter to leave as if the problems we encountered were our fault and disappointed by the quality of the food. We only came to this location because it was new and wasn't gonna be bias toward it because we had a bad experience at the location on Riverside Dr in the past and because of haven't ate at Applebee's since. Tonight experience has definitely made Applebee's located in Macon, Ga the very last choice I would ever consider when in Macon, Ga again when eating out. This birthday celebration dinner for our sister was just awful. I drove up hungry & drove back home still hungry. As late as it is for me getting back home after driving over an hour, I made it my business to right this review because some serious changes needs to take place in the Applebee's in Macon, Ga or they may not be around much longer. I also call the number on the receipt & left word of our bad experience. I will also email them also concerning this matter. This is my review after my experience, but go at your own...

First, I work in the service industry and I know these kind of reviews are hard to take and can hurt your scores, but I felt this experience was out of line with what I have experienced at Applebee's in the past and there are a few simple things that could make it better. I want to say the hosting staff did an excellent job. They greeted us right away and sat us promptly and said a nice goodbye.

Our server was Matty (Matthew C) and he greeted us quick enough, took our drink order, and left.

Next I watch him run not one, not two, but three orders of food across the restaurant. I understand the importance of running food and that we are not the only table in the place, but dang that seemed like a bit much; these were full entrees not just apps. We waited at least 5-7 minutes for our drinks.

To his credit he did a great job of making sure the kids food came out first, but he seldom was at the table for more than a few seconds and even though our drinks were empty, he just asked very general questions like "Need anything." There is a big difference in the feeling of being asked a question like that vs "Oh I'll get you some more Mountain Dew. Can I get you anything else?" A showing a basic understanding of what's going on at your table can mean a lot, and while by no means should you hover, sitting with an empty glass for longer than normal isn't good either.

Also, Matty's pre bussing game is nonexistent. He never took a single dish or glass from the table. We were 4 at a 6 seat booth, so we shuffled stuff around, but we stacked it and put it at the end of the table to no avail. Just grabbing one or two things makes a table feel more attended to.

I feel like Matty has a lot of potential as a server, with more attentiveness, he could be really great. Not sure if this is a training issue but by the looks of the section he was working he was not overwhelmingly busy.

The food was excellent, and except for the long waits for drinks and refills (and I don't drink fast, comparatively) everything was pretty timely.

We used the tablet to order dessert and it was fun.

Overall I'm sure we will be back and I hope Matty is still there, just stepped up his...

Macon, GA. Deja was a good server, attentive, prompt and fun. Good food, prices slightly high, well-lit large dining area with bar and many tvs; lots of kids and families were there tonight (Tuesday, 4/9/2024, 7:30 pm), 3 servers were sitting at two different tables in the dining area on their phones or a laptop and I don’t usually see that at an Applebees.

My husband used to love Applebees and ours closed back in Ft. Lauderdale so on our trip we visited this one. I stopped liking Applebees because a couple years ago I felt their food was mainly fried and I was on a diet. Even their salads were high-calorie. But I let him pick the restaurant tonight because he went where I wanted for lunch.

He was disappointed with Applebees tonight. He ordered the 8 oz. top sirloin steak and said the steak was thinner than it used to be. He smothered it in A1 sauce to compensate for the lack of flavor and the bit of gristle. He hates garlic and the sides were garlic mashed potatoes, garlic green beans, loaded garlic potatoes, etc. No baked potatoes. So he got plain fries and broccoli.

I got the blackened salmon with garlic mashed potatoes and broccoli. I love garlic and thought my food tasted great. My plate was only 600 calories. But I thought $17+ was a bit high for it and the portions seemed a bit skimpy. His steak meal was also $17+.

We were surrounded by loud children. One group had a birthday party, the table next to them had two toddlers throwing menus on the floor, and the table behind us had a really cute child popping up to peer at us. The party tables sat messy for about 15 minutes after the party left. But Deja, who was doing everything, was the one who cleaned it up. There was another tall server with shorter dreads who was also doing his best delivering plates.

Oh, our table didn’t have set-ups when we were seated but Deja brought them when we asked.

I wouldn’t mind paying over $17 for a small salmon meal if we’d had a romantic ambiance or a beach shack with a view.

As it was, I thought Applebees was better than I remembered but my husband said he...