Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Manhattan

Sorry no pictures this time. I rarely have a bad experience out dining. This one is the bottom of my list for multiple fails. Walking in to the dining room at 4:50 assuming we would beat the rush. The server was late and the hostess started to take our order. Five minutes later we ordered, by 5:10 our appetizer arrived. We had been checked on one time by another server as we finished the onion rings. By 5:15 the hostess took my partial water glass away and never did return with a full glass. At 5:40 I asked our server how long it should be to get a burger. She went to ask the manager. Incidentally the manager was constantly at a register 15 ft away and would not even look over at us. I asked another server to please get a manager as our food was no where to be seen. Finally at 6pm the food arrived. My daughter had a hot dish of chicken Alfredo, my wife received a wilted salad that had sat on a counter for 30 minutes and I received a burger and fries, with the fries cooler than my skin temp, the burger was cool inside and no longer even warm. I kept my cool and when our server came back 12 minutes later I asked for a manager for the second time. When the manager finally came to our table, she asked if we were the table that had a slow turn. Duh... Sunday night and there was no way I was eating cold fries and a cold burger. She did offer to take the plates and not charge us. After 90 minutes of my time you offer me only to take away the food? Oh, and take it off the bill. No offer to fix it, remake the burger or provide something different. At this point I'm so pissed off at Applebee's that I'm just not even going to have anything for dinner. Sunday night with my family and we get to watch a lot of others eat. The only excuse was that the burger and salad got made and sat there because the pasta didn't print out. You failed from the server not checking on us. You failed from the manager who had to see us in her field of view right behind the register every time she was at the station. The kitchen failed for not asking why was that food sitting there for 30 minutes. Then knowing it sat there that long you had the nerve to serve it to me. Now if you were running a packed house I could sympathize some with you. But remember we came in before 5, you didn't even have 10 tops seated in the whole house. There were 14 when we left. After the manager had offered to take the plates off the bill I calmly stated no, you can comp the whole ticket. She said she could and never came back to our table. Never bothered to say sorry we screwed up your dinner, can we send something home with you since you had one bite of a cold burger and a couple like warm fries. This was the worst dining experience I have had in decades. Hopefully your corporate reads the reviews. As a GM for other businesses, I can tell you you get one chance to make an impression. When you fail on multiple levels you go out of your way to do whatever you can for the customer to make it right. You don't send them off hungry after one family member gets a good hot meal while we had to watch, and you stiff the others. I would give you zero stars if I could. I'd be glad to talk to your district manager.

I thank the owner for a response, however the link only goes to...

I applied to this store to be a server in mid May. I was looking for summer work. I had walked in and met with a manager, Eric, and was extremely impressed with him. He said that they were looking for help and that they would like to interview me. I applied and immediately received an email from another manager, requesting an interview. We set up an interview for the next day. When I arrived at the store, it took quite a while for anyone to notice that I was standing at the host stand. When someone finally noticed me and asked how they could help, I said I was there for an interview. I mentioned the manager by name who said she would interview me. They went into the back to find the manager and came back and said that manager was not working that day. She said another manager, the GM, would interview me. I waited for another 10 minutes and the GM came out. She asked why I was there. I told her it was for an interview that had been previously schedule. She asked what I was interviewing for. I told her I was there for a possible server spot and that I had 8-9 years of off-and-on experience. She proceeded with the interview. I felt it went really well. She asked for my availability and I told her the hours and that I could work the main portion of the summer. She proceeded with other formalities and said they would reach out for a second round interview. I felt things went exceptionally well. I didn’t hear from the store for a few days so I emailed the manager who initially wanted to interview me. I received no response. I then called multiple times to talk with someone. After multiple attempts, someone finally answered. I spoke with a manager who informed me they would speak with the GM and get back to me. After a week of waiting with no response I made one last effort and went into the store. I again had to wait at least 10 minutes before being noticed when I walked in. I spoke with the manager who set up the interview. She had no clue who I was and why I was there or that I had interviewed. She said she would speak with the GM and personally get back to me. That was a week ago. Haven’t heard from anyone yet. Don’t expect to. I made it very clear what my availability was and the depth of my experience (8 years in my off seasons). If they think I wasn’t the right fit, great. Be professional and follow up. I could not have been more unimpressed with this restaurant. The management, outside of Eric, is extremely poor and unprofessional. I am sure this reflects in the quality of service and food that is offered there. They missed out. I could have made them a LOT of money. Their loss.

Applebees responded to my review in a day and apologized. They sent me a link for “further information.” I was hopeful. It turns out all this was is a link to site where customers complain about food with auto-replies. Wow. What professionalism. I scrolled through the other most recent reviews and maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t get a job there. It’s kinda tough to make good money when food is cold and steaks aren’t...

My husband, 2 toddlers and I waited OVER 45 minutes for our meal to arrive. We showed up on a Monday, at 5pm. After about and hour and a half drive. There was, MAYBE...4 tables of 2-4 ppl and a couple singles at the bar top. Having been a server for some time myself, I was able to tell that our server was fairly new. So, when ordering a lime margarita I made sure to specify that it was too be on the rocks w/ SALT. MUCH to my surprise it came with sugar. So surprising(and disgusting)that my taste buds felt as if I had been assaulted! Lol. It was pretty laughable at first and easily fixable, so no biggie. We also had ordered the spinach artichoke dip and it came out with about a handful of chips and mostly crumbs. During the excruciatingly long wait for our meals,(quesadilla burger, Chicken w/ beer bacon topper, Chicken strips and big kids chicken mac n cheese) the server returned to the table so many times to ask if we needed anything that it was intrusive and annoying. We then asked to speak to the manager. Before he gets to or table or food finally arrives so we ask the servers for boxes.(the 2 and 3 year old are EXTREMELY restless by this point) when we told him how long we were waiting he says "yes, that is a long wait, but it seems everything looks good, we had a couple cooks not show up tonight. So it's just you were in a hurry to eat and leave?" I was shocked. No we weren't necessarily, but wasn't expecting to make my kids wait that long in a booth to eat dinner. And no... I could actually tell that my son's Macaroni had been "dying" in the window under the heat lamps for some time, and was very dry. The least she could've done was bring out the kids food while we were waiting. My husband and I didn't even order anything that should've taken that long. You would've thought we had ordered well-done steaks. To top it off the servers demeanor wasn't very pleasant. She didn't smile, not once. She didn't have an attitude or anything, just didn't seem happy, like she didn't want to be there, had no sense of urgency, just kind of wandered around. Her cell phone was constantly going off in her apron, ringing so much that we know she owned an iPhone. As we were packing up our food to leave, she confirmed that she was new, and she was nervous that's why she...