IHOP — Restaurant in Marietta

When we arrived, we were placed in a far area of the restaurant away from everyone else, sectioned off due to having two toddlers. We were not greeted by the person seating us, he (from the kitchen) waved us around with his index finger in a "hurry up" motion, signalling us to just walk through the restaurant, then seated us long before our host/server ever even approached us.

The host was kind and attentive, however did not write down any of the orders and insisted on memorizing it by heart. I ordered the steak tips and shrimp which comes with steak tips sauteed in onions and mushrooms with breaded shrimp which comes with a special yellow custard-type dipping sauce (as I've ordered the same meal from IHOP several times at different IHOPS over the last few months, almost once every week or two), and then my choice of two sides. I chose hash browns and fries.

My wife ordered the steak tips with choice of two sides, she chose steamed broccoli and fries.

We ordered mac-n-cheese for one of our kids, and grilled cheese for the other, with Sierra Mist for my wife and kids and sweet tea for myself.

The mac-n-cheese arrived first. It was frozen solid in the center. When we politely brought this to the server's attention, she took it back and verbally asked for a re-cook. The cook sent back the exact same mac-n-cheese warmed up in a microwave, so now the ice was gone but the mac-n-cheese on the surface was a bit dry and crusty. Our son, who LOVES mac-n-cheese and isn't picky about it at all, would barely touch it....he actually tried to eat around the dried bits.

The steamed broccoli was still frozen when brought out. They were out of steak tips so they replaced the steak tips with T-bone steak only it wasn't sauteed with mushrooms and onions...it was grilled with onions, the mushrooms added last for less than 30 seconds with some grill seasoning added to it all. No butter. The onion and mushroom didn't even touch together until they were on the plate. The mushrooms barely spent less than half a minute on the grill as they were still al-dente as if fresh and uncooked from a package of sliced mushrooms from the Walmart produce section.

The dipping sauce for the shrimp was never brought out. When I said something about it to the server, she offered tartar or cocktail sauce which is not what the order comes with. I said tartar, she brought both. The cocktail sauce wasn't placed in a small dish like usual, but was delivered in a fast food packet like the barbeque sauce from McDonald's. In addition, when asked for steak sauce, they brought out plastic packets of steak sauce instead of the miniature bottles of A1 that every other IHOP usually provides.

Our table was seated, but was given only one set of silverware. We had to take a couple from the surrounding tables. The hash browns were only lightly cooked. They tasted as if they had been dipped in a deep fryer for a couple of seconds and then plated. So below the surface of the topmost layer of hash brown, was raw potato. I was only able to eat three bites at best. (This coming from someone who has eaten hash browns at multiple IHOP locations, Waffle Houses and Dwarf Houses.)

The grilled cheese for my oldest son had a large lump of butter in the center of it...bread, cheese, butter, cheese, bread. Looked as if they'd flipped it on both sides expecting the butter to melt between the slices of cheese but it only made the cheese slide against each other rather than melt and stick, so the sandwich was skewed when it arrived with the hot cheese exposed.

Both bathrooms smelled of fecal matter and sewage, soured, and the women's bathroom was half-flooded and had no toilet paper, my wife had to use coarse paper towels.

When time came to pay the bill, the receipt which usually has itemized our order and cost, had ONLY our total on it, and we were overcharged by $13 which the server said was for the drinks. We will not...

The entire experience was horrid. As soon as we walked in I could tell it was an older IHOP, but you would still think they could clean the building up. I pushed that to the side and waited to be seated. There was an older woman (Paula) and a younger woman there. The older woman asked the younger to seat us. Ten minutes later Paula showed up and informed us that we would need a minute to look over the menu, despite the fact that we were ready to order an app. She then proceeded to walk away. Another five minutes pass for us to flag her down and order our mozzarella sticks. She brings them out fifteen minutes later and takes our order while kneeling on my side of the booth nearly shoulder to shoulder with me, which made me GREATLY uncomfortable, so much so I forgot my order. She also proceeds to tell us that her machines are messed up and needs to know how we are paying. We then go to eat the burnt mozzarella sticks and come to find out they are empty of cheese. She comes back a few moments later after we had tried to find at least one stick filled with cheese and says, "You guys aren't going to eat those are you? I know they look horrible and aren't even filled with cheese." (Which makes me genuinely wonder WHY IN THE HELL DID SHE BRING THEM TO US?!?!) She says she won't charge us for them, removes the bowl and doesn't offer us anything else. Once our food comes out I am missing my hash browns I requested inside my omelet but everything else was satisfactory. She had forgotten to bring my boyfriends water back to him so I asked her for it and she goes "Oh lord you would think I was drunk!" (Extremely inappropriate) She tells us to pay her at the counter and doesn't even provide us with a bill. When we go to the counter I step away as I am already so frustrated with this woman. My boyfriend pays her and tells me later that she never typed anything into the computer, never had a print out of a bill, and pocketed the cash he gave her. Now we have visited many, many other IHOP locations and I have worked at IHOP in the past. We KNOW you have a print out of our bill if you correctly entered our order into the computer. She never offered him a receipt or any proof of purchase. We believe this woman pocketed our payment and never properly used the computer to enter our order. I have never been so unhappy...

IHOP is a franchise, so a bad experience at one store doesn't mean that's how it's gonna be at all stores. On my visit to this store I was greeted by a floor that was wet and filthy, I walk with a cane and have to watch every step I make, so I tend to notice these things. Wouldn't be a problem if someone was making an effort to clean it but the whole time I was there no one did and in fact it just got filthier. When I got to my seat I ordered the usual coffee. Then I unwrapped my utensils to see that they were filthy and asked for another set, I got another set equally filthy. I ended up dipping a napkin in the water glass and wiping them off. I placed an order of sirloin tips and eggs, well done, eggs over hard, for health reasons, undercooked food can make you sick. I got eggs over easy, which I noticed before the waitress put the plate down. I pointed it out to her and she left the plate anyway and said she will let the kitchen know. She finally came with a separate plate with an over hard egg on it. I held my breath as I transferred eggs. The sirloin tips were rare, I ordered well done. The hash browns, the only one that didn't matter, were burnt. I then noticed that the plate that the food was in had a corner broken off. Rather than complain again I ate the burnt hash browns and the egg, drank the coffee, tipped exceptionally well as I always do and left. A couple Months later coming from my doctor's appointment I was hungry and stopped at an IHOP. Only when I got in the door did I realize it was the same one I had had such an unpleasant experience in... The floor was again wet and filthy by the way. I just turned around and got back...