IHOP — Restaurant in Maryland

My family and I went to this IHOP on January 14th around 3:00 PM. Our child really wanted to eat there because he had really good IHOP at one in New Jersey. He ordered the exact same thing, when we’re in Jersey but we had a totally different experience. None of us were pleased with our experience. We will never come back and that’s unfortunate because we live close and it will be a nice place to go and sit and have a lunch, dinner or breakfast together and not have to drive some distance, but this place is not worth the visit even if you live in walking distance. I feel sorry for the college students that live around there because they will not get good food or even a clean bathroom. The food was subpar. We asked for hot water for our drinks. The water was basically lukewarm. We had to ask for everything nothing was volunteered. I do service work. You must think for your clientele you should have everything they need anything you can think of they may need ketchup, salt, pepper, napkins, especially anything that they may not even have thought of themselves. People don’t see it as a profession anymore they don’t see it as a service of love and respect to customers, and to boost the clientele; word-of-mouth still matters, and we will definitely tell any of our friends and family who live in that area not to go to this IHOP. When we were brought our food, the waiter dropped the plate in front of our faces and broke the plate, and the food went all over the floor. The food was tasteless. The food on my plate was minuscule. The money that I paid for it I should’ve gotten more and I was told that if I asked for more food that I would have to pay extra next time. There will be no next time. When we attempted to get the attention of a waiter and ask for milk to go with our hot drink, we were told very matter factly that we weren’t their table and they didn’t even volunteer to go and get our waiter to see if they could help us. Also, it seemed as if we were bothering them as if we were intruding upon their day. Once we did receive our food, every time we got up to go somewhere else in the restaurant, we found the waiters sitting and chatting among themselves, and the place wasn’t even crowded so service should’ve been a little bit more impeccable. In the men’s bathroom paper was everywhere all over the floor. The food did come out pretty quickly that was a positive but other than that the service, the bathrooms, the taste and presentation of the food is a rating of 1! Only one person I saw in that place do any real work and she kept the tables and floors clean that was it and it was cold in there too. I partly blame management, because the waiters are a reflection of the mindset of the management. They need to do a better job of training, the staff and help them have pride and respect for the job they do, and for the people they serve. Good food matters, it can change your whole spirit and your your total disposition in a day and I’m very disappointed. I will never go to this...

Clearly my money isn't worth their time. I was hoping to make this IHOP a regular hangout spot for eating breakfast food, drinking mochas and doing work on my laptop, but twice now, my boyfriend and I was greeted with service so uncomfortable that we finally abandoned our order.

The first time my patience was tested was when the waitress, in a rush to get us out the door, handed us our check while we were enjoying our meal. This caused an air of awkwardness when we ordered dessert and she had to replace our check with an updated one. On top of that, my boyfriend had to stop the waitress (more than once) from clearing the remaining half of my omelette, which I was actively pecking away at. She certainly did not want us to enjoy our food at our leisure.

Yesterday, for the second time, we decided to try eating there while working on our laptop. Maybe things would be different? We were wrong. After ordering our meal, I noticed the IHOP’s free wifi service was down. I asked a waiter about it and surprised, he confidently assured me he would check on it. Moments later, he told me the internet was down. His facial expression appeared suspiciously guilty, like a person protecting a secret. At this time, our drinks were sitting empty on table, overlooked by our waitress. Once again, the service felt unwelcoming and I had a strong feeling that the staff was extending every effort to have us leave as hastily as possible. After a bit of discussion, we decided it was more rewarding to cancel our order and sacrifice the time spent waiting for our food than to receive miserable...

The first bad sign was when the host sat us without saying a word. He looked at me when we walked in and I held up 2 fingers at which point he gathered up some menus and started walking off. We followed and he set the menus on the table and departed without a word.

Several minutes later we were finally acknowledged by a server from another section; she said she would find our server. She returned shortly and took our order since our server was busy. She brought me a glass of water and we never saw her again. When our food was delivered (we still haven't been greeted by our actual server) I was not offered ketchup (my meal included fries) nor a refill (my water had been empty for some time by now) and the runner did not stick around long enough for me to request either.

While we ate our meal several servers bustled around, the whole time I sat with an empty water glass in front of me. After we had finished we had to guess that the server taking the order at the table next to us was our server (since he did not check on us a single time since we sat down) and requested our check and a togo box. He returned with the check and the box, took my card and returned the bill to me. I had to flag him down for a pen; I was on the verge of going to borrow one from the host stand.

I'd give zero stars if I could and I highly doubt that I will ever eat at this...