Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Menomonee Falls

We’ve been patrons for several years. While we appreciate having a restaurant open and serving, lately have been ordering the same 2/$25 deal which includes an appetizer and limited selections of two meals, many now with up charges that never had one. Today they also had a free Wings special with a $30 online order so we also tried those. I tend to order the grilled chicken Oriental Salad which includes a dressing cup placed within the salad container. I order extra rice noodles to use the following day as the ones on the salad become soggy overnight and it’s easily made into two meals. Problem is they like to add the rice noodles on top unless I call to have it separated. Then they like to add the cup into the salad container leaving less space for actual salad. Countless times we’ve been shorted on the extra noodles or both noodles and dressing rendering the salad inedible. For the first time today we used Door Dash delivery to arrive when husband was due home which pleasantly showed up five minutes early. Unfortunately I was again missing both the noodles AND dressing after calling to make certain they were separated. So AGAIN, I’m stuck home without a way to eat dinner. Today, manager asked us to reach out to Door Dash to ask them to bring us another meal or for us to drive in and pickup the dressing and noodles?!? Really? Husband had just come from an appointment, needed to eat and get to bed. But now has to drive round trip twenty five minutes to retrieve the toppings. Mind you we already paid for Door Dash and a generous tip. They did remake the salad and included enough dressing for both but still only one rice noodle? Upon his return home, of course his entire meal was cold. This entire fiasco was a repeat of previous experiences despite completing surveys and calling ahead to prevent. All prior visits were Carside pickup and ran 15-20 minutes later than pickup time given which prompted us to try delivery. Extremely disappointed on all fronts!

Update from 7/2023, worst service ever! No one answers the phone even corporate. Been happening more at night. My one and only GF item on the 2/$25 menu despite an up charge now been eliminated but is the same price. Upon arrival for carside pickup, I texted as directed, no one. Called the number on the sign, busy signal or no answer. Went in, no one to be found. Now it’s ten minutes since parked. Found manager, expressed concern over no one responding to carside to go, and I basically did an, “oh well phones are down.” 🤷‍♀️ like it’s ok?!? By the time I got my food, checked out inside, it was seventeen minutes after the twenty to make it and since parked. Husband fuming in car, blood sugar dropping. Then again they did not put my items on the side but at least they didn’t forget them like usual?! Doubt we’ll be back now that our price discount is gone. Can go to Olive Garden or...

Service here has rarely ever been 100% spectacular, there's at least one notable and easy to catch issue. That having been said, my wife and I both work in the food service industry. We understand some of what goes on and can abide by an error or two... However...

Most of the time we go there's 1 or 2 servers doing 90% of the work. When we went last time, this resulted in us waiting an additional period of time for a manager to get back to us, a spoon to be brought to our table, and for any of our dishes to reach us since our server wasn't the one on the go (Props, btw, to the fellow who handled 95% of our order. You weren't even our server and it makes me incredibly sad that I didn't have a cash tip to sneak you...). The server we had got at least one notice to bring us a spoon and never even mentioned it by the time the bill was brought to the table.

Why did we need the spoon? Our desserts got to the table before anything else, and because I was famished I dug in regardless. That was, at least, until my wife pointed out that my spoon was encrusted in broccoli and something else. Having taken a bite, I quickly lost my appetite.

Our appetizer finally came out, and some of the dish was clearly reheated, and not made fresh for our order. This can happen, but the qeuso dish especially was crusty and getting cold in spots by the time it reached our table.

We did talk with a manager, and we explained it all as quickly and simply as possible. I didn't have the heart to tell the afore mentioned all-star server who'd done most of the work at this point that the manager didn't actually take care of us. Primarily we were concerned, but I know fake interest when I see it, and a customer service tone. The only thing she did to "handle" the situation was make excuses, check in to see if I'd eaten any of the food (I forced myself to eat some, but largely it wasn't sitting nice with me by this point - I didn't trust much if any of the food), and then proceeded to bill us for all but one dish - the one that came with the extremely dirty spoon. It's not food service policy norm to take a customer that lightly in any situation.

I really try to give a mile when it comes to the restaurant scene, and what ultimately killed it for us was this last part. We wanted to call and explain our experience to the regional Director of Operations, who has their information at the bottom of every receipt just in case your experience isn't 100%. The DO has yet to pick up the phone when we call, and after three voicemails has failed to call us back. It's been about a week now - I know that phone call isn't coming. I'm not going to start screaming at some poor messenger to have it finally understood that we're concerned about our experience, and that some of this isn't acceptable and...

Save your time and money by not eating here as there is no respect for either.

After a long day of moving and cleaning, my companion and I placed a curbside pickup order through the app. We arrived a few minutes early and waited patiently, understanding that delays happen. After about 10 minutes, a staff member came out to let us know our order was almost ready — which we appreciated.

However, the real issue began when the assistant manager, Stephanie, informed us that the promotional watermelon margarita we ordered was unavailable due to a lack of watermelon. Instead of offering us available flavor options, she simply asked what we wanted instead, but neither she nor the app listed any alternatives. We asked for a refund, and she said she would take care of it.

About 10 minutes later another staff member (the bartender) came out and offered to make us a different flavor, and told us the available flavors which we appreciated, and we chose blue raspberry. However, the assistant manager returned to say she had already “written it on the books” as a credit and asked again if we wanted the drink or the credit. At this point, we had been waiting quite a while, so I said I didn’t mind either way — we just wanted to resolve it.

Unfortunately, we waited another 10 minutes only to be told that since we were already “on the books,” and they didn’t want us to “miss the promotion” and we would have to come back the next day. She also stated the she spoke with the GM and that Stephanie was going to personally be getting the watermelon flavoring tomorrow. While this may have been well-intentioned, it was disappointing. We had already waited a long time, and the whole reason we ordered curbside was for convenience — not to have to return the next day. To make matters worse, by the time we got home, our food was cold.

I’m not usually one to complain, but this experience fell well below the standard of service I’ve come to expect from Applebee’s. The rest of the Applebees crew tried their best and were kind and helpful but unfortunately that wasn’t enough due to the treatment from Stephanie and we won’t be returning in the future.

We ended up going back in the next day to get our drinks at around 5:30 pm and Stephanie wasn’t there nor was the watermelon flavoring. This made it seem like Stephanie had lied to us and really left a bad taste in our mouths. Shout out to the bartender who offered us a different flavor and we were able to leave with what we...