Friendly's — Restaurant in Merrimack

Oh where do I start...

This location has recently opened, and we live closer to here than the one in Nashua, despite presently living in Nashua. We had to do stuff tonight, and decided to give it a try since we had a coupon. Understandably we go in at 5 and there's a wait.. Okay, makes sense. We have two kids, and I didn't think anywhere else was going to be much better.... The "waiting area" was absolutely mobbed, like could've been a mosh pit. I had better standing room at a Red Sox game before. But, we stood... Since I am also 6.5 months pregnant, I decide to take my toddler to the bathroom with me. On the walk there I noticed 3 tables that were clear, just not wiped down, and two tables that could seat six with just two customers. Um really??? I've worked in enough restaurants, where are the appropriate hosting skills there..

So we FINALLY get a table. I am holding an OBVIOUS infant, and the person who sat us never asked if we needed a high chair. (Oh, ps, we were at one of the huge booths.) My husband chased someone down, and we got a high chair. Then we waited another 15 minutes for someone to finally show up. We ordered food. A Honey BBQ chicken melt, chicken pops off the kids menu, an ADD ON of mac and cheese (should be 1.99), and one of the burgers, no mayo on it. We waited an hour. The server did bring over goldfish for the kids, one time. Never asked if we wanted more drinks. Never checked in on our food, never told us the progress. I mean, again, I've worked in restaurants. The food ordered takes about 15 mins TOPS. Yes, it was busy. But really? 20 minutes after we sat down a table of 2 sat next to us. (Mind you, they were also in one of the HUGE booths, and the wait area was still full.) They got their food about 15 minutes before us, and it was all messed up. Burgers also. And they kept messing up their drinks. A soda. A DIET coke. How the F does a place mess up a diet coke? This friendly's did!

We finally, after asking where ours was, got our kids food. The mac and cheese was so horrible my 11 month old wouldn't eat it. We didn't get chicken pops, we got chicken tenders. Okay, knowing before hand would be nice. A while after my husband and I get our food.. His burger has mayo on it, which he specifically said no to, and had NOTHING else on it. My melt was soggy. Our server never came back, we asked another server to get a manager. She got my husband a burger, we had to feed our 11 month old fries since he wouldn't touch the mac and cheese. We didn't see our server again until she brought us the check. Again, I reiterate, I've worked in restaurants before, but come on. The kitchen messing up is on the kitchen, but salvage your own tip and treat your table respectably. I won't write her name, though I should since she was negligent with us.

We left after 7pm. Actually, to be exact, I was in the drivers seat of the car at 710pm. Our kids are supposed to be in bed at 7. We got nothing complicated in our food order. And I wanted ice cream, but I didn't want to waste my time trying to order it since we were next to where they were making it and a manager was asking them why chocolate shakes were taking so long.

Oh, and the lay out of the parking lot is awful.

I will NEVER again come to...

The first time I came here it was terrible. There was a very large party taking up most of the back and they were loud and obnoxious. Even the staff seemed annoyed. So my visit was not great. I decided to give them a try today during a slow period. The parking lot was mostly empty. I come in, all the fire alarm lights are flashing. Fine. Theres a guy in the ceiling and dirt all over the tables in the front. We get seated in the back. Fine. Waitress comes and my daughter and I ordered drinks. Again, place is fairly empty. We waited a long time for drinks. Drinks come out and my daughters drink is on a huge cocacola cup. My 4 year old is bound to knock that over and every time in the history of friendlys history, her drink has come in a paper cup with a lid. The waitress snapped back at me "Yup! It comes just as its shown in the menu!" Oh, okay well, if I can get a small cup with a lid? Fine. Her attitude somewhat shocked me. I ordered my daughter a kids meal and I got chicken quesadillas. Again, the place is not busy. Our waitress disappeared. There was another table complaining about their service. We were now waiting over 30 minutes. I saw people come in and out of the kitchen. One person came out with a broom. I could see a staff member on break. You guys have like 2 tables in the whole place that need attention. How long does it take to make mac and cheese (which comes in a bag and is microwaved) and chicken quesadillas? I mean, really? As we were walking out another employee was clocking out. It was if nothing was a big deal and they were used to people walking out. I will not be...

My son picked Friendly's for my birthday today. It's a little bit of a drive for us with evening traffic but I said ok. We were sat within minutes but waited 25 minutes to be greeted by the same server that sat us. We almost left but the server came right at my "if no one comes over we'll go" time. She took our whole order and we asked that my sons food come out first since he was already complaining he was hungry. Maybe 15 min later the server came back asking if we thought we would be ordering ice cream. My son had a kids meal that comes with it so I would have thought the answer was obvious but said yes. She also had a check in her hand that Im really hoping was for another table since we didn't even have our food yet. 25-30 min after ordering all the food came out (including my sons food and app). We ordered a burger, honey bbq chx melt, kids chx fingers and mini mozz sticks. Our server didnt come and check on us until about another 30 min later when we were done and had been waiting for boxes and to order ice cream. We ordered my sons ice cream to go because we just couldn't stand it anymore. Me and my husband have worked in hospitality (me for about 15 years and him over 20 years) so we try to give servers extra grace but it was not busy enough for this type of service. The food was ok but the amount of time was a lil much for what we got. We will not be back.

Update 10/15/25: I emailed the person they told me to on Oct 3rd and still have not heard back. Goes right along with the customer service we received in the...