Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Middletown

The last time I went to any Applebee's was 7 years ago, and I swore I would never go to one again. I thought 7 years was enough time to give it another chance, but I was clearly wrong. We only went there because it was 8:30 pm, and most of the other restaurants around were closing. I thought at a restaurant closing at 11:00 pm would be able to handle a table of 4, I was wrong! Upon arrival, we were told there was a 10 minute wait, unless we wanted a Hightower table at the bar. This is with several visible booths and tables open. The wait was not due to social distancing, but instead to server rotation. Having worked in the restaurant industry as a server and hostess, this was just silly and easily solved, but we chose to wait and try to support an industry struggling to recover after the pandemic. When we were eventually seated, we were given 2 menus because they stated they were low on menus. So an establishment that wasn't even close to capacity didn't have enough menus for for patrons. Once our order was finally taken we were notified after our appetizers came that they were out of mashed potatoes. We easily substituted french fries. If it ended there we would have just eaten and gone about our business. Sadly that wasn't the case. The server then returned 10 minutes later to inform us they were out of their Bourbon sauce, which impacted 3 of our 4 meals. By they way, when we originally placed our order they knew they were out of the pepper sauce that was supposed to go on the chicken that was supposed to go on the Mac & Cheese with chicken. That worked out well because we didn't want that sauce. Now, we DID want the Bourbon sauce and they ran out. Let's review, had to wait unnecessarily, not enough menus, longer wait time for the server, no pepper sauce, no mashed potatoes, and no Bourbon sauce. We asked to speak to the manager and were told they weren't able to speak to us and we could just go. I know the pandemic is an easy excuse, but that's no excuse for poor planning...

Food: I ordered the Chicken Quesadilla Salad which was pretty good. We had onion rings as the appetizer which we had to send back because they were badly burned. The second batch wasn't that great but at least it wasn't burned.

Service: we were seated quickly when we arrived. However, it took some time for our waitress to come take our drink orders (and meal orders) because she was also bartending. The service was pretty slow and it made us hesitant to put other orders in because we knew it would take so long to come out.

Ambiance: it was pretty dead in there. Granted we came in on a Tuesday afternoon so that's pretty much to be expected. Nothing special there.

When it came time for the check, that took some time to get and when we did get it we were charged incorrectly for one of the meals and also double charged for the onion rings. When asked about the incorrect charge, the waitress stated that it was the "only way" she could ring the meal up. The menu stated one price but we were charged something different (more). Eventually she was able to charge the correct price and all was well. It should be mentioned though, our waitress was very polite and pleasant during our entire visit.

Overall, this is just an okay place to come for a late night meal or during happy hour if you don't mind long waits for your drinks/order. I feel like Applebees in general has gone downhill and is just...

Had dinner with my grand daughter and daughter. Our waiter was Vincent. I totally didn’t like the service nor the food. I’m not the type to ask for a discount or take the food off the bill, I just eat my food and then either decide if I will go back or not. First off Vincent was nice, however seemed like he had other tables that were more important or spent his time in the kitchen. He would stop past the table drop whatever off and speed away. My food was dry which wasn’t the biggest deal. The problem was not feeling like we were valued. Long story short the bill was $71 and some change. I paid cash I gave him $82 (50, 20, 10, 2-1’s) he came back by the table gave me 50 cent said thank you faster than buster rhymes rapping on “look at me now” and speed away. My daughter said that the service was horrible and that I should say something to the manager. I declined and just said I won’t be back. Needless to say I had a lot more things that made me unhappy with the service I just wanted to touch on these things that bothered me the most. They were out of broccoli so I opted for just double mashed. (Luke warm, the cheese wasn’t even melted)The salmon was over cooked and I had to ask for melted butter to bring some life to it… just a horrible...