IHOP — Restaurant in Milwaukee

Food was great. It actually beat expectations. I was looking for a place to go with the family after one of the kids sporting events.. I knew we needed to go somewhere fairly quick, that would have something on the menu that the kids would like.. and that's NOT McDonald's.. I said I could go for a BLT and fries, someone in our group suggested Denny's. I just didn't feel like "slumming" it THAT badly, then I remembered Perkins, or IHOP. I haven't been to either in years, but my wife mentioned that she recently saw a commercial on TV for something good at IHOP, so off we went!

I ordered my BLT club, but the omelettes looked SO good on the menu that I could resist, so I ordered both!

Both entrees were actually REALLY good, and everyone else in our group agreed.. but. The reason I had to give (this location) only 3 stars, was because of the staff.

We got there at a little after 8:30, and the place was DEAD. We were the only table in there at the time, and the server slash manager seems like he was annoyed at the sight of our fairly large group (9 people).

He informed us that the cook didn't show up that night so they were planning on closing at 9 or 9:30, despite the claims that the place is 24 hours.

I thought this was a little strange but hey whatever.

Immediately after seating us the manager disappeared into the kitchen, and we were left sitting in a very quiet, very eerie dining room by ourselves.

We waited what seemed like longer than we should have when eventually a "not so enthusiastic" waitress slowly lumbered from the kitchen area with a look on her face like we were intruding on her personal time.

She wasn't very well kempt, she looked a little ghetto, and she spoke with a very sarcastic and drawn-out tone.

After her forced welcome, she immediately asked what we wanted to drink. She quickly took a drink order skipping one person and disappeared back into the kitchen, leaving us with no coloring sheets, crayons, menu silverware or anything. We had to go to the server station and retrieve these items by ourselves.

Eventually she returned with our drinks and hastily took our orders and disappeared again, not to return again until it was time to deliver our food.

I could go on, but you get the point. She turned what would have been a very nice experience into something left to be desired.

Fortunately, the food made up for the terrible service, and we all left satisfied.

It wasn't such a traumatic experience that I would never go back, as a matter of fact I would absolutely go back the food was wonderful, however I would probably rather go back during normal dinner time, and hopefully have a better experience with...

This has always been my favorite place when I can’t decide what to eat. You can order anything and interchange sides so no matter what you order, you can still have pancakes. But this last week I found myself in the hospital for a necessary but unplanned surgery.

I was restricted to low fat food and my doctor said I could order anything from a restaurant so long as the same thing. So I got to have pancakes and eggs.

Since I couldn’t go pick it up I used door dash and they had my food to me within half an hour. Since I needed things that I couldn’t just go in the kitchen and get utensils, napkins, and other things ppl normally have at home, I called the Resturaunt and the woman who took my call made sure to send extras for my coffee, utensils, straws, napkins, and both days, made sure that the food was perfect.

They even wrote little messages on the bag. My friends and mom and I go for breakfast maybe once every other month and even one of the servers always remembered my order.

Even when they were short staffed right after Covid when ppl figured out that they make more money staying home and getting government handouts, the employees that stuck with their jobs still managed to get the food out quickly with no mistakes.

The food is consistent and never a let down. The service is always friendly and sincere. Even if they make a mistake, they will usually catch it and fix it before bringing the food out. You just can’t go wrong here.

They didn’t have to do what they did for me when I was in the hospital, but they did what I would have done. If something is wrong, fix it BEFORE someone complains. If something isn’t what was expected, don’t question when the customer would rather replace it with something else.

Basically treat the customers as if they pay the employees wages because they really do. Respect is mutual and that’s how it should be. Nobody should have to demand respect or good service. So far it has always been that way at this particular restaurant.

The prices...

This place should be closed down!!! If a no notice inspection was conducted by the Food & Health Inspector yeaterday (July 13, 2024) when I visited the restaurant, it would miserably fail.

The restaurant was filthy - carpet is grotesquely dirty from years of use and the restaurant smelled like wet, moist old carpet. Besides that it was not vaccumed, food, paper on the floor also.

Four tables were dirty with dishes, one could tell it had been sitting there for quite a while.

The one server there, acknowledged the tables were dirty and floors were not cleaned or vaccumed because the other server left for the day and that she did not clean up. But, he did nothing to follow up after her, and after seating and serving me he went back to a booth in the corner on his cell phone.

Obviously no management or leadership on duty, or may be they were in the kitchen and stayed there.

When I walked in, had to wait about 5 minutes to be seated, and I was the ONLY customer there.

When done and tried to pay, again stood by the register for about five minutes, before I had to call out if anyone was there. The server was back in the same booth on his phone and had no clue what was going on in the front.

The seats in the booth are so old/worn, there multiple major rips, the sponge in the seats were literally protruding out.

I am never going back to this IHOP. Then again, across the US, when travelling around for work or pleasure, ALL the IHOP’s I have visited are woefully lacking in cleanliness, quality, apathetic staff (not all), and just a general unappealing atmosphere.

Until IHOP’s does something to make some drastic changes and hold individual franchise owners also accountable, I am...