Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Morganton

At least the location and building are attractive. Busy Sunday (Super Bowl) after church - wait for table was short, but not much positive to say after that. First, the restaurant was cold; I rarely have problems staying warm, but I wish I'd been wearing a sweater or light jacket.

Got to the table and found a portable electronic screen there, could order as if online. Since our waitress isn't the person who brought our food, why do we have a server at all? Ordering everything can be done through the screen, and when dessert was added, she showed us how to type it up on the screen. Having both a server and an order screen is unnecessary. Perhaps it’s because the card reader on it didn’t work…

Two soups were ordered - Fiesta Corn Chowder and Tomato Basil. Chowder is a soup thickened with potatoes, not cream soup base with a few potatoes and other ingredients tossed in. The other soup was a dead ringer for Campbell’s + Herbs.

My Thai Shrimp Salad could have used more lettuce and less cabbage. The dressing, while good, is too spicy to put over thawed frozen shrimp – they have very little taste that way, not enough to stand up to the dressing. Had they been grilled I could have tasted the shrimp.

The mini-burgers were very tasty, unfortunately they came with fries rather than the sweet potato fries ordered. Once the requested side arrived, they were put immediately in a to-go box to take home.

Both desserts were good - Triple Chocolate Meltdown and Butter Pecan Blondie. No complaints at all.

Downloading the Stealz app was supposed to result in a free iced tea, but the server didn’t know how it worked (management should have trained her better), and ended up removing it from the bill. If the app doesn’t work the way it’s advertised and is too complex for the employees to figure out, there’s no reason to have it taking up space on my phone. Also, the Wi-Fi was extremely slow. The waitress said that it was supposed to be fixed in early Jan. If you promise a service, you should be able to supply it, not make excuses.

The bathrooms weren’t marked except on each door. If you want them, look for the EXIT sign above a rear alcove, they’re back there. Also, in the bathroom, in the 21st century, there aren’t touch-free faucets. Instead, there’s an old style push-down faucet that turns itself off after about 2 seconds. I had to restart it 2 or 3 times. Did Applebee's plans include these poorly functioning dinosaurs, or did they just get such an incredible deal they couldn’t resist? It reminded me of washing my hands in a public school bathroom.

The experience was less than I expected for an upscale chain restaurant. The corporate planning could use more attention (menu and amenities) and the management needs to spend time training the servers to be professionals (the magic apron approach never works). This brand has been in business long enough to have figured out such basic issues, and this location has been open long enough to have ironed out the kinks. Perhaps the execs need to shift some of the budget away from polished TV ads and put more into improving the guests’...

Jerry the waiter was a great waiter. Very informative, down to earth; he was quick and he got what we needed. He came back just tjecright amount of times to check on us. He asked if we was good with everything and was very apologetic for how the food was. We asked for the whole lotta bacon burger bacon suppose to have applwood bacon cooked into the meat with extra bacon on top! And only 2 small strips on top none in meat at all; hardly no bacon; no mustard on it when it was suppose to have it asked for no onion had onions... The fries tasted like they been sitting on the plate all day long cold and stale and hard! We also heard customers behind us complain about their food not prepared the way it should have been etc. We were sure the waiter took the order correctly and he even said he did and was sorry about the food experience. I have been here other times before and thought maybe this time would be better; I was wrong everytime it was bad( not the wait Staff); but the food wasn't good ; wasnt warm and not getting the order correct because of the cook no seeming to care and preparing the food to order! I will NOT go back because over the years going a handful of times; giving benifit of the doubt and each time the same! There is no way everytime was the same and the food being terriable! To be a well known restaurant I give it a half of a star! If it was rated on the wait staff it be a 5 but definitely not the cook they would get the half a star.. Jerry needs a raise! I hate when people blame the wait staff and it's not their fault! And Jerry did share he got faulted a few times this night because of someone else (the cook) faults.. He didn't say it this way though..He actually still stuck up for the resturant and all. If you have ever been a waitress or waiter then you know this! Thanks for letting me give this...

Came here to eat dinner with my husband. They sat us at a table that was really big just for the two of us. We specifically said a table for two. We ordered our appetizers, finished our appetizers and our waitress still didn’t get our main order in yet. Finally got our main food after waiting for 45 minutes. After we finished our appetizers. We asked for a simple discount and Brooke had the audacity to say it was our fault because they sat us at a table that was meant for six people . We straight up, told the hostess, which was Brooke that there was only two of us. When confronted Brooke acted like it was our fault. Brooke then proceeded to say that there was other tables that waited even longer than us. As if that dismisses the fact of us waiting almost a whole hour for our main meal. Brooke refused to offer us a simple discount for waiting literally almost a whole hour for our main meal. They didn’t discount so unfortunately the waitress was left without a tip due to the major unprofessionalism of Brooke. My advice stay away when Brooke is working. Brooke is highly unprofessional. Hopefully she gets retrained on how to treat customers that are already upset after waiting an hour for their main...