Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Mount Olive

We went there on 12/26/21 to watch the soccer game with my friend and his son. UPon walk in we were sitted in the bar area (not at the bar, but at the table near the bar). We ordered some beer and food, and I asked the waiter to set up an NBC channel on overhead TV to watch the soccer game, but waiter told us that this was for "football fans only", and they were expecting a big crowd to watch the football game that afternoon. I asked him if this table was reserved by someone else, but he said it was not. There were 3-4 people in the entire restaurant at the moment and football game was supposed to start in 40 min. We asked for a manager, and a lady came over in the next 5 min just to confirm that they will not turn the channel for us, as the whole area is "for football fans only". Instead, she offered us to be seated in the back room. Seriously??? We were about to turn around and leave, but decided to stay there to see how big that "crowd" will be in the next hour or so. We watched the soccer game (and by the way, the TV in the back room we were requesting was broken, so they had to turn another one on for us), and 90 min later I went back to the bar area to see how big that crowd was, and there were 8-10 people watching 3 TVs out of 12 TVs available. My question to the management: what makes you believe you can treat people like total garbage? Who came up with that set of "rules" saying that football fans should be treated better than any other fans? Do you really expect us to come back there next time? I think next time they will set up a table for us in the men's room. Seriously. I never had such a disgusting experience in any bars I visited... I wish I would give this...

Stopped in on Sunday, August 24th, to meet a friend for lunch. Even though the restaurant wasn’t busy (fewer than 10 people dining) and appeared to be adequately staffed, it took a while before we were seated, and another 15 minutes before anyone came to take our order.

I ordered a burger, and my friend got the appetizer platter. His order was missing the correct sauces, including marinara for the mozzarella sticks, though the server replaced it once we asked. Our server/bartender was very friendly, but checked in a little too often—more than felt necessary, though not a major issue.

Unfortunately, the real problem came with my meal. I ate most of my burger quickly since I was hungry, but when I got to the last quarter, I found a long black hair in it. Looking into the kitchen, I noticed some staff weren’t wearing hairnets, and one of them appeared to be handling food. When I brought it up, the server handled it promptly and removed the burger from my bill, but I still didn’t get to finish my meal.

Overall, the restaurant feels like it could be run much better. If there was a manager on duty, they weren’t paying attention. This place used to be busy and well-run, but it has really gone downhill—likely due to poor work ethic and lack of oversight, which was clear from what I saw...

Extremely rude staff at pick up. I arrived to pick up a delivery order. I asked the one kid if he could see about how long it’ll be, I wasn’t being impatient or rude at all, I even said I know it was just placed recently, I’d just like to get an eta to see if it’s worth waiting for or to have another driver come. He came back and told me “I have no idea how long it’ll be”. Then the actual employee that works the pick ups came, who I told who I was waiting for. He asked if it was a pick up or for delivery. I told him for delivery, that I was just wondering if they can let me know how long one burger takes to make (that was the entire order). He responded in a very rude tone “it’ll be ready when it’s ready.” And then proceeded to start walking away. I asked “you don’t have even an estimated idea?” To which he responded, while walking away, “Nope.” And then just left me there.

I wasn’t rude to them at all. I asked them very nicely and explained I just want to see if it’s worth the wait, if it’ll be a while because I had another order in the car. Extremely unprofessional and uncalled for the way that they helped me. Thanks Applebees for wasting my time and...