Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Newark

This is usually a pretty nice place to eat, especially for a nice little birthday dinner. Was greeted with a incredibly rude waitress. No hi, no hello, no greeting- just a "how many?" In a gruff tone with her half turned away from us. We were sat and looking at the menu when our waitress came over and was immediately rude and overtalking my great grandmother. Now granted we are talking out the older generation whome can't really read that well nor use a touch screen. My grandmother was confused about the sides and couldn't properly read the menu. When she asked about the sides; the server continued to interrupt her and cut her off as she was attempting to ask the server to physically tell her the sides due to her poor eyesight. Mind you there are 5-7 sides that can easily be remembered by a seasoned server. The server continued to point at the menu and repeatedly say "I am trying to show you them." While repeatedly interrupting my great grandmother. We eventually got our orders in after some bit. The food was okay, not many complaints there but grandmother wanted dessert for her birthday. We were given a nasty look and a pointing finger to the electronic device at the end of the table. Again- 86 year old woman who can't see let alone use a device. They still have flip phones for gosh sakes. Instead of reading them to us or even offering to after expressing that neither of them could work it nor read it; the waitress just directed them back to the tablet- read out two options out of the 6, continued to say just touch this- just touch this and then said I'll be back when you decide then walked away. I understand it is harder to work with the older generation and that everyone has bad days but the amount of animosity and rudeness that we all experienced was ridiculous. I am disgusted at the lack of hospitality there was at a place I KNOW alot of the older generation comes...

We came in with an 8 top (party of 8) and were told that the only seats that would fit us all were the big round table and the hostess (who had an extremely rude attitude) pointed to the table. She said it would be a 30 minute wait. When it hit the 30 minute mark, we were patient because it’s a Friday and more than half of us work in restaurants (3 of us are line cooks and 2 of us are servers). The hostess comes to us and says the table (whom we just witnessed reviewing to go boxes), just for their appetizers (which was a lie). Then a rude manager came up when we were asking if the 2 empty booths that were back to back could be used (as they were previously occupied but then the patrons left) and they refused to allow us to have the booths. We asked then if we can keep waiting and he kept trying to get us to leave by saying he doesn’t want to seat us because he stated we need to “think of the kitchen staff” but if 2 separate parties arrived they would have easily been sat there. It made zero sense. It would be the same thing if it were 2 separate parties because like I stated, some of us in the party are line cooks. If line cooks can’t handle an 8 top, they need new line cooks.. Both booths of us would have paid separately. It felt like they didn’t want to serve us because we are Hispanic. They let larger parties with all white people be seated together. Luckily, we knew the GM of one of the other Applebees who’s guiding us on where to go from here. I can’t express in writing how badly we were treated and as a server and former hostess, I’d never no matter what treat people with such disgusting behavior as if we were second class citizens. It was a birthday dinner too, which makes it even worse. Luckily TGI Fridays near the U of D were able to seat us within 2 minutes, treated us like humans and helped the night...

Helped a friend do a job last Sunday and afterwards he said let me buy you lunch and a beer, theres an Applebee's down the street we can go there. I stated he didn't need to that and I never been to an Applebees in my life so off we went. Got there around 1:00 PM and decided we were not that hungry so we ordered a beer and each of us got an appetizer. He got boneless chicken and I got soft pretzels with cheese sauce. Waitress say fine I'll put that in for you, she comes back 5 minutes laters with our beers and thats the last time we seen her. 40 minutes later a gentlemen comes out with our food and we ask two things, one how come so long for apps and can he get us another beer. He states they are backed up with orders and off he went. 15 minutes later our waitress makes an appearance at the next table and we flag her down to cash us out. Since this was my first time in one of their stores I can tell you there wont be a second. Folks quit patronizing place that hate that you showed up expecting to get good service and good food. From the person that sat us to every other employee I observed in this establishment were displaying anger that people showed up wanting something to eat. And listen to the folks that say " its so hard to find people to work anymore" ok I can buy into that but your lack of training of the folks you do have working is a sad statement of management. Attaching the receipt with the waitress name blacked out because this isn't about condemning working people its about owners and managements who hide...