Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in North Platte

We pulled in from the interstate at 2:30 in the afternoon on a Monday thinking we would grab some food quickly and then finish out the last leg of our trip. We both like Applebee's so that's where we decided to go.

The gal at the door welcomed us and sat us next to a freezing cold window when we could have been sat somewhere else much warmer beings all the tables were basically open but whatever, not a big deal..... Just wasn't sure what the mentality was there.

When we walked in, there were two guys sitting at the bar and a bartender. There was only one other table with people that had ordered food. There were two waitresses for sure, might have been three actually. They were properly staffed for the time of day.

So we sat at the table, and waited, and waited and waited. Our waitress finally came over apologizing for the wait and continued to tell us how darn busy she was despite there only being two tables for her to service. We gave her our drink orders and then she disappeared to the kitchen area for what seemed like an eternity. We waited probably close to 10 minutes for our drinks which she finally brought out while apologizing for the wait. I don't understand why there is any sort of wait at 2:30 on a Monday afternoon when the place is literally empty!

So she then took our food orders........ Food came out right away, that was the best part of our stop.

We started eating and not once did our waitress come offer to refill our drinks. In fact, 10 minutes after we had finished eating, I had to get up after we were done eating to go find a waitress to give us a to go box and our ticket.

If I were to guess, she was probably hanging out in the kitchen shooting the breeze with the kitchen staff while she should have been focusing on the two tables that she had. What should have been a 30-45 minute meal turned into an hour and 15 minute meal just due to terribly slow and inattentive service from our waitress.

It's not often that I don't tip the waiter/waitress but when I stiff the help, it's for a darn good reason. Tips are not guaranteed from me, you will EARN your tip. Good service, good tip. Poor service, poor or no tip...... Simple as that.

I'd hate to see this place when they actually have a decent amount of...

Wish I could show a photo of how cold it was in there today. Turn up the heater! I get it that it’s not your fault some idiot thought a northwest main entrance would be a good idea in western Nebraska, but you could at least increase the heat output to combat the colder temperatures. I ordered the Chicken Alfredo pasta which was fairly edible. The chicken was spot on and even melted in my mouth. The creamy Alfredo sauce went down smoothly as well but the noodles were soggy and the broccoli was so salty I couldn’t eat it. And whomever was seating customers, was doing a terrible job. As soon as we entered, there were at least 15 people waiting to be seated which made no sense since I counted over 10 empty (clean) tables across the restaurant. We didn’t even hesitate to grab a spot at the bar so we could start enjoying the chips and salsa, but oh wait, apparently Applebee’s did away with that concept. I don’t know why restaurants quit doing something that works well. We checked over the menu and just as we were going to order, (after we discovered the chips and salsa were a no go,) our bartender turned around and started to take her friend’s order (who was also sitting at the bar.) I decided to interrupt and ask if she was going to take our order, so we could get to eating since it was so cold in there all I could think about was getting back outside and into our pickup. This restaurant has really gone downhill over the years, hopefully they can get some better help or train all of their...

If I could give this restaurant a negative star, I would. After travelling all day, we were looking forward to a simple meal from a franchised restaurant where we thought we could rely on consistency. Boy were we wrong. After waiting 45 minutes for our order of beef nachos and chicken wings…yes that’s right 45 minutes, we received our food and could immediately tell it was not fresh and had been sitting in the window. As someone who has worked in a well-known. franchised restaurant for 17+ years, I would have been embarrassed bringing this out. I could tell the nachos had sat in the window and then were simply “redressed” to look fresher. Everything was soggy including our appetites. The server then confirmed that it had in fact been in the window, yet she still brought it out to the table and no offer to remake or for a discount etc. Interestingly enough, the only item that was piping hot was the celery sticks (cue sitting in the hot window for 45 minutes). We left immediately after I went to the bathroom and saw the state of it. I would put money on it having never been cleaned properly. Do not eat here. We asked for a manager and we’re told that the manager was on the line working tonight which might be the most concerning thing of all that a manager let the food come out the way it did. Applebee’s Corporate needs to take a serious look into this and Dine Brands should be sending a team out immediately to either retrain the entire staff or demolish the...