Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Onalaska

Dined Applebee's earlier this week and had such a dissatisfactory experience that I may not ever go to an Applebee's again. Came in as a solo diner was seated in a big Booth close to the bathrooms right next to a large table of people. I dealt with that however, please be aware that most solo diners want to be alone which is why they came to the restaurant alone to enjoy their meal peacefully after a Hard day's work. I ordered a drink and the trio appetizer and informed the waitress that I would be ordering a meal to take back to my hotel to enjoy peacefully. My order was very simple as it was the chicken and shrimp with garlic butter sauce that came with mashed potatoes, mushrooms and onions. I ordered a vegetable as an extra side. When my food came there was no potatoes or sauce. I informed the waitress I still had wanted the potatoes I had just wanted vegetables also, I figured the sauce would show up when she brought the potatoes. She argued with me first that I had wanted the vegetables in place of the potatoes which I instructed her at the time of ordering that I wasn't replacing the potatoes. I then had to wait for the potatoes to come out still without any of the sauce that comes on the dish. I told the server there was no sauce and opened the lid to the dish to show it to her and she argued with me again that there was sauce. She then has the manager come over to my table, a tall skinny brunette who brings a side cup of sauce and explains to me that this is the amount that comes in the dish like I was lying just to get extra sauce. The manager is being snotty and rude to me and asking me what she needs to do to make it right. I said just bring me extra sauce and had my credit card ready to please pay the bill so that I can go because I should have been gone 15 to 20 minutes ago. At this point I'm getting upset because although I understand making mistakes, to argue with the customer and then send the manager over who wants to argue with me and treat me like I'm the problem shows such a lack of understanding about customer service to begin with. I have done their job and know how it should be done correctly. As a single diner I spent $40 on one meal. My work sends me to this area frequently and Applebee's was going to be one of my regular places to ensure I had meals for the week while I was working. I guess I will find other places that value my hard-earned money and me being a customer paying their paycheck and tips from now on. They not only ruined my meal, my entire evening and my entire week because I continue to be upset at such rude behavior and as much as I hate the review culture since I grew up at a time where we just did a good job to do a good job I am now having to take my time out to leave this review. If the manager wants to know how to make it right she would have to go back in time and properly trained her servers and her cook to know the menu and then not to argue with the customer when they get it wrong. Since she is probably not capable of going back in time perhaps going forward they can learn from this experience so no one else has to go through this. They embarrassed me in front of the entire restaurant like I was causing trouble. This is what is wrong with our society today. People lying and covering their own butts when they are wrong instead of taking accountability and fixing their...

I haven't been to this Applebee's in years, but we had a gift certificate so we decided to use it up. When we arrived we were greeted by the host. I use the term 'greeted' very loosely, as he said exactly three words to us. "TWO? Fall me. " Not exactly a great way to start but when our waiter came to our table almost immediately, things started to look up. Unfortunately, that didn't last. I guess I annoyed him when I asked what beer they had on tap, as he rolled his eyes at me before telling me in a very monotone voice what my choices were. Pardon me, I guess that wasn't part of his job description. Unfortunately, things went downhill from there. I suppose one should be happy when their food arrives within minutes after ordering, unless you ordered dishes that should (in my opinion) take longer than five minutes to cook. I ordered the Spinach- Artichoke Chicken Penne, and my husband ordered the Riblets platter.

Another waiter brought our food and when he asked if we needed anything else, we advised him silverware might be a good start. He was kind enough to bring one set he found in the host area, and promised to be right back with the other. He never returned. Thankfully, the one set came with two forks, so we just let it go. I mean really, by this time we just wanted to eat our food and get out of there.

And the food? The first bite of my dish was luke warm. I dug a little deeper thinking it was just the top layer, but no, still luke warm. It was also blah in taste and when I bit into a piece of the so called 'grilled' chicken it was ice cold. My husband said his riblets weren't too bad, except they were mushy, so it was obvious they weren't fresh and basically just nuked to heat through.

We never did see our waiter after he initially took our order, so I grabbed a very kind and sweet waitress(wish I had gotten her name) away from her own customer's to ask if she could get a manager. She did so immediately and apologized three times.

The manager came within minutes and he too apologized and when I refused to send my food back to re-heat (ya-not going to happen) he kindly offered to remove the dish from our bill. So generous.

We then tried to pay our bill with the machine at the table but we couldn't because the manager hadn't given the credit yet, so we had to ask the kind waitress for help again. Unfortunately, she couldn't process it either until the manager gave the credit. She then had to get another manager to come over and he took our card and processed the payment. We were left with $2.37 on the card, which I promptly threw in the garbage on my way out. But only after we handed that sweet girl a tip. If not for her, the entire experience at this restaurant would have been horrific! Which is why I'm giving a 1 star review versus a 0...

UPDATE Feb 12, 2024: So I was offered a replacement entree to make up for the previous experience, which was very generous so I returned last week and left feeling even worse than the last time. I went ahead and ordered the all you can eat wings because the last time I ordered, I was able to take home the few that I couldn't finish without any problem. This time I was told that's not allowed, ok fine but probably should've had that clear somewhere before I ordered. Also a little weird that your policy isn't consistent. As I was still working on my wings, my boyfriend asked for a small takeaway box for his meal. At which point our server, Mackenna, apparently decided to get petty with it and instead of bringing him the requested small take home box, she gave him a small 8oz soup cup meant for to-go orders (pictured). THIS IS NOT A TAKE HOME BOX.

It's fine if I can't bring home any of my food, rules are rules, but to be unprofessional and petty and bring my partner a literal cup to put his leftovers in is absolutely ridiculous and honestly embarrassing. We paid 15 dollars for a salmon meal and he was barely able to stuff his leftovers into this stupid cup. It was pretty obvious that she made it her personal mission to find the smallest container she could to make sure I couldn't take home any of my food. But she could've shown my partner some decency instead of treating us like criminals over a few chicken wings. She did not speak to us again after dropping that off, and ignored us as we left. At first I thought I was being sensitive about it, but even my boyfriend was put off by the whole thing. While the food was much better than last time, the customer service was a joke and we don't deserve to be treated like that, ESPECIALLY since this was supposed to make up for previous negative experiences here.

November 2023: Y’all better be joking with this four cheese Mac with honey pepper tenders. This was $15 and not only is it unpleasant to look at but it was almost completely...