Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Orlando

When we first entered the restaurant it was very quiet, and we were greeted at the door after a few minutes of waiting with ‘table for two?’, no hello or welcome. We got our menus and went to our table. After being seated at our table we ordered our drinks and our food. Our drinks were filled to the top with ice, and had very little juice but I think this is just an American thing, luckily we got refills!

Before we placed our order our waitress (cannot remember her name but she was short and had blond/brown hair in a ponytail and maybe a Tennessee accent) I noticed that the table beside us was holding their card and was waiting for the card machine to pay for their bill and she walked over to their table and said something along the lines of ‘if you put your credit card on the receipt we know you’re ready to pay okay’ then walked away from them which I thought was a bit unnecessary. If they need the bill they need the bill, it shouldn’t matter if the cards on the table or not?

My dad’s order took around 20 minutes to come out, and I had to wait a further 10 minutes for mine to come out. My dad had finished his first plate of ‘all you can eat’ before I received my food which was a little disappointing.

The chicken breast was lovely and juicy and definitely fresh, but my mash wasn’t very warm. My dad enjoyed the shrimp but the chicken tenders were dry and the BBQ sauce on the ribs was very sickly. The ribs were completely covered in the sauce, pooling on the plate, could’ve been nicer drizzled on maybe rather than completely covered. Another waitress took away my dad’s empty plate which had his cutlery on it. We had to ask our original server for cutlery on two separate occasions. She just said ‘oh sorry I thought I brought it out’.

Once we received the bill we said to our waitress to give us 15 dollars back for our change, we got our change back along with a duplicate receipt which had green highlighter pen circled around the ‘examples of gratitude’. We noticed she gave us a 10 dollar bill and single dollar bills rather than a 10 and a 5 so we counted it and we only had 14 dollars change when we said give us 15.

We went back up to the bar area and spoke to the waitress that served our table (the blonde/brunette lady, maybe mid to late 30s, maybe 5ft 3/5ft 4 with a Tennessee accent) and said to her we’re a dollar short in our change and she apologised and went into her money pouch and held a handful of cash and slammed the dollar on the table, my dad said thank you and walked back to our table to collect his belongings before we left, and she started to throw her hands in the air and shouted/loudly said something along the lines of ‘now I’m only getting a XYZ amount for a tip!!’ And started to throw down menus onto the storage area and was staring at us, or what appeared to be growling at us in anger. She was pacing up and down behind the bar grill area where they collect the orders to bring them out and we could see her glancing over at us and was still saying something but we were too far away to hear.

We understand completely that in the USA there is definitely a large focus on the tipping culture in restaurants. But in all honesty if I back home in the UK I wouldn’t have tipped anything due to the lack of genuine interaction. Our food came out late, had to ask multiple times for cutlery because she ‘thought she brought it out’, and our server didn’t exactly make our trip an experience. Considering the restaurant only had around 5 tables I would have expected a little more.

This server (who I really wish I caught her name) seemed to be very entitled when it came to deciding how much of a tip she should take. We are the guest, and at the end of the day it’s our money and we are choosing to give you a tip, even when you didn’t deserve it.

Anyone who visits should always double check their bill and the change you receive, because it seems they like to help themselves to an extra dollar or two.

This was our first and definitely last visit to an Applebees restaurant. Very...

Stopped in late on a Tuesday night about a little less than 2 hours before closing. We were a group of 10 and I understand late at night it’s a little annoying, but unfortunately this is only 1 of the few family friendly restaurants open so late in the area. I wish I could remember the waiter’s name, but he said hello and asked how we were doing and out of courtesy we said hello and asked how he was doing as well. First off his response was bad “oh I wish I could complain, but I can’t just yet.” I’m sorry if we ruined your night by coming so late, but you should’ve taken it as your opportunity to make a good tip. Between taking our drink & food ordered, I felt the need to rush my family members to not anger the waiter more as you can tell in his voice & by his face he didn’t want to deal with us. After waiting 45 minutes for our order with 4 hungry small kids, he comes to tell us when all the food is about to come out they didn’t have pizza for 1 of the kid’s orders. Unfortunately his kitchen staff failed him and never mentioned it to him so of course he had to give his face, until an older man came out as well to apologize, but he thinks he solved the issue by throwing in some free mozzarella sticks like that’s really what a kid wants, but okay. The issue was that if they were out of something it should’ve been communicated in a timely manner because the waiter was clearly aware of what they had and didn’t have because there were some appetizers we tried ordering that they were out of, but that’s besides the point. Even though the waiter was rude and annoyed, we left him a decent tip and made sure he knew the incident with the pizza wasn’t his fault since the kitchen staff never said anything to him, but if you don’t like working that late then you may need a different job. You knew the requirements when signing up. At least the rest of the food was very good I must say. So it wasn’t all so...

We were less than impressed with the service we had at this Applebee's, first off we waited at least 15 minutes with no one coming to our table, we see servers going to the tables right next to ours and not even looking at us. I had to get up to go to the hostess to tell her that we haven't gotten service yet! She said oh your server is right there (serving the table next to ours) then she sees him walk off! Finally we get the server apologizing that he didn't know that this table was his....we move on with our orders where two of the orders were the all you can eat deal and one order was a steak to be cooked well done. The steak came rare while the server was no where to be found and mom had to eat some of it cause her diabetes level were low....we finally find the server and tell him the steak is barely cooked....he doesn't even apologize and just says "ok"...so we asked him to have the rest cooked please! My husband got the all you can eat deal where the first entree arrived with no coleslaw (while my dad got one on his plate) second entree came still with no coleslaw, so then my husband asks for coleslaw then the server said I would have to charge you for it then he walks away and disappears. After finally finding him I brought the menu and showed him where it says coleslaw is served with that deal...he grabs the menu out of my hand in such a rude way and walks away! Then the manager came to tell us that there is some discrepancy in the menu as coleslaw is not served as all you can eat...we all had a confused look on our face and I said my husband never got it to begin with!!! And the manager was like 'oh, we if that's the case then we'll bring it'. If this server was just a decent server without being so rude and walking away when we are in the middle of our sentences....we could've avoided all of this! Our dining experience was nothing but awful and unpleasant. We will not be back to...