Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Palestine

"Hostess" was too busy staring out the window to recognize me nor seat me. Finally I asked her if she was the one to seat me. She gave me a disgusted look as I had interrupted her window staring episode. She definitely had an "attitude." She seated me. The music was so loud that I was miserable, as there was a speaker right above my head. I asked the server several times to turn the music down and she was open to that. Finally, Mgr.Chris came to my table. He said what is it that you want? I said the music is too loud and that there were "curse words" in the songs and that I could not stand it any more. I told them to please bring me to-go boxes, as I was must go in the quiet of my home to eat my meal, even though the salad would be wilted in the hot weather and the spinach/artichoke dip would be colder than it as when the server brought it to the table. Well, Mgr. Chris came with her again and said, "May I ask why you are leaving like this?" I told him that I had requested that the music be turned down and that there were curse words in the songs. He said, "I don't hear any curse words," contradicting what I had just told him, using God's name in vain, and I just couldn't listen to it blaring out in my ears. Mgr Chris asked me what word was said. I said I don't say those words and I could not speak them to him. He said, "Could you give me a hint or just give me the first word." I said, "God" with the curse word following. He kept pushing me to tell him the word. I reiterated to him that I don't speak those words. The server brought out the to-go containers (3) and I proceeded to put my food into those containers. She left without bringing a cup for the water that I had orderd. So I asked her to please bring me a to-go cup. Each time while she would be gone, Manager Chris I asked me, "Is that all you ordered?" I took it as meaning that I had not ordered an alcoholic drink so that they could get more money out of me. He asked me why i was leaving like that, and I told him I would never go back in that place, but go back to the Cotton Patch, which is more family oriented. The outside of Applebee's building would give you reason to believe .that it was a family place -- exactly the opposite! Well, he finally realized that I was REALLY going to exit that building, he "let up" on his questioning me. The server did not bring out a cup for my water to take with me. She went back to get the cup. Mgr. Chris continued to question my reason for leaving like that, and I told him that neither the server nor the manager himself ever turned down the music and that I could not spend another minute in that place.

As I was getting up to leave and trying to balance the 3 to-go containers and my cup of water, I said, "May I please have a bag." So the server goes to get the bag, me trying to remain calm, after all the time spent to get a simple request taken care of and Mgr. Chris continuing to pressure me to answer his question,"Why are you leaving like this?" I answered his question once again. He gave me a bewildered look. I put my things in the bag and Mgr. Chris stuck his hand out for me to shake. I said, "I don't want to touch your hand" (my reason being that my immune system is low right now. Well, he gave me that look, You are not going to shake the manager's hand? Patiently waiting to get out of that horrendous place, THIS PLACE OF BUSINESS IS STRICTLY A BAR, yet appearing to be from the outside a family place from the outside. THE FOOD WAS HORRIBLE, THE SERVICE WAS HORRIBLE, AND MGR. CHRIS IS MORE THAN HORRIBLE, looking like a druggie who just came off the street. As I told them, I will NEVER return to this establishment EVER again, but will go back to the Cotton Patch where the service is good, servers are friendly and move at a fast pace, yet take time to satisfy the customer, and there is NO loud music. Good bye Applebee's, hello Cotton Patch again. THE CUSTOMER SHOULD ALWAYS...

I usually don't have a problem with this Applebees but recently they have dropped the ball. We use to go and it would normally take them 10-15 minutes to get our drinks out to us. In the recent 3 times I've been, it has taken them 30-1 hour to bring our drinks. The last time I went I ordered a water, it shouldn't take that long for a water! Now, I understand that they have other customers and sometimes they're just busy. However, when I go, they are not busy it's usually us and 2 more tables. On top of taking forever with our drinks, they also forgot on of our orders this last time we went. When we asked the waiter for it he thought that we had ordered another order of wings, even though we said we had never received our first order. I don't know if he thought that we were trying to con him or whatever but he insisted that we had 2 orders. We had reminded him that we never received it and if we had then we would of had a plate that had barbeque sauce on it. We only had 2 plates and one was for mozzarella sticks and the other for spinach artichoke dip and chips. Then he said, "Ok that's fine, I'll fix it for you guys. Don't worry I'll be back with it corrected." It took him 30 minutes and he finally came back and when he did, he still had charged us for 2 orders of wings. By now we were pretty upset, so we tried to explain it to him, again and then he goes and tries to get an attitude with us. We were pretty fed up but we decided to still give him a chance. We asked him to correct it, once again and we wrote it down so he wouldn't get confused. Might have been a little too much but we were upset and we had been there for over 3 hours. It still took him another 40 minutes to get our receipt fixed because now he had to ask for a manager and they had to completely redo it. When he came back he gave us our receipt, correct finally! After we signed and didn't give him a tip, he looked at the receipt and waited as if we were suppose to give him a tip in cash. I'm sorry but I was appalled that this guys thought he was still getting a tip after all we had to go through. No sir, only good work gets you good...

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in..." I will start with that quote. I didn't want to give another bad review of food places here, but this location asked for it. My beautiful Wife and I decided to go to applebees and use a BOGO coupon. Here we go. First the place has gone to crap in looks and quality. This location lately has had a horrible smell of sewage or lack of cleaning in the restrooms. I've smelled truck stops better that this. To start my wife ordered a white wine, her glass was dirty. We ordered wings (which in the past were better than other wing places.) I ordered them extra extra extra crispy (like we like them), well they came back soggy and raw, blood dripping after taking a bite. Also ordered a bacon cheeseburger with smokehouse sauce or something like that, well as the burger shows, hardly any sauce in it. I asked for mayo, and they brought out smears of mayo. The response was, "that's how they do it". I asked for another mayo, they brought out another "that's how they do it". Horrible service and food, dirty glass, smelled like we were eating in a port-a-john. There was a manager walking around asking other tables if everything was OK. We were avoided the whole time, for the price we paid, even with a BOGO deal, we should have gotten more than we did.

It is unfortunate, because we really liked applebees, maybe a management issue, or probably crew just doesn't give a crap. (no pun intended).

Would be nice if this place straightened out, because there is a real lack of restaurants in Palestine. Well that's all I gotta say about that.

Revised:

Well after a few discussions, we made it back to Applebee's Palestine. I will have to be very honest...The food and service was 11/10. We were very pleased with the service Vanessa provided and the food was a 10. We tried to go back over this past weekend, but Vanessa was not there, we were told. We will be going back and try those wings again...I'll cross my fingers. Overall, my Beautiful Wife and I were happy customers again. Keep up the good service and...