Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Pekin

This was easily the worst Applebee's experience I have ever had and possibly the worst dining experience of any place period. If you can think of it they do it wrong at this location. Went on a Wednesday night and the place was not even half full. Two different sets of people made comments to us as we were entering and they were leaving that they would suggest we go elsewhere and now I can see why. The staff was not friendly and you could hear the manager arguing with the staff from the back of the house. We got two apps and by the time they got to us we still had not gotten plates or silverware. When I walked up to the bar and asked for some small plates she said, and I quote "if we didn't bring you any plates its because there aren't any clean ones." Keep in mind this is at 7pm on a Wed with the place less than half full. We ordered 3 steaks and they took absolutely forever to get to us. The waitress actually appologized it was taking so long because they were just so busy. We ordered them all medium or medium rare and they all came out well done. The waitress asked us to cut into them and when we did we showed her the steak and asked her what she thought they were. Without hesitation she said they were well done and they messed them up. At this point there was no way we were waiting for them to make more food so we just ate our now hamburger steaks. Save yourself the trouble and eat elsewhere or head over to Peoria. The food here is not cheap and this was far and away the worst Applebees I have ever seen. The franchise should be embarassed to have their name on the sign at the Pekin location. We should have listened to the dissatisfied customers when we walked in and went elsewhere and I hope our experience can save you from experiencing the same level of dissatisfaction...

First of all...... I should have turned around and left when we waited over ten minutes to be seated and there were literally six people in the entire place. While waiting for someone to notice our group of 4....my mother and I needed to go to the bathroom. As we walked in we noticed water all over the floor. Not just a tad bit of water.....it was an entire puddle. It did have a "caution wet floor sign" but there had been zero attempt to mop the water up. Or hell.....even put some paper towels on the puddle. There was also a horrible smell of urine and floating pieces of toilet paper. We washed our hands and tried to tell a worker who responded "that's why there's a sign in there". Still my daughter wanted to stay, sooo we get to the table and it is very uncomfortable because of the temperature and sun beaming in. The waitress did close the shades but when asked why it seemed hotter in this area her response was " the AC doesn't work good over here so if you want to move I can't stop you". (Like.....why even seat anyone here???) Still trying to remain positive....we order our drinks and some chips and queso. Of course the chips were stale and the queso was runny!!! By this time I was ready to go and never come back but my daughter still wanted her bacon chicken ranch sandwich. The rest of the group ordered and they were all just as poorly cooked as the stale chips. We literally took most of the food to go so we could feed it to the dogs. Paid the bill (still tipped well) and left without anyone even looking in our direction. Needless to say......that's $100 bucks and an hour I will never get back!!! I will not make that mistake again!!!! I would definitely say avoid this place. It needs a deep cleaning, revamp of the HVAC and plumbing alongside training for the wait staff...

We came to try out the wood fired steaks. We all got one, and of course we all like different amounts of doneness! :)

The steaks were flavorful and good quality. Two of the four were not cooked as ordered but over cooked. We really enjoyed them, now if we could get them cooked to the proper temperature it would have been great.

The sides were okay. We had to pay an up charge to get a side salad for my son which I didn't think was necessary. We also ordered two premium sides that we didn't think were all that special.

The wait staff quality was mixed. The male hostess was not real polite. This was our first visit to this location and he was our first impression. It wasn't a good one. Our waitress did a good job and checked back on us frequently. She kept drinks filled which was appreciated after a hot day at a ballgame. Things seemed disorganized as several different staff brought our meal and kind of slapped the plates down. The brusque host asked us if our steaks were cooked appropriately before we had even picked up our silverware. Since we were all famished we begrudgingly told him they were fine.

We were surprised at the cost of our meal. I guess that salad and two special sides add up quickly. My husband said we won't be back due to service and cost vs. quality of the meal. Texas Roadhouse,...