Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Pella

Our server Mia was M.I.A!!!

I’m going to preface this review as a loyal Applebee’s customer of 25 years. The food was absolutely delicious as usual. Applebees has always never failed to deliver premium food quality. The service, however, at this particular location was truly disappointing. Our table truly felt as if we were brushed under the table. We weren’t offered waters upon seating. Our beverages took over 10 minutes to reach our table - we did not complain, we understood that it could get busy, BUT it was not. One person in our party was handed the wrong drink, and our waitress tried to tell her us was the right one - when we KNEW it was the wrong one… a few moments later the CORRECT beverage was brought out. Are we just lying to our guests now? That’s just not right. Once the food had arrived, all items were correct except for one. A burger was ordered with a side of onion rings in substitution for fries. What happened? When the food came out, no onion rings were present but an order of fries. We had inquired about this to our server and the server made a fairly terrible excuse that onion rings were made but not brought out. But why would they be made and fries were on the plate. Also, upon reviewing the bill, we were STILL charged for it. I also want to include that when the waitress brought out the onion rings she made a comment that I did NOT appreciate. And her words exactly were - “At least you got the fries for free” - in reality I STILL got charged. I paid the tab in full with no complaint because we are loyal Applebees customers, but I am TRULY disappointed in the lack of customer service this location has provided us. Can I ask where the General Manager was? Why didn’t ANY manager check in on our table? If there is a new standard that we, as loyal customers, are unaware of I would TRULY love to know. Are we training our servers to be rude and make sarcastic comments to guests now? If that’s the new standard than I clearly have to lower mine then. This experience was hands down one of the WORST experiences I’ve EVER had with Applebees. I hope that this can be rectified and I hope that someone has the ability to reach out to me and discuss this matter. As someone who works in a cut through industry as well and as a leader I’m requesting a leader from this establishment reach out to me to explain where the disconnect was in this customer was. I appreciate your time and I wish this experience NEVER be duplicated to anyone else. I truly hope I receive a response back as this just isn’t the way any guest...

The restaurant was NOT busy on a Saturday afternoon. We stopped for dinner at about 4:15pm. The whole left side of the restraunt was empty, and there were empty tables on the left side of the bar. The bar was "U-shaped seating" There was no host/hostess & we stood in the front doorway by the check-in for approximately 4 min, before anyone acknowledged us standing there. The bar tender said they would be there to seat us in a min. During the first 5 min of arrival, I only witnessed 1 waiter/waitress, 1 bartender,& no host/hostess. Most restaurants have a host/hostess on "Thursday, Friday, Saturday" or "Friday, Saturday, Sunday" because that is usually the busiest times of the week. 1 other couple came into the door to be seated while we waited to be seated. Finally, a lady who was casually dressed in blue jeans & sweatshirt top got up from sitting at the bar, grabbed menus, and seated us. The bartender was not present at that time. But the lady grabbed menus and seated the other couple as well. About 5 min after we were seated, the bartender appeared from the kitchen with food and delivered it to a couple 2 tables away from us. She went to the bar, grabbed food plates from a person seated at the bar, then came over to our table to take our order. Our food was prepared and served within 5 min of being seated. We ordered the "2 for $32" special,"top sirloin dinners". Mine was cooked medium-well & Joel's was cooked " medium-rare. Mine was cooked appropriately, however, Joel's was seared on both sides and was "dark red raw". It definitely did not appear medium-rare. It looked more like rare-raw. My Mt Dew was "flat" tasted like it was CO2 with a drop of flavor. I had to ask for water, it was not brought when we placed our order and we were almost finished with the appetizer before our drinks were served. After we finished eating, I asked for a "to-go-box." Put my food in it and went to the truck to warm it up while Joel waited for our server's ticket to pay. He sat approx 10 min after I went to the truck for the server's ticket and finally had walk up to the bar to ask the bartender for the...

There was a hair in our appetizer to start with, then my food came out and it was made wrong, so our waitress said she would have the cook make me a new one. The manager brought out my new sandwich, didn't apologize for the hair in our appetizer or my food being made wrong, sat my plate down and said "here's your new sandwich" and walked away. Picked up my sandwich, took one bite, looked down at my plate and it's ANOTHER HAIR, a black one to be exact, just sitting on a white plate with my sandwich placed on top of it! Our waitress was coming by at that time with our receipt and was telling us she took off the appetizer and I told her she needed to take my meal off as well because I found another hair. She apologized and a little bit later came back to tell us she took those items off and that her manager gave us a managers discount and that was it. The manager never came over to apologize or explain why this happened TWICE and instead was at the bar talking to, what looked like, some of her personal friends. I had to ask our waitress to tell the manager to come and talk to us and when she did she openly admitted that the cook was not wearing a "hat" and that she told him that he had to start wearing one, I'm pretty sure the food and safety protocol is to wear a hair net, but okay! I told her that it looked like the hair was put on the plate first and my "new sandwich" was deliberately placed on top of it. Completely disgusted and not happy how the situation was handled by the manager. We haven't been here for a while and we will not be returning again. I had to give a one star rating to leave a review, but I...