IHOP — Restaurant in Phoenix

It wasn't a good experience.

This IHOP was very busy on this very rainy Saturday, which is to be expected. After a 25 minute wait we were seated at a tiny table with a very narrow space to pass for the servers. Every time a server passed their butt would bump into my right elbow. I knew I could not enjoy my breakfast this way so I asked for a different table. It was busy so we were fine waiting longer.

The second table we got is the one pictured. While it didn't make us feel as claustrophobic, it was directly next to the restroom. After waiting about 8 minutes we we're finally asked if we were helped yet. Clearly they forgot, or maybe they thought we just wanted to read the menus and enjoy the smells. Anyway, we place our order and then I notice water dripping from the ceiling right where my girlfriend's plate would be. I bring this up and a female manager is brought to the table. She explained that when it rains it causes drips from the ceiling. Amazing, I thought I was just drooling from hunger. If they know it drips, why seat anyone there?

A different male manager came and offered to find us a different table. We will call him Suspenders. After a few minutes Suspenders came and started walking us back to the other side of the restaurant. At first I thought he was bringing us back to the same tiny table we started at, but luckily he got us a spacious booth.

While waiting we notice our silverware is dirty and unfortunately so was the second set, so we ask for plastic forks since they come plastic wrapped. Once our food arrives we notice another problem. Our plates were both dirty. As you can see in the photo, her plate had what looks like dry hot sauce around the lip. There is nothing of that color on a plate of Nutella crepes. They also forgot her hash browns. To top it off there was a long hair wrapped around the first coffee mug they brought me.

Suspenders comes back to the table offers us a coupon for next time. All I can think to say is "why would we come back?" He says "well we have thousands of location in North America." Great I'll road trip to the finest IHOP... Eventually he offers to have the food made again on clean plates, fine. It was not until the young server came that one of the plates was comped.

Finally we get our food and the plates appear clean, but I did notice the undersides are not cleaned well. Whatever, at this point we just want to eat. Food tastes fine, but the egg on my brunch burger is undercooked with the white of the egg looking like mucous. I can't be bothered to complain, I just want it to end at this point so we ask for the check.

Before we leave suspenders comes one more time to ask us how everything was. I tell him about the undersides of the plates and he assures us he will have his guys focus more on that. Sounds like bs, but I'm over it anyway. He explains how he just started a month ago and is training for another location. According to him, this IHOP makes quite a bit a year. You would think with all that money they would invest into a working roof, maybe even a dish washer.

The servers seemed to be doing the best with what they had so I still tipped ours, but I won't be back. If you read this, I highly suggest either a different IHOP or a whole different...

Honestly, this was one of the worst experiences I've had at an IHOP. Now, keep in mind that it was the lunch rush, and we were in a group of 8. We probably waited 15-20 minutes just for a server to come get our drink orders, another 10 minutes to get drinks (and they forgot one and had to take another 5 minutes to get it), then maybe 10 minutes after we got our drinks they finally came to take our orders. That part went fine. After orders were taken, it was probably another 20-30 minutes before we had food, and they forgot two of the people's orders. The two that were forgotten didn't end up getting their food until everyone else was pretty much done eating (probably 20-30ish minutes later), and then when we asked for boxes for leftovers, it was another 20-30 minutes for them to bring those over. We also ended up waiting a solid 15-20 minutes for them to bring the checks, before we eventually got tired of waiting and just went up to the front to pay. That took another 10-15 minutes because they had to go get the checks so they could ring it up. The server who did most of the ordering/bringing of food/drinks also tried to offer us a pencil to use to sign the checks instead of actually finding a pen. Obviously, that's not okay for security reasons, can't have something like that be erasable, cause then people could change the tip amount. I don't know if he was just flustered and trying to get us out quickly, or if he intended to do that, but either way, it's not a great look. They did end up comping the two meals that were so incredibly late, but they didn't do anything else to try to make the experience better. From start to finish, it took at minimum an hour and a half for the entire experience. The food was fine, nothing extraordinary, nothing awful. I had the Buffalo chicken strips. The chicken was kind of dry, they didn't use enough buffalo sauce, but it was still passable. The servers were generally friendly and fairly polite, but they (the ones who helped us, at least) were obviously new and either not trained sufficiently or just majorly out of their depth. Also, the women's bathrooms were kind of dirty. The toilets didn't quite flush all the way even if you held the handle down for longer, so there was just always leftover toilet paper inside. The toilet seats were visibly dirty (I think there was a little bit of blood on one...), and the PA system that the hostess stand used to call in waiting groups played extremely loudly in the bathrooms. Overall, not a good experience, and we'll likely not return to this IHOP any time soon. Or at the very least, not during a lunch rush with such a...

We live close to this restaurant, so we have given it many tries. But after this one service, we will not be coming back at all anytime soon. We came in to eat at about 9 PM we waited for a few minutes and then was seated in the very back corner of the restaurant. All of the tables were dirty, including the one we were sat at. And when I say all of the tables, every table had dishes on it. The table we were at Had a dirty napkin crumpled up in the window seal. We came in for hoppy hour and were told that the server would try to find us a menu. the server who was clearly in no hurry took her sweet time to come over and grab our order. We ordered two meals and two appetizers. We waited over 30 minutes in an empty restaurant to receive all of the food at once. The appetizers were cold. Specifically the mozzarella sticks looked like they were refried a few times very dark brown and tasted like the oil in the fryer hadn’t been changed in a while. They were served poorly on a plate without the sauce, and when I asked the waitress for the sauce she sighed, stormed off and came back and threw it on the table. My husband ordered a breakfast burrito which got served to us 10 minutes after the rest of our food came. It was barely folded on a plate and did not get served with the salsa, and we somehow ended up with an extra side of hashbrowns we did not order. I ordered a classic BLT and when I received it it had extras on it that I didn’t order. Luckily I didn’t mind and ate it anyway, but that could be a real issue for someone else in the future. It almost made it seem like it was a mess up from earlier in the day. The onion rings I received were nasty, again because of the fryer. We were served the hot sauce condiments. The Cholula bottle was missing a lid, and the Tapatio was covered in some food. Clearly The servers are not cleaning condiments. One of the menus we received also had a black hair on it and was sticky, again not being cleaned properly. We didn’t eat the onion rings or the mozzarella sticks and when I asked if we could get it taken off the bill the waitress seemed to have an attitude but did take it off the bill for us. As we were leaving we saw all the employees hanging out by a POS system in the back it seems like they were gossiping and clearly not worried about the customers in the building. I will gladly drive to a different location, then give this location...