Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Portage

I went to Applebee's for the first time in my life on 9/12/25 around 8pm. I walk in the lady greets us and walks away. Didn't think anything of it, so we sit at a booth. I noticed both workers at the entrances were staring at our table. Finally a waitress comes over and ask to take our order to which I replied" we don't have menu's ". She replied, "oh did you seat yourselves? No worries let me go grab some menu's." Now right off the bat those 2 employees should have came over at some point in their stares to say something. But we place our order and we wait. I look around the place and noticed their was all kinds of garbage on the ground scattered throughout the place. Our appetizers get here and at first bite it seemed fine. By the second bite I could tell that the quality in the food is not good. Frozen food that has been re-cooked and thrown in sauce. Then our burgers come, I had the mushroom Swiss burger and my partner had a chicken sandwich. The bottom of my bun was soggy from the juices of the sauteed mushrooms and onions. The swiss cheese didn't even taste like Swiss cheese, it was some watered down knock off that tasted like provolone. The patty itself was bland. And together the taste was not pleasing. My partners sandwich was terrible as well. I tried my best to finish my burger but I honestly didn't want to force that down. Finally our dessert gets there.. my suspicions were correct. Frozen stuff that gets reheated and you add one or 2 things.. the food is absolutely 1 star, the service is going to vary depending on the staff. I gave it 1 stars because the little girls at the entrance should have done their jobs when they saw us seat ourselves but I bumped it up to 3 stars because my actual waitress did her job. (Synthia) . Atmosphere gets 3 stars cuz it was dirty and the lights were flickering. The food made the atmosphere a lot less desirable for me. I personally wouldn't go back or even recommend this specific applebees. But if you've never went Go...

We visited this location today at approximately 11:05am. We were the first diners, and we sat at the bar. A regular patron followed us in and also sat at the bar.

This man was greeted before us and received his beer before we received our drinks. We ordered an appetizer, 2 salads, and 2 entrees. Our salads and app came out within a few minutes. The app was fine. But my salad was filled with brown, wilted lettuce.. I barely ate it and left a pile of the wilted lettuce on a side plate. This plate sat on the bar the entirety of our visit. It wasn't cleared away. The waitress didn't ask how our salads were. Nothing.

We then waited another 40 minutes for our entrees to come out. Other patrons actually came in after us and received their meals before us. Once our food did arrive, the chicken was so overcooked and dry that it couldn't even be cut with a steak knife. The mashed potatoes were barely warm.

But our server was too preoccupied complaining to her regular customer about her period (I only know this bc she mentioned it MULTIPLE TIMES) and about how tired she was. I guess she was too tired to even notice we hadn't touched our food because we literally had to flag her down, and she was standing 3 feet away from us.

When we finally got her attention, she didn't apologize. She hollered for a manager. The manager literally asked, "sooo what do you want us to do, replace your meal?"

Clearly, unable and unwilling to offer decent customer service, we declined and asked for our bill.

Another 15 minutes pass, and we get our bill. All that was comped was the entrees. My brown salad was added on and billed separately (we had ordered the 2 for $25).

The people working today had absolutely no interest in their jobs. They could have cared less that our food & service sucked. I truly felt like I was inconveniencing the server and the manager. Do not waste your money at this...

Our first date night in over 6 months. Started out with a crushed purple crayon in the crack of my booth. Then started sweating (my fault) did not see the sign on the door. Come to find out air conditioning has been out for approximately 3 months. Then we received our food. The fettuccine alfredo wasn't even warm, the plate was hot, but the noodles were cold. Took quite awhile for server to come back and check on our food. The server had the kitchen remake just the noodle part so when it did come out the chk parm part was cold. The server dropped the check and stated "the manager put a discount on the check." Mind you the whole time we were there " the manager" never came to the table and when I looked at the check it was a $2.63 discount. So, needless to say our date night was ruined, food cold, and was charged $1.29 for a side of BBQ that was a substitute for a spicy bacon sauce (burger), and beyond hot. Not sure why the owner of this establishment would allow there employees to work in those conditions let alone the paying customers with a heat wave outside. When we spoke to a couple of people in the restaurant learned that the air conditioner being broke has been going on for months and the sign on the door even states "STILL" not working. I worked in restaurants for many years so I get things happen but this was more than that and to top it off the manager didn't even come to our table!!! WOW!!!

9.5.25, update as of Labor Day Weekend the sign on the front has finally been removed. I heard from the corporate office which stated I would be contacted by the actual Applebee's owner since this restaurant was owned separately. I still have no received any communication from the Applebee's I. Portage,...