Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Raleigh

I never leave reviews but tonight's dining experience was so comically bad that I had to. I'll use the same criteria as Google.

Atmosphere: None of the exterior lighting for this Applebee's works and walking up to the front door is almost sinister as you can see the emaciated husk of Triangle Town Center from their half-abandoned parking lot. Inside it's dimly lit and looks like a generic chain sports bar. It literally looks like the restaurant Shenanigans from the movie Waiting.

Service: Our waitress took 5-10 minutes to greet us, another 10-15 to bring us waters, clearly forgot to put in our orders, and when she did rush the order in it was wrong. We began to notice the long wait at around the 15 minute mark when we'd asked for water and our waitress was nowhere to be found. At one point I legitimately wondered if the hostess' water would break before we got some to drink. (She was super preggo - like 4th trimester pregnant). After the drinks came out, we sat and waited for over 30 minutes for boneless wings before finally asking a completely different server about our food. Once we asked him, within 10 minutes our appetizer came out. It's clear she sat on the order and then once someone asked she rushed it in on the fly. The boneless wings were the only hot part of our entire meal. Our entrees came out 20 minutes later lukewarm to cold - my food with the incorrect sauce and my wife's food cooked to the wrong temp. (I know that sounds nitpicky to complain about the sauce but my plate was literally just chicken tenders, fries, and sauce. There was literally 3 things on the plate and she somehow got that wrong.) Regarding the cold food, I'm guessing it sat in the expo window dying and that she didn't stagger the entrees. After almost ninety minutes in an Applebee's and politely waiting despite the horrible service, our waitress then proceeded to give us the most half-baked and insincere outro I've ever heard in my life.

Food: The food here is clearly just frozen food that's cooked when orders are placed. I could have gone to Target and bought all these ingredients for less money and then cooked them in my air fryer. It also probably wouldn't have taken 90 minutes.

Overall, just don't come here unless you have a fetish for bad service and frozen...

This had to the worst experience I have ever had in 50 years of going to restaurants. We waited more then 20 minutes to be seated which wouldn’t have been a big deal but there was no one in front of us! The host just disappeared. The service went down from there. The only person working was the bartender as she was bartending, waiting, and busing tables. The manager was nowhere to be found, and the kitchen staff could be heard laughing loudly while customers were not getting their food. No clean silverware, they tried to give use plastic forks and knives for eating a steak. Asked to talk to the manager, 40 minutes later she shows up and she isn’t apologetic or willing to accept responsibility for the mess the restaurant was in. I will never go to this Applebees again and will be contacting the corporate office for this disaster of a dining experience.

• Update 1/13/24 *** So I got an email from Applebees corporate office telling me that the manager of the Applebees would be reaching out to me. I received a phone call from the Applebees manager and I now see why this restaurant has had a series of 1 star reviews. While she apologized for our experience, she failed to understand why the restaurant was in such disarray. She did not think that waiting more than 20 minutes to be seated (even though we were the only ones there)was a big deal because they don’t have hosts on Thursdays. She failed to understand the frustration it causes to not let your potential customers know that you are short staffed and can’t properly serve you. She failed to understand why it was not acceptable to have the bartender bus and wait tables as well as run the bar. She failed to understand that being given plasticware instead silverware is not a good idea for a place like Applebees, especially if you order a steak. I could go on, but I think you get the idea. If the manager of the store does not get it, I can’t expect any of the other staff to get it. This obviously is not a concern for this Applebees and they are fine leaving...

I just got back from this Applebee's down by Triangle town mall. Our waitress she was really nice, but with the exception of those who were at the bar. There where as far as I can tell only two tables with people. A young couple, and just my brother and I. We were not told about how the online menus worked, But our waitress she was very kind to help us because we were not even told from the start about it. My brother waited an hour for his first root beer refill. And after our food came, I started to eat. But when I started to eat the steak I found a black curly hair cooked into the steak. So when I brought it up I was asked if I wanted the whole meal redone for me or if I wanted a dessert so I just asked for something with ice cream like the blonde. Because I didn't want to put them behind to cook the steak and potatoes all over again. And because my brother wanted to head back home we also at that time asked for a to-go box. When my brother went into the restroom I was brought back a receipt and I looked over everything, just to make sure of it. And I then paid for the food. I sat and waited for almost twenty minutes before I got a to-go box. Then almost thirty minutes for the blonde. We left and when I got home I checked the blonde again just to make sure. But as I put it together, I realized it had no ice cream for it. But it did have the little black cup for it. The pecans were in the smaller cup and the smaller cup was in the bigger cup. I really did not like my experience here. If I could I wouldn't want to put any stars but I felt like someone should be...