IHOP — Restaurant in Richmond

Alright my Avid review readers. I flip a coin today to see if i wanted to go to Golden Corral in Richmond or Ihop. Ihop won the coin toss. So today I went in to give this restaurant a challenge I went with the Big item the T-Bone Steak. And I ordered a side salad. I knew admittedly that this wasn't going to be a great meal. I was told off the bat that the restaurant had ran out of salad. And instead opted out with the chicken noodle soup. I got both the chicken noodle soup and the T-bone steak at the same time. So let's break down each item. Let's start with the chicken noddle soup. Quality wise.. (I hope the management at IHOP realizing i'm being extremely leint here due to my other experience and the star rating is a combined overview. ) So the soup was rushed. it was the quality of what you'd think of at a low end dinner or a school lunch back in the day was 20 years ago. barely any taste.. poor seasoning, hard items in the soup... Ok. Now for the T-Bone Steak. What they did right was the steak was cooked to order. The meat was somewhat tender, The Broccoli. had that nice fresh light green color. perhaps an indication of good steaming on cooking or perhaps a more aggressive cooking then a quick ice bath. but i doubt it for a person with a title of cook. But well done on the Broccoli. though i had to season it with salt and pepper. The roasted potatoes had an excellent brownish caramel. there was a crisp crunch on the texture while having the inside not being overly cooked. I do hate to admit that I put Ketchup on the potatoes. Now for the T-bone. I'm unsure what went on with the T-bone. Now, I do understand IHop is a pancake place and not a steak house. again why i'm being "nice" with the review. So I'm a bit confused. The T-Bone. didn't really have a taste of steak.. it was a beefy flavor. but not really a t-bone. I do have speculations as to what i believe to have gone wrong. The cooking method. it seem to me that the steak was either cooked in a Microwave Oven. or cooked inside an oven. without a pan sear. (I know because i've done various cooking styles on steak) To get the T-bone to taste somewhat good. I had to add a lot of sodium, and pepper. And I'm ashamed to say this. But I was considering adding A-1 to a steak.. I only add sauce to a steak when i'm trying to cover up the steak flavor. Which a good steak should never need sauce to it. Call me a steak purist if you will but this is my opinion on the matter. another speculation I have is that the quality of meat was low, or the meat in itself wasn't a good piece. to add to the second thought. There may have been issues with the Amino acids, lipids, Peptides. to other chemicals inside the meat. There was a slight hint of a powdery soapy taste. which does happen which happens. and cannot be help. but overall i think it was the cooking method. But to let the readers know with food, everything is some chemical reactions. This is however a person may view it is the Art, and Science to meals. I'm not going in depth of this because i am not teaching a class. or guest speaking at a university. doubtful i'd have the papers to do so anyhow. Being the Maverick Hobbyist that i am. Now let's move on the to Tea. first glass was slightly sweet. the next was a move sugary tea. sweeter if you will. So the tea gets a past. i have had tea that were barely sweeten and nearly an unsweet tea. Your staff. They did go check to see what the soup of the day was. I did have my glass refilled multiple times. Was asked if i like a tea to go. Was asked about the food, and have i said ok. She asked Are you sure? . Running out of room. So an item I do think are good were the Omelets. But I did have them back when Ihop first year being opened. Ok no more room....

Arrived at this location at 12:45 on Nov 11 2023. No one was in line to be seated so me and my wife and 2 friend's waited to be verbally acknowledge for 10 mins and then waited about 5 mins after being verbally acknowledge. Now we are at 13:00. We take our seats and have menus in hand so we start to discuss what we want to try. We see the new Pumpkin cold brew coffee so we make note to order 2 of these and a plain vanilla cold brew and waters for all. 13:15 comes and goes 13:30 comes and goes 13:35 comes and an employee comes and asks if we have had our server take our order yet. We have not. Lady takes our drink order and informs us that she would tell our server that she got our drink orders. 13:45 server comes out with tray and was preoccupied with another table and leaves all 7 drinks on carrying tray at table. We took the drinks and passed them out and noticed one water glass had red stuff floating on top, it was one of the plain water glasses, so we set it aside. All 3 of the cold brews were... You could see the 8mm clear (vanilla?) and the other 2's 8mm yellow (pumphin?) flavoring? not mixed in. I being myself took a sip without mixing the vanilla and was. . . well It was vanilla flavoring and strong. We decided to mix the drinks. . . This then made all of the drinks taste like dish water. Very weak flavoring even though their was a large amount of it in the cups but the flavor was weak vanilla and weak pumpkin with a strong flavor of dish soap, Dawn I presume as I work in food and we use Dawn from ECO Lab so I would think this would use the same (which with strong soap flavoring implies that the Huffman dishwasher (They seem to be used everywhere) is not sanitizing correctly/Rinsing (last step on these machines is to use 140 degree FRESH water (this is not the case here) to clean and sanitize the utensils inside the dishwasher. 13:55 Server comes back and we inform them of the poor taste of all 3 cold brews and we are informed that they only pour out the pre mixed concoction into cups and they add the foam on top (neat to know that it is not made in house) but they would go and speak to the manager to see if they could sub 3 palin cold brew coffees. They come back with 3 plain cold brews and said that they could not change these out if they were bad or not (Ok I guess but odd thing to say). 14:00 we are done chit chatting with server and proceed to place order and ask for the replacement water and creamer for coffee. 14:10 Comes and goes 14:20 Comes and goes 14:30 Comes and goes 14:35 we get water and creamer 14:40 comes and goes 14:50 we receive our appetizer which we enjoyed 15:00 we receive our main food aside for my sides (French toast dinner which I only received the french toast and had to wait on the hasebrown/scrambled eggs/bacon) 15:10 received missing food (bacon was... limpy) 15:25 server brings bill to table, we request to go cups and to go box 15:30 we leave Richmond KY IHop 15:40 arrive home and one of friend's is feeling sick and is now laying on my couch sick to stomach. 15:45 I am typing this review

I would NOT go back to this IHop.

16:00 Finishing reviewing this review and friend is not doing so well now. May be making a stop at the ER if they do not get better.

Edit: 16:08 I am now not feeling that great either

Edit #2: 11/17/2023 at 21:33 Just completed the provided link and not sure if will be contacted as it states or not... So we shall see.

Edit #3 11/23/2023 at 14:00 No response via email or phone call or text message from link provided.

Edit #4 12/18/2023 at 16:22 No email from the "franchise owner" as of today so this is all a act to look like "Oh we will fix the issue online"... No contact. I have the same phone number provided and same email...

After a journey that only Frodo Baggins could relate to when he destroyed the One Ring my wife and I finally made it to the parking lot. We were sat and given what we didn't know at the time would be the most precious and valuable cups of sodas we would ever have before us. We gave our orders and excitement grew at the thought of the food we would soon receive. Boy were we wrong. After 30 minutes of watching the ice melt in those half consumed drinks we finally were gifted with what was actually a great tasting breakfast. After a few minutes we had finished our drinks and my wife wanted some ketchup with her hash browns. The clock continues to tick as other servers walk by, making eye contact with my face bearing the look of "I need something," to which they walked on by. Alas! Our server appeared like witnessing an endangered species in the wild.. only to slap our check on the table and begin to walk off, to which I spoke up telling her we needed refills and ketchup. It had been exactly 52 minutes by this time, not once were we offered a refill in that time or even asked how the food was. Simply happy to just be getting a refill we waited another 15 minutes in which that time we witnessed her cleaning off another table. Finally we get our refills to wash down the rest of our food that we can only assume was as cold as her heart. Realizing we'd be there until our hair was grey before she returned to take our ill-deserved money we approached the registers ourselves to which we painfully paid for what will hopefully be the worst service we ever receive at a restaurant. I honestly felt sorry for the elderly inside because they were wasting what precious moments they had left on this planet for food that is not worth it. So unless you have discovered the fountain of youth or do not value what time you have on this earth, do...