IHOP — Restaurant in Riverside

Normally go here few times a year and been so so but today was not good. Went in to celebrate my father in law’s 71st birthday who almost died and had foot amputated not long ago, so obviously special. Whole portion on right side of restaurant was closed probably because of short staff which is understandable but the customer service was terrible. One particular lady, one who took only drink orders was the worst one. First of all not sure if is a new thing but I didn’t find it correct, she just dropped off all silverware bunched together wrapped around napkins, so we had to separate it all. When was taking our drink order showed a very displeased face and I asked her to please serve my daughter’s chocolate milk with light chocolate and when brought it did the opposite, had extra chocolate. Which I’m like is fine they’re short staffed probably didn’t understand, anyways I asked our now server lady who took our food order and she gave me somewhat attitude and took her about 20 minutes to bring my daughters chocolate milk, not to say how long food took. I completely understand some frustration when short staffed but the customers definitely don’t have to pay the consequences because we’re there to enjoy food and family company PLUS paying a nowadays high bill! Aside from tip! Hope they understand that. No one communicated, not the manager not no one like hey sorry guys we’re a little short staffed please be patient, Nothing! We noticed the short staff situation because of closed portion plus over heard and obviously saw their frustration which was not professional. Anyways with all that said, food was good and last part was fine and friendlier only from server lady....

Waitress was the absolute worst part of this experience. I didn’t expect her to be extremely welcoming or overly nice but she was blatantly rude. She made faces every time any of us asked for anything. My vegetarian friend asked for her bacon on the side and all she did was look at her confused without asking for clarification until she said “can the bacon just be on a separate plate?” When the food finally came over her bacon was on top of her eggs on the same plate and the waitress said “yeah i didn’t have time to let the kitchen know”. She absolutely did because every-time I looked over she was by the register talking negatively about us and other customers to her coworker. To top it off, at the bottom of her plate there was hair LOL.

She never came up to us to give us the bill. I had to go up and ask her. I made sure to get a good look at her name tag. Her name was Esther and she’s the worst server I have ever had. Maybe she should just be a host instead since she can’t handle serving a single...

I have eaten at many IHOP restaurants. I give this location two stars, only because the server was really great. She did the best she could with horrible food. I don't usually complain about bad food, but I am compelled to do so. Let's start with the water. We ordered four glasses of water. All four tasted fishy.... and I don't mean fishy as in strange. I mean fishy as in it tasted like it was scooped out of an aquarium. So, I then ordered a Pepsi and my daughter ordered an ice tea. We forgot, however, that the soda fountain and ice tea use the same water. It was a waste of money. My daughter and I both ordered a side salad with no onions. Both of us got onions in our salad. Plus, the lettuce and tomatoes were wilted. There was absolutely no taste to the salad. We had to drown them in dressing. If you are the kind of person who likes to spend a lot of money on sub-standard food, then this...