IHOP — Restaurant in Rolla

It was busy in town during our Saturday visit. We wanted to take the kids to Applebee's but there was a 30-45 minute wait to be seated and it was already getting late. Everything was packed except for iHop. That should have been our warning.

When we walked in we were greeted with the musty smell of an old, unclean, deli cooler. Then we had to play hopscotch across the sticky floor to get to our table. When we got to our table we saw glistening swipes across it, giving the impression that it had just been wiped. As it turns out, the glistening was sticky residue smeared all over the tabletop.

We asked for the table to be wiped but the waitress admitted she couldn't reach very far. We placed our order and peeled the menus off the table to return to sender. Then we used wet wipes from the diaper bag to clean areas for our utensils and appendages to lay, ensuring our children wouldn't be snared like bugs on flypaper.

Our waitress disappeared before our order arrived. Without being prompted, another waitress popped in to vent to us about our missing waitress. Waitress 2 disappeared and a third waitress delivered our food and ticket.

The food was mediocre. It's easy to tell when the fryer grease hasn't been changed and it had definitely been a while. The staff outnumbered the customers and yet no cleaning took place during our visit. The waitresses and manager seemed content with less than bare minimum effort.

The whole experience was reminiscent of a scene from Osmosis Jones. I kept waiting for Jones and Drix to burst in and start splattering ooze everywhere. Unfortunately, that didn't come to fruition. Instead we left dirtier than we arrived. I should have followed my gut and walked out as soon as we walked in. Thank goodness none of us have an autoimmune disease or we probably wouldn't have survived...

Extremely dissapinted in staff's attitude during pandemic. (This is written in mid November 2020 during covid-19 pandemic.) We stopped here on a road trip and saw zero cars in parking lot, which made us feel safe enough to dine-in. We waited to be seated while 4 employees walked past us doing other things, even talking amongst themselves while we waited. (maybe they were discussing something important but they could have at least said "sorry, we'll be with you in a minute") Once we got inside we noticed that there was one other table occupied. That other customer was a family of two adults, one kid, and one baby in the aisle in a high chair. The waitress that did finally seat us (in an almost completely empty dining room) decided to put us directly across the aisle from the ONLY other customer in the restaurant. And remember there was a kid in a high chair in the aisle too! In an empty restaurant where she could have easily socially distanced us she decided to place us 2 foot away from a family and baby! I refused to sit there and chose a table across the room and the waitress seemed annoyed with that. Does she not know that we're all trying to slow the spread of a deadly virus right now? Is she unaware of what social distancing means? If we had sat there we would have to take off our masks to eat and the other family was eating with masks off so we would have been without masks within 2 feet of others without masks. Some restaurants have figured out how to make dine in work right now and others are endangering their customers health and lives for no reason at all bc it's convenient for them I guess. Disappointing to...

Update: The manager Donna went out of her way to make sure that this wrong was made right. She made sure to send us a gift card and when we returned to give it another try she made sure that we were taken care of. She checked on us and other tables to make sure everyone was getting their orders correct. Sheila was our waitress and she was great she checked on us often and made sure we got everything we wanted. Thank you for making up for our bad experience.

Ihop Rolla mo. As soon as we started to our table the waitress had a conversation with the hostess across the room full of customers that she should of been addressed in private. Then 2 of our orders were wrong. I use to love IHOP but the last 2 times have been a disappointment. That was the worst Pancake I've ever had there. The Blueberry topping was so runny it just saturated the Pancake and that was after they brought us more topping because the amount we started with barely even covered the middle of the Pancake and it was ice cold. The hashbrowns were supposed to have cheese but was forgotten so I am pretty sure they tossed it in the microwave . It was all pretty gross. For the money you spend now days to go out to eat you should at least have something with quality. I know pancakes aren't the healthy option I do not eat them very often at all but I sure would of liked to enjoy it when I do. I've worked in food service and management my whole life . I understand that sometimes things get messed up and everyone has bad days but people work hard for their money and diserve...