Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Saint John

I just got back from this Applebee's and the experience was ABYSMAL.

I ordered for Curbside Pick Up AT 6:43PM Sunday 3/21/21 and was told it would be ready in 15-20 mins. I showed up at 7:05 and let them know I was there. They said it was still being made - good! Hot food is always better.

So I waited, 5 minutes pass, 10, 15, finally at the 20 minute mark I was worried that if it were still cooking, they were overcooking my steaks so I went in to check since the curbside waitress passed me without even a glance the last two times.

I went in to ask to speak to the manager and my curbside waitress said "She's in the back". So I asked if she would please get her and she said "Yes" and then walked away and started checking orders. What do you know, my order WAS up on the table. For how long? They didn't know

Then the greeter/cash register person asked my for payment and so I told him I wanted to speak to the manager who had walked out, was talking to my curbside waitress, who did not let her know. It was the greeter who let her know finally.

When she came over I explained everything and she apologized - they were "having trouble with the fries" I explained I did not order fries to which she asked "you didn't?"and now looked embarrassed. So she started blaming staffing and how busy they were, but there was not many customers in the restaurant and only recently had a couple of cars pulled up beside mine at the Curbside To GO station so I pointed that out calmly and waited for her response and she returned to blaming staff.

Although I know it was within her power to do something about this, she ONLY offered to refry a RARE and M.RARE steak. Not the sides. At that point I told her I wasn't going to pay for the order and i left

No offer to comp. No offer to comp NEXT meal. No offer to knock anything off this meal.

Just a note to this "Manager", your staff's performance is a reflection on YOU and it is not a Get Out Of Jail Free card for your poor performance...

I don't normally complain about restaurants or give a review, but I had to this time.

We have been coming to this Applebee's for the past few years and hardly ever have any issues, except this time our waitress was horrible. She was slightly intoxicated as we can smell the alcohol from where we were sitting and other waitresses kept coming to help us instead of her, which was no where to be found.

She was very unattentive to our needs. We arrived there at around 5:45 and did not even order drinks until 6, which then took this waitress another 4-5 minutes to actually GET the drinks to us.

When it came around time to receiving our food, other waitresses brought them out and we kept hearing someone from the kitchen shouting that they needed a runner to get food out to people. I'm pretty sure these other ladies have already been helping this woman all day and were tired of it.

On top of that, she got our kids' food wrong but at that point we just said screw it, ate and left.

Lastly, she purposely gave us the wrong bill. We typically get the same stuff every time we go, so we know how much it costs. She gave us a bill that someone shorthanded her on, thinking that we wouldn't notice. The entire night every time we would ask her for something, she would immediately walk away and spend several minutes to get it/disappear but as soon as she handed us this bill, she waited to see if we would notice.

When we did, she essentially said that she accidentally gave us the wrong bill, obviously knowing that was not the case.

Overall, we are very disappointed in the experience. Call me a Karen or whatever you want to, but when I go out to a restaurant, I expect at least some decent service, and that was one of the worst experiences I've ever had going to...

I haven't been here for a while per the service, and we decided to try again but last night was just not good. Amanda was the server and when we were sat I saw her over talking to the manager at the bar for 10 minutes before even coming to our table. She took our order and then it took at least another 10 minutes to even get the drinks and by the time they came the food came literally one minute later. She had the excuse of "he made me do something else sorry". The food was alright but my son's yogurt was CHUNKY and had a little bit of a weird taste and when I brought it to her attention she did offer to take his meal off, which is not was I was trying for, and then she had another excuse of "well since you wanted the yogurt and strawberries separated the cook was probably lazy and gave you the container that was just sitting out". I said "that doesn't make me feel better about the situation and that's disgusting". It was really a really bad experience, she never came back to our table but once, and then had to wait forever for her to even come back so I could get the check to the point ANOTHER waitress asked if I was OK and had to ask her to find my waitress because I'm pretty sure she was hiding our in the back or something. Literally the worst. The bartender had 2 tables and 3 ladies at the bar and was busting his butt being then everything they needed and she had me and one other table from what I noticed and it seemed like that was difficult for her. Super annoyed I'll probably just stop going to this...