Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Salem

After several years of working in different restaurants I don't complain easy, but the experience here was just sad. When we walked in it was early evening and there might have been 6 tables in the place due to the Covid restrictions, however, it still took us 5 or 10 minutes to he addressed by a host. After being sat, it took another 10 to 15 minutes to be greeted by our waiter. Again there was hardly anyone else in the place, but everything from our first drink order took quite a while. Which turned out to be a huge disappointment, I order a bloody mary and my fiance order a whiskey and coke. The bloody mary came out tasting like straight hot sauce and vodka and trust me I like em spicy, but this was ridiculous. The whiskey and coke came out to be the biggest disappointment though, they informed us it would be pepsi instead of coke, which was fine, but when the drink came out the server sat down two shot glasses. I was a little confused as we had just had the conversation about the coke and pepsi so I didn't under stand why I had two shot glasses infront of us. After kindly describing to him that we wanted the two shots mixed with the soda and a like garnish, we expected the problem to be solved. However, again when we order the next round, only two shots were brought out. I had originally ordered two drinks hoping to replace my awful bloody mary with the whiskey and pepsi, so I made sure there wasn't a mis understanding, but that's when he pretty much told me the bartender refused to mix the drinks herself and that's how she made them? So I basically was my own bartender mixing my drinks myself at the table. I never received the second drink i ordered or any water refills that were requested as well. At this point I was ready to just leave. We only ate an app and dessert which were both good, but never even were asked how our experience was by the manager, even though she seemed to have plenty of time to joke around with her employees. I would assume that a business striving to make ends meet in this pandemic would be working a little harder to...

Waiter was nice and efficient. Tonights cook is green and nothing was good, cooked right, or on par with Applebees standards except the kids chicken tenders and mozzarella sticks. Ordered a frozen drink and it was delivered as liquid with a 1/4" of frozen on top and big chuncks of ice. It also took a long time to get it. There were only 2 people at the bar and the bartender was talking to them rather than making our drinks. The manager made excuses for the bartenders frozen drink saying that "well, it melted" with attitude and walked off to make it herself only to not add the middle layer of it 😳. I drank it, oh well. I wasnt too upset about the drink but the hostess was 😂. The "manager" would have been more efficient if she had asked ME what the problem was and then just offered to fix it rather than not even asking ME and coming with an attitude. I would have been happy to tell her that we had been watching the bartender while waiting for the other drink we had ordered 11 minutes before my frozen drink and that she just didnt make it right. It didnt melt, it had to be frozen first to melt. So much pepper in the broccoli it was hard to eat. Steak was the worst I have ever had, primarily pepper and not cooked right. This was the first time I had ever eaten at Applebees and left plenty of food on my plate. We all decided not to order the desert we were originally planning to order assuming it would also not come out right. I usually love Applebees but I would never eat at this location. They have low standards here. Also, it wasnt busy. I have only ever seen an Applebees slower when I went there right at opening. ALL the staff Except the waiter need serious...

Update: the folks at Applebee’s in Salem reached out and asked to fix the issue. Seems they had some new staff that were learning the ropes and my slaw was put into the wrong sized container. They provided me with another order of the tacos either as a takeout order or at the restaurant. We were in Salem for an appointment, so we opted to stop and eat on our way home. They made me a beautiful order of tacos, but in their exuberance in getting them perfect they put too much of the sauce on and the tacos were swimming. They were extra spicy, but I was able to eat most of them after using a napkin to absorb some if the sauce. Since then I've picked up a few "to go" orders, asked for extra slaw and they have been perfection. I picked up 2 of the Chicken Wonton Taco appetizers as a "to go" order on my way home. The order was ready on time and the lady who brought it curb-side was very nice. However, when I arrived home, I found that I had one tiny "to go" cup, only half full, in each of my tacos orders. That is about enough slaw for 1 of the 4 tacos and honestly its the slaw makes these tacos good. Extremely disappointing that I spent $22 on appetizers (and it wasn't during the half price appetizers timeframe) and the order wasn't complete like it should have been. You can see in the photos that the "to go" cup is the smallest they have and it's...