Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in San Jose

One of the worst experiences ever. Walked in and right away taken to a table. Sounds great right? Not really, the table was in between 2 other tables with people seated. I saw I could only maybe move the 4 chairs maybe 4 inches before hitting the other tables chairs, I asked to get a booth or table with more room. He said its packed so that could be a hour but wait and walks us to a round table booth, is this okay? I say absolutely, we sit. We wait 5-10 minutes with no waiter. We have a tablet ordering thing so I enter my meal: steak with shrimp parm with mashed pat n steamed broccoli, My favorite at other applebees. I add tortilla soup before meal and add Bahama mama. It was my birthday yesterday. That's when the server arrives asking what we would like to drink? He takes David's drink and meal order and I send mine to kitchen for him to add the rest. Simple and faster right? So, our server comes back with water and David's sprite. 15 minutes later I get my soup (tasty as always) and in a mouth full of soup a server walks by add states your drink a hurrican and walks away. I'm okay with that drink too but I didn't order it. 10 minutes later David's meal comes and server walks away. If you recall, our server had to add this part himself to my already entered order that had the soup, which I now finished and drink order. So a few minutes go by, I open my timer click on it to start after I click call server on tablet flashing red light, 3 servers all walk back n forth multiple times but don't stop.. 10 minutes later girl comes and ask how she can help. I simply put it to her my meal, steak parm is missing. She sees David's is halfway done with his meal. She say oh okay let me go find it. She walks back minutes later with 2 over plates with meals and places one down and walks away. I don't get a chance to tell her it's chicken with shrimp and fries not my order. Again push call water timers at 12 minutes, double check using tablet just to make sure I order right, I see mine n David's all entered right, again flashing lights servers walking by, I stop a lady server walking by and tell her sorry but this order is not mine. I ordered steak parm show her tablet, and ask can you take this away and bring me mine...yes of course. It's now been 15 minutes after I stared my timer and after David got his meal. Girl who brought wrong order now comes by with round plates this is yours. I look and finally. I say thank yo.. as she walks away. I asked for welldone no pink and got medium but other than that all great food. Then Our actual server comes by sorry for the wait it's crazy, hows the meal? Oh now that I got the right order 15 minutes after he got his order its great. I don't look up as I'm eating. He walks away. Then as I'm 1/2 way done another server nice lady, this is yours? It's an appetizer, we say no she says okay walked away with it confused. I'm on last bite she's back and says are you sure it's for this table. I say no I thought about an app but never enough room. She puts it down and says we'll it's your luck day it fits right here. Puts it down and walks away...im too full and tired to care or argue. David pays using table tablet and we walk out. So yes, the food this time was better than last time but the service is has a ton of room for improvement. I know it's been a few months since opening, we were there a week after but that excuse runs out quick months later. Not enough servers is not an excuse when seaters can slow it down to NOT over load the few servers or section. Oh and yes, I'm coping and pasting this review/ordeal and emailing it to apple bees Corp, so management can be alerted. Even if we saw them dealing with 3 separate tables around us all complaining...

I heard Applebee's was better than in the past and they had something that looked good on a commercial, so we went in and much of the food was good. 😁

They do LOSE a FULL STAR for low and BAD server attitude. Our server was competent, though not terribly friendly, just to be clear not unfriendly, middle of the road. We would not avoid him as a server but we would prefer somebody who smiled and was friendly. Again he was a competent server and not unpleasant.

The review would have ended there if the astonishing other thing didn't happen, which was another server who got up in my face with ATTITUDE, she was very unpleasant!!!

In fact, if I went there in the future and she was our server, I probably would just leave rather than asking for somebody else. If she had been our server this would have probably been a one star review.

We were sat in the bar by the host, even though it wasn't busy. No problem at first, but our table was sticky, so we asked our server to wipe the table, but he told us all the tables were like that. Therefore if he is aware, management is aware that the lacquer on all tables the in the bar were done incorrectly. We wondered how long they have let that just be.

It felt tacky on our hands and our menus were audibly sticking to the table. It was unpleasant, so I walked around the other tables in the regular restaurant section and they were smooth. Then I walked back to our table and stood in front of it looking around for help to move.

An employee started towards me, I thought she was a manager who was going to kindly ask me if I needed help, but instead she was another server who flung her arms open with disdain, tilted her head with irritation, and with a nasty attitude asked, "What are you doing?"

I mean I was a customer 'standing' in a 'restaurant' so who the hell do I think I am? The audacity of me! I certainly deserved to be treated nastily, instead of being nicely asked "Can I help you?" with a pleasant tone or a neutral tone or something like that.

Luckily our waiter came over to help us just at that moment before she was about slap me, just kidding... I think. Okay seriously, she wasn't that bad, but she was ridiculous and unprofessional!

I think I would go there one day again, but not for a while hoping I would never have to see her again. Because it seemed that she was unpleasant to the other customers as well. I saw plenty of snarls to everyone, but never a smile. I don't even understand why people like that work in the service industry. It does NOT make sense!

Since then I have told some people about what happened and they can barely believe that I'm giving four stars. If we had had her, I believe it would have been one star. Who knows this review may change after we go in again way in the future, better or worse?

I would like to inform Applebee's management that most people appreciate people who smile and definitely prefer nice friendly service over neutral service or nasty service, please hire accordingly from now on. Thank you...

Oh dear…it’s been a couple years, but I decided to finally come back to Applebee’s Grill and Bar in San Jose. I was crying, because I remembered the last time I was there. Auntie Joe had fallen, and scraped her knee. She was crying, helplessly. We were dying of thirst, because we ran out of water half way through our trip to El Centro, whose Dollar Tree I’ll review next. “Somebody, please help!”, I had yelled, as my son started crying. “Dear, Auntie Joe’s gonna be okay.” The horror of her scrape still fries into my mind. I remember the cries all around. My son wailed “I’m so thirsty mommy! Can I please have some water?” We had ran out of water at Morgan Hill. “You can drink my tears, dear.” I looked up, and my last hope was the Applebee’s in front of me. My legs were still sore, as since we ran out of gas, we had been pushing the car for miles. I guess Auntie Joe’s legs wore out. I always fear losing her from her nasty falls. As we walked inside, helping Auntie Joe, tears falling down onto her favorite lavender sweater, I saw a man…holding some delicious food. I drooled, staring deeply at his sweaty muscles. You see, I’m always a hopeless romantic these days ever since the divorce, and losing my grandmother to cancer. “Where can I get that lovely food?”, I say to the handsome man, “We don’t have any money. It’s okay if you don’t give us anything.” He smiles, tears flooding his eyes, “You can have it.” “Mommy, give me that water!” My little boy was covered in dust, and we all haven’t showered since the Mendota truck stop, which I’ll review next. “You can have it all! Just don’t tell anyone.” I won’t even say his name, but he had sexy olive skin. We helped Auntie Joe out to the car, holding our food. We all shared lovely bites of the cheeseburger; it contained bacon, cheese, and lovely, oily onions. The patty was so fresh and well made. We all sipped the water delicately. It’s been a rough few years, but recently, we finally got a home. In Morgan Hill. So I decided to go back to the Applebee’s to thank the man that made our month last year. “Where is he?”, I asked the gorgeous woman. She sighs. “He’s gone. He died of cancer a few months ago.” I dropped down onto my knees, screaming. “WHY WORLD?!” I could see the pain in the girl’s eyes, as the world stopped in place. Why could God take away such a good man? I was starting to lose faith in Jesus Christ, as the woman kneeled down. “I get it. I loved him too”, she whimpers, “But loss just makes you stronger.”

I walked out of that building with the same satisfaction and acceptance as I had this time last year, when that lovely man was still there. We had talked back and forth about stories involving him. Did you know that he was Christian too? Small world. We would’ve loved each other. But it’s time to go to somewhere else. Our rent is falling apart. We have to go back on the road, so I have to write Google review again. See you around, and I’ll see you in the El Centro...