IHOP — Restaurant in Sandy

Soapbox time:

A woman in her senior years was our server and did her absolute best to provide great, friendly service. She appeared to be the only employee other than a rude, loudmouth cook in the kitchen who was unkind to the server. Because there was a table sat within a minute of our arrival who dominated the servers time, two prior tables already eating and an additional two tables sat after, all of whom were being served by this one server, my son and I didn't receive our meals until 45 minutes after arriving. In that time one of the new tables got up and walked out. Our server felt terrible, you could see it on her face.

Apparently there was someone else in the kitchen that should have been out working the dining room because when our server asked her to come out and help with the new tables, the cook (the rude loudmouth) said loudly that it was better for us, the customers to wait on her (our server) and not on our food. Yep everyone in the dining room heard her rebuke.

The last table sat were regulars and the mom walked her baby, to keep her quiet over to the other side of the restaurant where she saw the manager and another server sitting back, relaxing and shooting the breeze drinking sodas. She said something to them, came back to her table and the manager came out when another customer came in. She sat him, got him a water and then went back behind the screen and asked our server if she still needed her help. It was said with just a little too much sugar to be a sincere question. Our server, sounding appropriately cowed, replied no. The manager walked back and sat back down.

It was at this point that our meals came out. I felt terrible that everyone working at the restaurant was talking with so much contempt to this woman. A woman that was in truth probably working at her age when most others of a similar age are retired, not because she wanted to, but because she had to. This woman that had likely been working for more years than the young, snide manager had been alive.

In my mid 40s, I worked as a server in my early 20s so my wife could be a stay-at-home mom with our newborn daughter. Because it can be such a thankless job decided I didn't want to do it again. I have worked in the medical insurance and banking industries for the past 10 years in management positions so I haven't lost touch with customer service.

I choose to believe that no one wakes up in the morning and thinks "I want to give bad service". Most everyone wants to do a good job and have some sense of job satisfaction to justify the time spent away from family and home.

It's been 2 months since the evening that this happened but it continues to affect me. I think that choosing to believe in the good of people is the way we should treat each other. No one is better than anyone else. We have a conscious decision to make each day, whether someone is good or bad, or just having a bad day. Who hasn't had a bad day?

We haven't been back since that evening but I will probably go back just to check in on our server. I feel that IHOP should invest in some sensitivity training for management down to their entry level positions. No one should be subject to that level of disrespect.

As ELLEN says, "Be kind to...

This is my second time ordering curbside from this location. It’s frustrating each time I have texted the number to my spot number and had to go inside because no one answers the phone. I called 3 times tonight my calls were ignored. When I called a 4th time, I received an automated message the number was no longer available. Someone had to have taken the phone off the hook.I have no mask and selected curbside so I would not have to leave my children unattended in the car. I went in because it had been 30 minutes since my pick up time and I requested a refund and was told only the manager can provide refunds. When I requested the manager, I was told there was not one available until tomorrow in the day. When I told the blonde waitress, I had been calling and waiting she told me she doesn’t answer the phone because she’s only one person and her customers come first. I stated I guess I’m not a customer. I work customer service my suggestion is communication with your customers that are dine-in because they are not the only customers that need support. I paid for my order online and watch her seat two different families, that came in 15 min apart. She chose to ignore my calls and start cleaning up after previous customers that left. It would have taken a few moments to answer and ask me to hold or to see why the phone was going off.Once I was inside, clearly upset, she had more then enough time to put my order together. My food was lukewarm by the time I got home. I live less that 7 minutes away. As I was leaving she advised to ask for Miguel when I asked her name she just pointed to her name tag that I was unable to read and wasn’t going to walk back over to read. She clearly doesn’t care about other customers waiting outside or to properly wear her mask, I guess her chin was cold. I would have appreciated an apology or being understanding to my frustration. I could understand being understaffed in a rush but not at 830 on a Sunday with 3 families inside 2 who I assume were still deciding on their orders. I will not be returning to IHOP again, it was clear to me the staff working didn’t care and the management should always be there or on standby for concerns from...

We usually love ihop and come to this location regularly. We recently loved when they started offering the “house favs”. We got it several times before, a ham and cheese omelette and pancakes for $7 - not bad! And for a young family on a budget, that’s a nice deal so we can afford to eat out. Tonight’s experience especially - was horrible and we do not plan to return to ihop anytime soon. We were seated, then 20 minutes later still has no waiter. Another guest saw us looking around and asked for a waiter for us. Finally someone came to get our order. We order 2 house favs (omlette) meals, and drinks. 25 minutes later we got our food and literally it was the smallest portion I’ve ever been served - it was a laughing matter. It was served on the smallest plates they had - instead of the normal size that they used to serve these on. I can’t believe we paid $7 for these. I would expect a kids meal to be bigger than this. I asked the waitress and she said they made the portion size smaller for the new year but we’ve ordered these twice since January and they were never this small. I told her we were disappointed and that these omlettes were sad. We literally ate them in 4 bites each. Ridiculous to say the least. I attached a photo of the false advertisement, what we’ve received before when we order this and what we got tonight. Super bummed we wasted money on this and hope someone will reach out to fix this issue because I’m still baffled that we were served...