IHOP — Restaurant in Searcy

Update: I have been contacted by the general manager to discuss our visit.

I would like to be contacted as soon as possible regarding my 2/10 evening trip to the Searcy IHOP. I have never left a negative, much less a one-star review, but I have never experienced anything close to what we experienced last night in any restaurant, ever. While my students may have left dramatic reviews, I assure you that they were not exaggerating when they disclosed that it felt as if we were being held there against our will for hours. I called more than one hour in advance of our arrival to ask whether a school group of our size (28 students) would be able to be accommodated and gave our estimated arrival time. I was placed on hold so that a manager could be consulted, but ultimately told yes, and our tables were set up when we arrived at 6:45 p.m. It was a promising start, but it went downhill shortly after. Only one server waited on us. Some food was never brought out or was delivered to another school that arrived after us (but was checked out and able to leave an hour or more before we were.) We were told that the restaurant did not know that the other school was coming, or they would have called more people in to work. We received our checks around 8:30, perhaps before, (as the time on my check said 7:35 p.m.) Then began AN HOUR AND FIFTY minute saga of waiting while our waitress checked one student out at a time. We just wanted to finish paying so that we could leave and complete the final two hours of our drive home. While I understand that the kitchen staff are not trained to help people pay, the manager and the other member of waitstaff could have assisted. As I mentioned, another school group arrived after us, were waited on by another employee, and they were able to leave an hour before us due to the manager coming in to help them. Rather than help our waitress check us out (she was clearly struggling) the other member of waitstaff the went to the other side of the empty restaurant to clean the floors, (three hours before closing time) and the manager did not provide assistance until about 10 p.m. when four students were left without a check and we were being questioned about whether we were going to pay for food that was never received. My final students were charged for food that was not what they ordered because we were told what they ordered wasn't in the computer? While I can understand 2 hours to accommodate a large group, I am bewildered at holding us there for almost 2 hours from the time we received our checks and began to pay. There were no other patrons in the restaurant at this time. We arrived at 6:45 p.m., and my final student was able to pay and we could depart at 10:20 p.m. I delivered my students back to their parents two hours behind schedule, and one of my co-chaperones became violently ill an hour after our departure. The gentleman bussing tables worked very hard and did his job well. Our waitress worked nonstop but obviously needed assistance or additional training, and she should never have been left alone to deal with a group of our size. We all made sure to tip, but were offered no conciliation by management except "I'm sorry this took so long," said over her shoulder while slowly checking us out. None of us raised our voices or were rude. Nobody in our party asked for free things. In fact, several of my students thanked our waitress personally for taking care of us. Please contact me as soon as possible so that we can prevent this from...

Dear iHop, me, my peers, and my family must be compensated for the distress your "restaurant" inflicted on all of us. I put restaurant in quotes due to the fact that we were more akin to prisoners in the way we were treated. We were coming back from an extremely exhausting three day overnight state compition when we called in about an hour before we arrived to inform the staff of our arrival and the fact that we had around 25-30 people well not enough menus or utensils were sent for us and more never came out. The staff (literally one waiter and two bussers) were the only staff that were doing anything, there was other staff but they didn't help the kind and probably very distressed lady. Our food came out in about an hour/hour and a half which we all expected yet dreaded and barely survived . As the waitress brought out food there was some that wasn't ours, food no one in the iHop had actually ordered which delayed some of use getting food. Despite that we were all able to finish our food fairly fast. However, getting tickets and paying took at total of three hours minimum. Geting tickets was a mess. They were bringing out the tickets for the food nobody had ordered. Some tickets were charged with wrong items and then mysteriously disappeared, and the waitress left tickets out for only some people to pay and I didn't see her for the rest of the night. All but about ten of us had paid everyone was completely drained, exhausted, and mentally overwhelmed. We were held in the IHop even after we paid. Finally, the people that paid were able to head to the bus and slowly more people started coming out of the IHop. By the time we were all on the bus it was around ten PM we had been in the IHop for over three hours! Im sitting in the bus writing this still hungry after eating five pancakes and 6 peices of bacon. Im expecting to get home at midnight the ride will be three hours to the high school where we'll all be getting pick up at, the absolute regret i have for wanting to go there when I could have gone to a gas station and got food that was better and more filling haunts me. That IHop was like a holding cell and my crime was just wanting mediocre food. #takedownsearcyIHOP #wrongfulimprisonment #unconstitutional #wantmymoneyback #setmefree...

Let me explain the reason I'm even writing this review and why I'm giving it 3 stars. We arrive around 6:30pm on a Thursday evening the place is pretty empty only about 4 tables of people, you would think things would go smoothly. There was 2 servers that i could see, one was leaving for break, at least i think that's what she was doing. Leaving only one server to wait the 4 tables, nothing to crazy. Anyway, we get our drink order and order our food, was just the two of us. About 35mins or so later we get our food, I ordered the breakfast sampler which is two eggs, bacon/sausage, hashbrowns and comes with 2 pancakes, I also ordered a side of toast and asked the server to please bring me some sugar free syrup, beings how I'm a diabetic. Looking down at my plate of food I ask the server "where are my pancakes?" His response was " oh i thought you wanted toast instead of the pancakes". Anyway, to make a long story even longer about 30mins later i ask where my pancakes are. He then informs me that he never put in the order and asks if i still want them since we were both done eating at this point, well of course i still want my pancakes. Another 30mins go by and he brings us the check and I say once again "where are my pancakes?" He runs back to the kitchen area once again, giving us time to look over the check, he charged us for a full order of pancakes. He finally comes out with my pancakes in a to-go bag not even asking if i want them to go. I use this time to point out to him that my order included the pancakes and he should of charged me for a side of toast and not a pancake breakfast, he ends up fixing the check and we finally get out of there, mind you it's now like 9pm at night. When I get home I open my to-go container of now cold pancakes. so excited to finally eat them just to find out he put chocolate chip pancakes in the container, remember the sugar free syrup? That's right I'm a diabetic and can't eat the pancakes, worst Ihop...