IHOP — Restaurant in Simi Valley

What a way to start off the New Year. My wife and I arrived around 4:45am. There are four female servers of various rank and two cooks present. One customer sitting at the counter asking about a menu item, one party of three getting up a leaving, and another party of three at the tail end of their meal.

The first waitress standing near the front register looks around to see who's going to come help us (I guess that's not her job). I say "We can just go seat ourselves". No biggie, just bring us some menus when they figure out a way to deal with this complicated situation. "No" she says, telling us she needs to figure out who our waitress is going to be. NOTE that the whole time we're awkwardly standing in the entrance area the other three are skillfully avoiding eye contact with us. Finally the "No" server just takes things into her own hands and grabs a couple menus and lets us walk to a booth and sit down. No "would you like something to drink... coffee?" just walks away. This task can only be done by a higher ranking server it seems.

We look over the spanking new menu even though we've been looking forward for this IHOP to open for months and we fully knew what we were going to order before we walked in. We waited... and waited...and waited. I watched in the windows reflection as the other servers found ways to ignore us and even found time to nibble on some food at the pass, all the while still avoiding eye contact. Maybe I'm confused, but isn't waiting on customers and taking their order the primary purpose of a "Server aka: Waitress/Waiter"? Not here. It was as if they were trying to find anything else to do but come over to our table. We'll leave the cooks out of this since they didn't even get a chance to screw up.

Incompetence, bad attitude, poor training - All of the above. "But it's hard to find good people that want to work" Cry me a river. In comparison, the Denny's in Moorpark can serve three times as many people with only one server and one cook.

We don't usally get up and leave, but this was one of those times. I recomend that the owner review the cameras to see this complete fail...

My wife and I went in on Sunday, 8/11/24 for a late (for us) dinner around 8:30. Given all of the bad reviews, I was hesitant but, since we had the occasion to visit an IHOP a few weeks prior while traveling through Utah (nothing else was open) and had a surprisingly delicious meal, we decided we should give it a try. A young lady named Aixel sat us and waited on us. She was an absolute delight - nothing like what some of the servers who've been given such bad reviews. She's a joyful person who's very attentive, efficient, and caring. I oftentimes love having breakfast for dinner but on this night, I was kind of torn. I wasn't really sure what I wanted but I knew I wanted pancakes (for dessert - I never eat pancakes in the morning but love them late at night!). Then I saw they had a sirloin tips and eggs breakfast that also came with all you can eat pancakes. My wife had the sirloin tip dinner during our last dinner at IHOP and enjoyed it so we both ended up ordering the breakfast version. The sirloin is very tender and tasty. The eggs and hash browns were very good as was the pancakes (with extra butter, of course, which Aixel happily brought to us on request). Was this a gourmet dinner? Of course not. It's IHOP. But, it was very good and I, for one, even though I'm not usually one that will choose a chain restaurant over a mom and pop, enjoyed our experience very much. Personally, I love having a 2nd choice in town for 24 hour dining and I want to help them stick around by giving them my business every so often (especially when I'm in the mood for pancakes!). If you went when they first opened and were left feeling like you'll never go again, I hope you'll at least give it one more chance. Given the responses to most of the bad reviews, it seems obvious that IHOP heard you and have made some...

Oh boy. Tried to eat here like a month ago, and and left before ordering. They had music SO LOUD inside, that it was unconfortable so we got up and left. We were also waiting for about 20 min. Without water or coffee. Was convinced to try again for the food. Not a good experience, and definitely won't be trying it again.

Food would be on par with what you would get at Eggs n' Things. Lukewarm mediocre food. Blueberry pancakes, but these anorexic blueberries were (no joke) about the size of M&M mini's. Side of eggs/hashbrowns/bacon all cold and small. Its like they ordered micro from Cisco for everything.

Eggs Benny came out looking even more depressing, from the molded look of the eggs to the untoasted muffin they sat on, definitely not appetizing. Wanted fresh fruit? Got all honeydew and 4 pieces of strawberry. No grapes/pineapple/cantaloupe/nada. They clearly don't care in the kitchen, and it translates to the FOH.

Diana was the name on our reciept, and she seemed as complacent as the cooks. Only came to the table 3 times, and maybe this is too much to ask nowdays but refill the water cups? They're maybe 8oz glasses. They don't hold a lot of water and they never refilled water until we asked.

Environment is not bad, but definitely not inviting. Average age of guests were well over 50, and boy can they complain. We watched our server getting harassed about pricing on the menu, and then complain about menu items like they were writing a review on Google or something.

Should have stayed home and made breakfast myself, at least the food...