Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in South Bend

Ireland location awful experience. Management, food, and mistreatment of elderly was all very disappointing.

Pics below to show order was wrong with a burnt bun.

Go to Main St in Mishawaka location not Ireland**

Details: Worlds apart in food quality, customer service, and management compared to Mishawaka location. Mom went to Mishawaka for over 20 years and was a happy, loyal customer. The Ireland location was a horrible experience. The order we got was wrong and manager Tori treated a valued customer 20+ years with disrespect. Older customers are just as important as any other customer. Mom use to spend almost $70 a month at Applebees. That adds over time. Tori laughed at my mother. My mom went to Grape Rd since the 90s with little to no problem. One experience with Tori at the Ireland location who served under cooked food with the wrong toppings and no sauce. Mom used to go almost every week to the Main St Mishawaka location. My mom is as loyal as they come. She loved the Oriental Salad, spinage dip at the Main St location for years. They don't care about you at Ireland, especially the elderly. Do yourself a favor and go somewhere else.

The order was no pink with no onion or tomato No condiments were given Manager Tori had my mother in tears

Note: If I actually get a call back from a manager, I will update this review, but I'm not holding my breath.

Update: I said I would update. I did get an apology. I was at work and couldn't talk. I reported the details and I don't want free money to a place my mother doesn't feel comfortable. I wanted a happy mom. Upon seeing the other low reviews over months, it seems little is being done to fix ongoing issues. Poor quality food and staffing issues. Upon a deeper discussion, my mom said another young lady (or they/them depending on their pronouns) also laughed at my mom. So two employees laughed at my mom..great!

This was supposed to be a nice treat for my mom. She was sick and sad. Out of curiosity, I ordered the same thing with the exact same wording from Buffalo Wild Wings down the street from Applebees, and it was perfect. No pink, no tomato, no onion, extra condiments, no disrespect. I didn't call BWW prior to. So they can't blame it on carry out. Also, several months back, almost the same issue is listed ..under cooked hamburger and no condiments. Is it really that hard to cook a hamburger and throw in a few ketchup packages? This isn't brain surgery. All jobs are important but this isn't a three course meal we are talking about. I appreciate the apology, but the damage is done. I had to leave work. My mom was so upset, It made a hard time worse, and at Christmas, I don't want to be mad and leave bad reviews, but here we are. I want a happy mom, good food, and just general kindness. It shouldn't be this hard.

Unfortunately for Applebees my mom will not be going to that location with two employees laughing at her because she just wanted what she ordered. If it is made in your kitchen, by your staff, prepared to go by your employees...it's your...

I am only giving 2 stars to be generous here. There wasn't a problem with our food or the atmosphere.. However, our server was something else. She was running the bar and serving our one table. She greeted us at the door and sat us at in the bar area. She checked our IDs like expected and I made it clear I wasn't going to be drinking any alcohol. She studies both IDs and when she sees that mine had just expired she got visibly annoyed, let at a groan and a loud sigh and just stood there. She looked around and after a good minute proclaimed that she was just gonna have to move us to regular seating and serve us there. She didn't even let us get up from our seats and wait for us to follow her. She didn't even say a word. She just quickly walked to another table and stood there staring us down waiting for us to get there. When we sit, she says nothing and runs off. Less than a minute later, she's back wanting to take our food order. We hadn't even taken our jackets and masks off yet... let alone look at the menu. We ask her for a few more minutes and she once again let's out a loud sigh and rolls her eyes. When she comes back and takes our order... she just stands there and has tell her our order, without writing it down. That literally always fails, but whatever, I went with it. As she went to repeat back the 7 times we ordered... she quickly forgot what we had asked for but STILL DIDN'T WRITE IT DOWN. I knew at this point something would be wrong. We didn't see our server again until our food came out and of course any sauce or customization we asked for was not there or just wrong. She is barely even personable the entire time and made us feel quite uncomfortable with her standoffish and annoyed attitude. We had barely had our food for 15 mine when she was already trying to give us boxes and the check. When we look at the check, this actual human person with a functioning brain.... had charged us for every sauce we got. The sauces were included with each item already, but she tacked on an extra .50 to every appetizer or item that automatically came with a specified sauce. We finally pay the check in exact change and chose to leave our tip on the table. When we told her it was exact and we didn't need change she didn't say a word. No, "thank you" or "thanks for coming in, have a goodnight". She just once again made some unintelligible noise with her mouth and scurried away. She never came back after that, in fact she didn't even bother to acknowledge us as we left the restaurant.

With the type of personality and attitude this individual had... its obvious they aren't excelling in this job field and should really reconsider working in a field that doesn't include customer...

We visit this location often, and it's almost always on point. When it's not, the servers and managers do their best to remedy the issue. The times I've left dissatisfied have generally been a result of my own inability to choose a replacement option as opposed to someone not trying to resolve the problem. (Shout out to Domanique, one of my favorite servers, and Angela on the management team for being extra awesome.)

That said, I do have some frustrations, although I suspect they are more appropriately aimed at Applebee's corporate but are things other Gluten-free diners should be aware of. The location of the GF menu is inconsistent & staff aren't always aware of updates & changes. (Is it the table screen? Is it the big binder? A combo of the two?) [Staff finds this as frustrating as I do, FYI.] There really are only a couple of dependable staples on the GF menu, and it's basically grilled chicken & a baked potato and everything else is subject to change without notice. (This is a -slight- exaggeration as there are more than 2 staples; however the warning to not become attached to things is very real.)

Given that baked potatoes are one of the universal gluten free staples and one of Applebee's GF staples, I have YET to have a good one here. (I've also yet to solve the mystery of how they consistently get them so wrong!)

Several things that should be labeled with shared fryer warnings aren't. (I.e. fries, tortilla chips, etc.) My partner put the first handwritten post-it about the fries in a shared frier in the black binder (w/full encouragement & permission of management) just to let people know (& I'm pleased they've continued using it when the menu updates...but it should be part of the menu).

Frustrations aside, what do I recommend? The Bourbon Street Chicken and Shrimp (SUB a side for the red potatoes; they are in a shared serving area and are DEF CC) The Ribs with Honey BBQ Sauce Some of the dippable apps are GF even while the chips aren't, but my store hasn't minded me bringing my own tortilla chips when I really wanted one. Ice Cream Sundaes!

The staff at this location are really good about handling allergen flags, they ask intelligent questions, and I've not gotten cross contaminated here which is pretty nice. I do tend to avoid super busy times (or keep my order simple if I can't). I appreciate the staff here and how helpful they are for my medical food safety needs, and how they never show -me- they are annoyed, even if they might be. It's a great local Applebee's, and you should...