Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Spokane Valley

Came in for dinner with my husband and 3 young boys tonight after my son's football practice. I had also come in this last Saturday and had a great experience with a wonderful server, so I hate to write this review. I NEVER write reviews. I've had shitty experiences before, but never felt the need to leave a review. This time was different. I've been a bartender for the last 5+ years, so I know how things work in this industry. I have NEVER been offended by another waitress before. Not like this. As she was taking our table's drink order, she abruptly stopped and said, "I'll be right back". Fine, whatever. Maybe she was really busy and had to absolutely walk away from our table in that moment. BUT NO. She comes back to our table and says, "So, I'm not allowed to serve you alcohol if you've already been drinking. So, have you had anything to drink?". We were taken aback by this, seeing as we had our three young children with us and came in after football practice. Not only were we taken aback, we said, "no, we just came here from football and haven't been drinking." And just like that she said "ok great, so what did you want to order for drinks?" So, just like that she was ready to serve us alcohol, like she was just going to take our word for it. We could have been totally lit and tried to lie about it, but it didn't matter how we responded, she just took our word for it. So not only was this incredibly rude and not ok, she was a dumb idiot about it. I wanted to leave immediately, but we had hungry 10, 7, and 5 year old boys with us. Never going back, because Kerry made us feel unwelcome and awkward when we hadn't done anything wrong. I've never felt more judged or unwelcome at any restaurant ever. Shame on her. Seriously. Not only that, but my husband left his wallet there. So when we went back 20 minutes later to get it, they were incredibly rude and unwelcoming. The manager was almost worse than the server with how she treated us. So if you have issues with literally anything there, don’t ask for the manager because she’s about the least empathetic person ever to be in that position at a restaurant. Don’t go to this location unless you want to feel like a raging alcoholic for trying to order one drink. The fake “nice” she tried to be after she let us order our beverages was so awkwardly forced. If you’re going to make two parents of energetic, rowdy boys feel awful about even attempting to order a drink, at least have a damn backbone about it and stand by it. We will never bring our family here again. What a joke. I honestly can’t believe I took the time to type out this review, but she made me feel like absolute trash so this was worth...

Sorry Applebee's. Just not impressed. The menu items were usually not appealing to me but the food was very good and the staff was always nice but the experiences on a whole themselves were enough kill my liking this establishment. I have eatten at Applebee's a total of 4 times. Of the 4 times, 2 Spokane Washington locations. The 1st occation, 2 of us, lunch time on a week day and everything went good. On the 2nd occation, 2 of us, it was a week night. 8:30pm. The restaurant was so incredibly loud that I could not hear our waiter or anything my friend was saying to me during the entire meal. My friend and I hadnt seen eachother in a very long time so we had hopes of catching up on time lost. Impossible. The bar area was full and very rowdy. I know that this was out of Applebee's control. My rating is not based on this visit just know that Applebee's do have a bar area that is open to the rest of the restaurant has no seperation in any way so if the bar is rowdy, the restarurant is rowdy. Rowdy from the moment we arrived till the moment we walked out. On the 3rd occation was during the pandemic, summer 2020, right about noon on a week day and the restaurant had a total of maybe 4 to 5 tables of customers including ours. Our table was 2 adults. They were plenty of staff working that day and most were in the bar area. It took over 15 mins to have our drink order and food order taken. It was right about 30 mins to get our food and we were waiting for our bill when we finished eating. I was taking my dad to a medical appt that day and almost missed the entire appt and my dad is always early so we were not at all pressed for time prior to Applebee's. On the 4th occation, 3 of us, yesterday, it was a tuesday just after 5pm so they had tables. It was less then half compacity but by the time we left it was definatly filling up. It took 10-15 mins to get water and our drinks and meals ordered. There always seemed to be more then enough staff but most were huddled around the cash register and the bar. Leaned up on their elbows conversating. So much staff but so long waiting. I have just had too many not so enjoyable experiences at Applebee's to say that I enjoy it. Sorry Applebee's. Just not impressed. The menu items were usually not appealing to me but the food was very good and the staff was always nice but the experiences on a whole themselves were enough kill my liking this...

I really never have had an issue at applebees before today. I have not had this bad of service in a very long time. The waitress we had, an older blonde woman named Anne, had the worst attitude. Since we got there, she just flat out ignored me, it almost seemed like it was on purpose because it happened so much. She asked my family what they wanted for drinks, and then completely skipped me. Then when it was time to order food she did it again. I had to stop her before she walked away because she had a bad habit the whole time of walking away while we were in mid sentence. And then when we did get the food, she put my plate on the complete opposite side of the large 8 person table, where there was nobody sitting so I had to stand up and walk around the table to go get it. My order was wrong so we asked a different waiter to take it back which was not a big deal, and he was super polite about it as well. Then the person that I am with cuts into their food, which was suppose to be medium well, and it was majorly rare. Also not a huge deal, food stuff happens and we would have been fine just having it fixed. The waitress Anne comes over and she visibly gets irritated with us like it is somehow our fault because we are being difficult by pointing out that our orders weren't correct. She sighs, gets snippy, and when she starts to turn around and didnt realize I could still see her and rolls her eyes at us. By that point I was ready to be out of there. She gave the absolute worst service. The only reason why I even tipped is because I'm not a jerk. But she did not deserve it. After the food was fixed a nice guy named Will brought us the food and apologized and offered to comp the food that they messed up on. He was great and when we got home and ate it, it tasted great. But we honestly had enough of the waitress by that point and decided to just leave and eat at home. I like the restaurant, but I can't say it enough, that waitress was the worst. When we were leaving she flipped her whole attitude around and tried to take credit for comping part of the meal and then proceeded to act so apologetic and nice after just treating us the way she did for an hour straight. It was a slap in the face...