Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Springfield

I have had good and bad experiences at this location. Do NOT order car side to go because they short change your orders and clearly don't care what they send out to you! Last night they were packed and I managed to grab a seat at the bar. I was ready for my favorite meal, Fiesta Lime Chicken. I couldn't believe what came out of the kitchen! My rice was so over cooked it was ridiculous. It was super hard and chewy! I sent it back...... Round two..... the rice "looked" better but was hard and chewy. I told the bartender again and she offered to give me mashed potatoes. I accepted. They were good but not what I wanted! I wanted the meal I usually get!! I brought all of this to the idiot manager, a female, blonde who was clearly overwhelmed! She said "Ya, I walked by a table that had that dish and I thought the rice looked way over cooked, but whatever". And she giggled and I was disgusted with her. She then told me that she was going to go into the back and start some fresh rice herself!! She never offered to discount my meal, or comp it or even a free desert. I probably wouldn't have accepted it anyway but she didn't even care!!!

When my ticket was handed to me my meal was full price. I told the bartender that was unacceptable and she took 1/2 off. It should have been FREE!!! Its not that I need a free meal, its the principle of the whole issue!! I'm disappointed and disgusted. I'm a regular at this location and I tip VERY well!! You would think I would get better service. Get rid of that manager. What a disaster!! The bartender even told me that she hated that manager and was leaving because of HER!!!! I was there from 6 to 8 on Friday night Feb 21st. I wouldn't have stayed that long had it not been for the nice bartender and a couple of people I met and enjoyed talking to. The bartender was great but......there is a bartender there during the day named Vicki and she is WONDERFUL!!!! I LOVE her!! I go there on my days off. I will be back, ONLY BECAUSE OF VICKI!!! Get rid of that...

Hostesses and possibly manager need training on customer service. My family went to the restaurant at 6:30 on a Saturday night. There were 8 of us. Half of us are from out of state and we were meeting up for dinner. We were told it would be a 25 minute wait to seat. We were happy to wait. After a few minutes we were asked if we would mind being split up to sit across the restaurant from each other. We declined and said we didn’t mind waiting. The hostess staff rolled their eyes and continued to whisper about how we wouldn’t split up. They called a man who looked like a manager up and continued to talk and whisper about us. After a few more minutes we were asked if we would mind sitting at high top tables. Two of our party are women over 85, one is very fragile and on a cane. So, we declined again. We did not mind waiting. The eye rolling and whispering continued. I walked up to the group of whispering hostesses and asked if it was a big problem for us to wait. We didn’t mind. We were told it would be probably 35 minutes instead of 25. That was fine. We didn’t mind. As we waited I watched the hostess make up random times for how long the wait would be. She told several parties of 4 it would be anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours. She acted very agitated. We were finally told after about 30 minutes that if we didn’t take the high tops there was no way we would get seated any time soon. We politely declined and went across the street where we were seated immediately. This review is not in response to the wait time. It is about the unprofessionalism of the staff. All very young and inexperienced. More...

I normally don't leave comments but last night was pretty bad all the way around. First, we got there just before 8pm. We were told 15 - 20 minute wait which I found very odd because I could see SEVERAL tables cleaned and ready to go. We took the wait anyway because we were getting tired. At around 20 minutes we walked back in, talked to a different employee this time. Gave him my name and he got a strange look on his face and said "I can seat you right now" ((I never got a text telling me a table was ready)) We get seated, I watch for 10 minutes while our waitress tries to juggle just two tables, clearly having trouble. She finally walks up to us nearly out of breath and asks if we had been helped yet...I'm sorry but she's the only waitress in our section, who else would have helped us???? At one point she literally forgot she had already helped us and started to give us menus. (She only had three tables by this point) Moving on. Through a LOT of waiting on her to return with drinks and to take our order we finally got our food. Now let me be as clear as I can here, MY FOOD WAS BARELY WARM...AND MISSING OTHER PORTIONS. The sauce on my pasta had cooled to the point it was more of a glue holding the pasta together. My dates food was the same, she couldn't even eat half of it. The waitress told me the rest of my meal was in the oven and would be out shortly.Well, shortly never came and we ate what we could, paid and happily left. The entire experience took over an hour and 20 minutes. Never again. How can a restaurant that's been in business for so long be so...