Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Starkville

We ended up walking out before we even ordered! We are semi-regulars at this restaurant and we have had less-than-stellar service in the past, but this experience was unparalleled.

We were excited to use a gift card we had recently received for this special occasion out. Not only was it Mother's Day, we were also celebrating my husband's birthday.

We stood at the entrance, clearly waiting (and there are 5 of us so it's not as if we were hard to see) and went unnoticed for at least 3 full minutes. (In restaurant-ville, that's an eternity.) When the manager finally noticed us, he came over and told us to...guess what...WAIT! (WHAT?!) In a restaurant that was less than half full, why didn't he already know the tables available anyway? If anything, he could just LOOK and see that there were plenty of empty 4 toppers available and we can pull up a chair for our youngest.

Ok, so we get seated and on a promising note, the waitress greeted us in a prompt manner. This was refreshing and I felt a smidge of hope after the poor experience at the door.

Short-lived.

She asked us how we were and we responded with the usual "We're good/fine" and we almost always ask the same question in return. So, we asked her how she was this evening.

"I am extremely tired and I'm ready to go home..." (let me say that I think she knew she needed to back up the truck and save what she said, so she added, "...but I'm real excited to serve y'all."

Our kids were already starting to order drinks and I just kindly asked her to give us a minute.

She disappeared and it was an easy decision to go.

We were as unnoticed upon leaving as we were at our departure.

I am so, SO disappointed at the service and lack of professionalism at this Applebee's location. Maybe we can use our gift card on...

First let me start off by saying that the service was excellent. The waitress was nice and got a few others to sing for my husband for his birthday. That however is where the good ends. My husband and I went to Applebee's for the appetizers because it was his birthday and he always liked the 3 for 10 appetizer menu. However, when we got our food, almost all of it was absolutely disgusting. The meatballs were lukewarm, microwaved, and obviously frozen. The nachos had next to no taste and were essentially a mess and overall a big pile of disappointment. After a few bites we were ready to go and couldn't bear to eat more. However, the manager was reluctant to comp our food and let us go somewhere else since the food was technically "properly prepared." So we decided to trade out our appetizers for the two for twenty meal. We both decided to get the four cheese pasta. Unfortunately that also turned out to be a disaster. There was a disgusting pool of tomato juice floating around the pasta which affected the taste and was frankly very off-putting. The pasta itself was sorely undercooked and chewy. We could only take a few bites before we decided to just pack it up and go home. My husband is a cook so we figured we could just fix the pasta at home and try to make it slightly more edible. Overall a horrible restaurant experience and a disappointing end to my husband's birthday. We...

It was okay. This was my first time being back here in years and it was mediocre. I went to the bar and there maybe 2 people at the bar when I sat down. There was only 1 bartender. Didn’t introduce herself. I ordered a drink, she started doing a bunch of other things then other people sat down and she started to take their order, I didn’t get my drink until about 10-12 minutes down the line. I wanted to order to but you could tell she just couldn’t handle the crowd. Then more people started to come. I don’t understand why they only had one bartender working on a Friday night anyway. She started to get backed up on drinks and more and more people started to come. They sent her out more help.I ordered food finally but the service was so subpar I didn’t even want to fully eat it there. I like to sit and enjoy the bar but this experience was not enjoyable. Also, green beans needed seasoning as well as mashed potatoes. Fried shrimp were wet, very light and looked nothing like the usual shrimp I’ve ordered...