Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Sumter

Sunday July 11th visited this location with my grandson and son. At 1:30 we were seated by what I presume was the hostess. She asked us what we would like to drink, got our drinks, returned with them and asked us if we knew how to access the menu, as she was leaving the table, your server will be right with you. Now most people are going to say WTH why did you wait so long. Well after reading the menu honestly we had decided what we really wanted. So as we sat watching two or three workers having conversations and a person cleaning tables, a server waiting on other tables, other employees roaming about we chatted and waited.....and waited....and waited. The table behind us was leaving and the person cleaning off dishes and cleaning tables came, we politely waited until the other table had left and I asked the young lady if she would please tell our server that we were waiting for someone to take our order and had been waiting quite a while. She went to the back and came back out and said someone will be with you in a few minutes. A young lady came to the table behind us, adjusted her pad and I thought okay she's our server and she's going to take our order. Nope just checked the table for a tip left by the patrons who had just left and walked away. After another 10 or 15 minutes, I had felt we had waited a sufficient amount of time and said ok lets go pay for our drinks and go somewhere where we can actually order and eat food, this was well over an hour after we had been seated. Not 1 person came to our table that entire time, meanwhile the manager as we later learned was one of the people having a conversation with her coworkers laughing and joking. My son politely asked a gentleman who worked there if he could speak to a manager, the manager came over and I said we'd like to pay for our drinks, we've been waiting for over an hour for someone to come take our order and no one came to our table. The manager quickly says "Oh I will take care of you right now." I said no that's fine we've decided we're going to go eat elsewhere. "Oh the drinks are free." I politely said thank you and my grandson and I walked out. My son stayed behind and had a conversation with the manager, while he was leaving another patron who had seen us come in apparently made the comment "Yes they have been waiting A LONG TIME." Explain to me Applebee's management how is it possible a patron who does not even work for you noticed 3 people sitting at a table without food and glasses half empty and not one of your employees bothered to acknowledge we were there?! Needless to say I will never return to this establishment. This is the poorest service I have ever gotten in my life. Being a server in my past I could never imagine doing this to a customer as a server, hostess and/or manager. On the flip side if you want a great place to eat with a great atmosphere and amazing servers, specifically GAYLE W, go to LOGAN'S a couple doors down. I promise you will have an amazing experience, outstanding customer service and AMAZING FOOD, we surely did and they will definitely get our buisiness again...

Horrifying experience with the manager Melissa today after I had taken my 2 young kids to the restroom all of 2 minutes after the food arrived, they are young and random bathroom stops aren’t uncommon, I also left my phone on the table AND told my server that we were using the restroom and would be right back. When I came back the host was cleaning the table when I told her that we were still here and just using the restroom. She makes a comment about how she thought we were gone despite not a single bite taken out of 2 or the 3 plates and a phone still on the table. She walked away and I noticed her wash rag on the table, in my daughter’s food draped over her untouched pizza. I let her know the rag was on it and asked for it to be remade, in which she takes the plate of food. I watch her go up to the manager that was also with the bartender, any are sitting around talking and staring me down, no movement to the kitchen to have the pizza remade. I go up to my server to ask if she could go see if the pizza was in or get them to start it. The manager is staring me down at that point so I asked her if the pizza was in yet, at that point she walked up to me with ignorance and disrespect as if I was inconveniencing them and said she was just trying to figure out the problem so I reiterated it and she said yeah I know that now. So at this point I’m frustrated from being stared down for 5 minutes and no effort being done to remake the contaminated food and I ask her to get the pizza going and she told me that it was already, which it took another 10 minutes to get the food and that pizza takes 2 minutes to cook, IF it was already in it would have been coming right out. My server came up completely unaware of the situation so I told her what was going on and the manager did not like that at all. I overhear the bartender telling all the bar customers about customers not always being right so at that point I was fed up and spoke up about how I absolutely was right after a dirty rag was in my daughters food. With her nasty attitude tells me that she’s not talking to me and I continue to hear run her mouth to the bar customers. The server told me that the manager wanted us to leave, before my daughter had been able to eat so I asked for a refund on the pizza and was ordered to pay the entire check with no discount. I told her that I wasn’t going to pay for something that my daughter can’t eat because we were getting kicked out and she told me that she just wanted us to leave so I told her that my daughter would eat than and I’ll leave a review, she walked away telling me that she was calling the police on me. Her son is now making comments on Facebook about me drinking and driving, I had a single beer. Which means she isn’t even off work yet and calling and telling...

I took my two daughters, four and five to Applebee’s for lunch today. After standing at the entrance for over 5 minutes, I took the freedom, to seat myself. There was a party of three waiters, that noticed us. They did not help us, as they preferred continuing with their chatter, probably about their long weaves and oversized big eyelashes. The place was everything else but busy, so we just chose one of the many booths. The table was sticky. We sat there for another 10 minutes. While my children started to complain about being thirsty and hungry, I noticed other guest, waiting to be seated. They were less patient; turned around and left. Finally a waitress had the mercy to ask us if we were being helped yet. She gave us a menu and took our drink order. We came here because my kids a wanted cheese pizza. Our waitress told us, she wasn’t sure, if there still was any and if not, what to serve as a substitute. Or order was Mac’n Cheese with a side of broccoli, chicken tenders with a side of fries and I ordered the shrimp fajitas. We had waited another 20 minutes when one kids plate came out. My other daughter started crying because she still had to wait on hers. Her dryer out chicken tenders came out not too long after. But they were still hoping for pizza and were both disappointed, when the substitutes came out. Her fries took another 10 minutes extra. My fajita filling came out, but no tortillas. After 15 minutes, and my food starting to get cold, I began eating, thinking, maybe I was supposed to order the tortillas extra. With my food half eating she came with my tortillas wrapped in aluminum, asking, if I still wanted these, they just came out. She came out with our Cheque, but we wanted dessert. I ordered the chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream on top and wanted to separate little plates or bowls with an scoop of ice cream for each girl. It came out on one big plate slapped together, like we all just had to eat out of one pile, like animals. My daughters got upset again. As our table was full with plates, I asked if we could have a little to go box for our leftover mac’n cheese. Never got one. We decided, to be done with our sweet test, when I pulled a long hair out of it. Even if it wasn’t real, still pretty gross. At least it wasn’t a 3 inch fingernail or glued on lashes... Nasty place with nasty staff....