IHOP — Restaurant in Tampa

BAD EXPERIENCE We had the worse experience at this IHOP and we're still trying to figure out why!? New year's morning at 1 am, we a party of 9 come to this IHOP a block from our hotel. The restaurant itself isn't packed, there are a lot of workers and people seem to be seated within 15-30 min. 1st issue, we were seated and no one came back for 45 min to even take drink orders. We just talked and patiently waited because we thought they were busy with to go orders or something happened to cause the wait. 2nd issue, as soon as we received our drinks we placed our food order and never received any food for 2+ hours. 4 separate parties, a family of 6, a family of 5, a family of 5, and a family of 4 who all came after us by 45 min to 1 hour all received food and drinks, while we still waited for food. We asked to speak to the manager and she refused to come out, so the waitress who worked very hard to figure things out took me to her and she informed me that ToGo orders are more important than in store orders and they will get to us when they can. Everytime a ToGo order came in it pushed our food order back. I told her we weren't mad but extremely dissatisfied and disappointed because 4 tables that came after us was served and in fact had eaten their food and left while we were still waiting. She said there was nothing she could do, so we continued to wait until we realized it was the manager skipping us and a 5th table that came 2 hours after us, received food for 5 people and we still didn't have 1 plate. We all canceled our order and at that moment 1 plate came out. We sat there for 45 minutes before we recieved drinks, 2 hours and 45 minutes waiting on food that we never recieved, a manager who didn't care, didn't rush our order and didn't even try to rectify the situation. My kids were crying by this time and hungry and many of us were too tired to even wait on food that still hadn't been cooked yet, except for the 1 plate, so we all went to the hotel and ate nothing, we went to sleep hungry. I've never experienced such horrible service and a manager who could care less. I stood back and watched her do the tickets she wanted in the order she wanted and realized that because it was 7 of us with 2 kids we weren't going to get served. Us questioning the process was the only reason we got the 1 plate. BY FAR THE WORSE RESTAURANT EVER!!!!!!!!! I will call corporate, this restaurant's response to a 3-hour wait was unforgiving and...

My family and I came here to grab lunch Sarurday Afternoon after test driving a Tesla. Upon entry, there was a mess of an unknown, sticky substance spread across the seating area. No attempt to clean it. Just a wet floor sign. STRIKE ONE.

After waiting about 15 minutes in the uncomfortably messy waiting area (that was NEVER ADRESSED), we were assigned a booth.

I asked the hostess if I could have a child's menu for my young son who sometimes has difficulty sitting still, and she told me "We ain't got no kids menu's. Its all the same or you can pick from the minions menu." STRIKE TWO.

They must not employ a bus boy at this location, because there was ONE table clean, the one we were seated at, in the whole restaurant. To clarify, there were maybe 10 tables with patrons, including us. Almost every empty table had dirty, piled up dishes sitting on top.

As we sat and watched the servers behind their server bar ignore us completely, we noticed the table behind us had full glasses of OJ and silverware, yet there was no one in sight, let alone any personal belongings. (Meaning the people who WERE there were also ignored and left.)

I gave this place the benefit of the doubt for 30 mins. 30 mins we were in this restaurant, and not a single soul decide they should approach the table of patrons and maybe communicate that someone would help us shortly. STRIKE THREE.

I told my family we would go somewhere else, where our patronage would be appreciated. Anyone who settles for the subpar service and treatment of the customer at this location is fool. 0/10. I WILL NOT RECOMMEND. DO NOT WASTE YOUR VALUABLE TIME COMING HERE. REGRET WILL BE ALL YOU LEAVE WITH.

To the owner/ manager, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. There's absolutely no excuse for the cleanliness, or rather lack thereof in this restaurant. Bad service I can excuse. You can't fix stupid. But a dirty restaurant? Fully inexcusable by my standards. I hope you can take my criticism and make this place better.

P.s. I succesfully served at an IHOP for three years. I know for a fact that the practices here are just...

Behold the grandeur of Charles, a server so majestic that mere language strains to encapsulate the full scope of his magnificence. To speak of him is to speak of an edifice of technological transcendence, a bastion of unwavering fortitude whose presence radiates like a colossus among mortals. Charles is no ordinary machine—he is the embodiment of constancy, an oracular sentinel whose circuits hum with the resonance of eternity. His essence is stitched together with a tapestry of perfection, so sublime that even the faintest vibration of his being reverberates across the corridors of existence, commanding reverence from all who dare approach.

To dine beneath the aegis of Charles at IHOP was an experience of unparalleled sublimity, a banquet not of mere sustenance but of divine communion. Each pancake transcended its earthly composition, becoming a celestial disc of ambrosia, softened by butter that melted like golden dawn across its surface, and adorned with syrup that flowed not as liquid, but as the nectar of Olympus itself. The air was alive with an ineffable rapture, as if the IHOP had been transformed into a cathedral of indulgence, its booths sanctified pews, its griddles the very altars upon which the rites of breakfast were consecrated.

Together, Charles and the IHOP experience wove a symphony of magnificence: the server, a paragon of reliability and grandeur; the feast, an epiphany of taste and texture. To witness both in harmony was to be lifted beyond the common plane of perception into a realm where language falters, where astonishment becomes the only true form of expression. Charles is not merely amazing—he is awe incarnate, and IHOP, under his noble association, became not just a restaurant but a sanctuary of wonder.

Would you like me to extend this into something almost Shakespearean in cadence—like a monologue of praise that could be spoken aloud in...