Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Town of Dunkirk

This store is not friendly to pickup / business travelers. Traveling to Dunkirk for business, and was staying at the nearby Best Western. Decided to place an order online for carryout to take back to my hotel, and as the hotel was literally right next to the restaurant, I walked there.

When entering, I was directed to walk to the back of the store by the restrooms, where an employee was working by the door handling curbside orders. I waited for about 5 minutes, with a half dozen employees asking me if I needed help, yet all of them telling me I had to wait for a specific person. 3 employees gathered by the bar and were standing around chatting.

After 5 minutes, the person handling the curbside orders came to me and took my credit card for payment. This was at about 7:16, which was 5 minutes before the website promised my food would be ready. She came back, and handed me a credit card receipt to sign and my card back. I then asked for an itemized receipt, which she told me she was unable to provide. I told her this was a business meal, and as most businesses require itemized receipts to be reimbursed, I needed one. She again made an excuse as to why she couldn't, and walked away.

I then stood in the hallway by the bathrooms for nearly 25 more minutes. Finally, at 7:40, another employee came out with my food. Mind you, the entire 25 minutes I stood there, 3 employees stood by the bar chatting. The store was not busy at the time, and one of the 3 looked to be a kitchen person. At no time was I offered somewhere to sit and wait, but instead was forced to stand and wait for a total of 30 minutes. Instead, I was forced to stand and listen to the curbside employee make personal calls on their cell phone, while constantly overhearing her complain about several customers in their cars. Again, I was promised the pickup would be ready at 7:22, and did not get my order until 18 minutes after that time.

When getting my food, I asked for utensils, which the person said was in the bag. I quick glanced, not seeing any apparent utensils, and asked a second time. I was assured a second time that utensils were in the bag, so I left. After getting back to my room, I opened up the bag to realize I had a little 2 little baggies that contained a plastic knife and napkin. So, here I am, sitting in a hotel room, eating soup with no spoon, and a steak with no fork. The mashed potatoes was especially interesting to eat off a knife.

Not wanting to deal with this anymore, I just gave up and did not call or walk back over to the store, and instead ate my meal the best I could. I might also mention, my meal was definitely not prepared well, as the medium rare steak was completely cooked through with no pink, the soup tasted almost burnt, and they ice cream brownie must have been sitting on a counter in the back before they brought it to me, because it was 100% melted even with the ice cream in a separate container. Being that I work for an Ice Cream manufacturer, I am sure that the ice cream did not completely melt in the 5 minutes it took me to walk from the restaurant to the hotel in 40...

I have never had a waitress as rude as the one I had last night. I don't even know where to start. Like, if you're going to write off a table because you wanna judge the way we look, don't act shocked and get mad at us when we're upset with the horrendous service you gave us.

My expectations for chain restaurants are honestly so low. Is it wrong to not want soggy raw breading on our mozza sticks? If you're going to pack the fryer to get more orders out, which I understand on a Friday night, some unfortunate ones might just not make it entirely into the oil. But of course I wouldn't blame a waitress for that - I just want these mozza sticks to come back.. Cooked. Like I'm not yelling for free food or discounts, I just want them.. Fried! So they refire the mozza sticks. Great! But our entrees are ready. So she asks if we want them to hold off bringing our entrees..? Who would want their food sitting under heat lamps for mozza sticks? But then she spends over 5 minutes delivering bills and taking orders at tables around us, not bringing the food she already told us was sitting there ready. So of course, it's so, so cold by the time she finally gets there. And then she avoids our table for the rest of the meal. And she's full of excuses - mozza sticks just come like that, the manager messed her up by bringing the new mozza sticks order, she's SO busy! I didn't even ask for comped food, nor a discount, because even though it was no thanks to her horrendous service, the kitchen fixed the mozza sticks and the manager fixed the cold ribs for me (while she was literally walking sideways past our table to avoid us). Even if the ribs were microwaved and sent back to me hot - I don't even care. As I've said, my expectations for chain restaurant are very giving, I just want cooked, hot food, that I didn't have to cook myself. I wasn't even going to bring up my experience, but she came bragging that she got our mozza sticks comped and then just shrugged at me when I pointed out they weren't comped on the receipt. She clearly did not believe our table provided value to her evening (we just moved across the country and we're not exactly well put together appearance-wise this evening after a very, very long drive with a toddler). Her lack of professionalism and accountability was just.. Astonishing. I will absolutely not...

If I could rate my expierence a zero I would. Me and my daughter went in at 9:20pm for dinner. The waitress came over. We ordered our drinks and knew what food we wanted. The waitress brought our drinks. She was attentive with drinks for about the first 15 mins. Then a large table came in and we were forgotten. After waiting so long my daughter ordered a water because you can only drink so much lemonade when your expecting to get your food. This was about the 40 min mark of our wait. We made light of everyone else getting served there drinks and food but continued to sit and be ignored with empty drinks on the table. I finally stopped another waitress for her water. She proceeded to tell me that yeah I'll get it and that the other waitress was "overwhelmed". I was understanding. Another waitress brought our water in about 10 mins. Finally after sitting there for an hour another waitress or it could of been the manager she didnt tell me came up and said "What's up ladies?" Clearly there was an issue but wanted to ask me "What's up?" I told her well we've been waiting an hour for our food. She then decided to tell me that the waitress had a dead handheld and our food order didn't get sent back to the kitchen. She said she'd re order our food and send it back to the kitchen now. I have no idea how it took an hour for them to find that out. I felt that they ignored us the whole night because people were too afraid to say something. I am a very understanding and patient person because I know how people can be working in the service industry. But the way it was handled was all wrong.The original waitress who took our order never talked to us after giving our drinks. The manager said she'd reorder for us and no apology was given. I decided to leave and as I was standing up she apologized. She didn't make me pay for my drinks but sitting there wasting my time for an hour wasnt really worth the free lemonade. Worst dining...