IHOP — Restaurant in Urbandale

EDIT: The store owner, Edie, has spoken to me and has resolved the problems that I, and many other customers, experienced. She was very kind, apologetic, and listened to me and heard me out. She was reassuring that she was going to do what she needed to do to use the experience as a learning opportunity for the staff. And that’s all I hoped for.

I am a semi regular customer at the Merle Hay location, Rikki is amazing, and it’s been a ‘tradition’ of my best friend and I’s to get dinner after Thanksgiving/Black Friday shopping. We’ve never had an issue. The staff is usually efficient, attentive, and kind. But unfortunately, this year was not the case. We were seated pretty quickly but that was the only decent part of the visit. About 20 minutes passed before our server came to ask for our drink orders. And another 10 before we got them. I was understanding as it was a holiday and they’re usually low on staff, so I didn’t have a problem then. He took another 15 minutes before he came back and took our order. (Only unacceptable because no one else in our section was being attended to.) My first drink was already gone, so he asked if I’d like a refill and I said yes please but he never refilled my drink. Another woman walked past 5 minutes later and asked again if I’d like a refill and she brought a new drink to me within 2 minutes. I had also ordered a specialty hot chocolate and when my server brought it to my table he spilled half of it on the floor but still left the cup on my table. He got kind of rude and rolled his eyes when I politely told him that I didn’t want the hot chocolate because they had run out of the ingredients for the flavor I wanted. Now fast forward another 20 minutes our food comes out. I had ordered a ham egg and cheese melt on sourdough bread with extra crispy hash browns. I got a cold ham egg and cheese with hash browns with cheese on them. So because that’s not what I wanted I asked if I could get new hash browns extra crispy. He went back to the kitchen and asked for new to be made and once again they had put cheese on them. We were seated close enough that I could hear the woman ask if I’d be fine with the cheese to which he started to reply but glanced over at me and he walked to the back. And my best friends food was cold and tasted undercooked. I ended up paying for $35 of food that was either under cooked, not made correctly, or I just didn’t even receive. I am highly disappointed. I did call and speak with a manager, but I was advised to talk to the store manager higher up to take care of the situation. I have been calling all morning and have gotten nothing but a...

Our waitress dressed very unprofessionly, her black outfit was linty and stained. She sat us at an uncleaned booth with only one placesetting. She never offered us any water. When she served our ice teas, she neglected to give us straws. When we asked for straws, she came back to our table and threw the straws down in a manner where she felt inconvenienced. I asked for another place settings she took her time in getting it. This was after Our main food had already arrived at our table. We saw an empty Coffee creamer container on the floor. Instead of picking it up and throwing it in the trash, she kicked under the counter.

There was a Black gentleman dressed in a red shirt.... we assumed he was the Manager who was literally throwing tables together to make larger tables for a large party, and you could hear the banging. The whole experience left us wondering and we will never go there or recommend this place to our friends and families.

In conclusion the whole employed staff need to go for re-training of proper restaurant hospitality. I hope this Letter reaches Coporate headquarters. Just in case it doesn't I'm going to send an email to corporate headquarters. I still maintain possession of my receipt with all the necessary information to make this complaint. Thanks for your time in...

Menus were sticky and hard to open, floor had a soda spilled under the table(not ours) Silverware dirty. Waitress was horrible, ordered our food which came out surprisingly fast, however my sons food wasn't delivered but he'd ordered a burger where we gotten breakfast so we assumed it took longer to make, I took 2 bites of my omelet and it tasted spoiled couldn't eat it. I would have said something but the waitress never returned to check-in. My son finally went to ask about his food to be told oh she didn't put that on the order. When the other worker said something to our waitress she said very loudly "I've been here 4hrs and that's my first mistake" His cheese burger came out with the cheese unmelted and cold fries. Waitress still never returned until she dropped off the check. I could understand the horrible service if they were busy but there was only one other table in our area until they sat a family of 4 at the table with the large soda spilled on the floor. It never got cleaned up. Went to pay the bill, and spoke my disappointment in the food and service but she didn't seem to care and wasn't happy when I pointed out the fact that she sat the family at the table where there was soda on the floor and how the little girl couldn't even sit fully in her chair...