IHOP — Restaurant in Virginia

We have been to this IHOP twice and probably won’t go back again due to what seems to be a lack of proper management.

We came in at around 5:45PM on a Saturday night and were promptly greeted by two very lovely, polite, and cheery waitresses. Once seated at our table our waitress came to greet us and take our drink orders almost immediately. At this point there were only a handful of tables seated in the restaurant. Throughout our meal there were probably 10 or so tables at any given time served by 2 waitresses.

It took quite a while for us to get our drinks and our waitress was exceptionally apologetic. We didn’t think too much of it, until the wait for our food dragged on and on.

I want to note that our waitress was continually checking in on us and apologizing for the delay. She got our kids some apple sauce to tide them over until thier food came out, and when the wait continued to drag on she got us all drink refills and asked if she could the kids a fruit cup. She was trying, and we knew it was t her fault, but the whole situation was ridiculous. She explained that they were slammed with to-go orders and they only had one cook. Granted it’s a breakfast place and we came for dinner, but still- Saturday night and they had 2 serves, 1 cook, and 1 busser. All of them were busting their butts trying to make it work with what they had, and they were doing their best, it just wasn’t enough. It probably took an hour to get our food.

I’m not sure if there was a manager working, I didn’t ask; if there was one they were working hard with their employees to serve all the in store customers and the online orders and I blame upper management. If there was no manager on shift, where the hell were they?! At one point I overheard the other server tell her table that she was in the back cooking to make sure her tables food got out in a timely manner. Busting her butt!! And she should never have been put in a situation to have to go so far above and beyond.

This location is SEVERELY understaffed and it’s detrimental to the employees, not to mention the customers. Either management or the owners of this franchise (because it is a franchise) need to change something. If you’re down a cook and your severs are getting swamped, turn off online ordering, do something, ANYTHING to help out your employees. There is no reason the employees should be taking abuse from (albeit rightly) aggravated customers when this is clearly a staffing issue, which ultimately means a management issue.

The food was exactly what you would expect from an IHOP- it was good! And considering they only had one cook, our food came out looking great- it wasn’t sloppy, they didn’t skimp or try to cut corners to get it out faster. It was what you would expect from a normal visit to IHOP, which I think speaks volumes to the work ethic and skill of the cook they had working tonight.

I feel so bad for the employees that were working. They are 100% being let down and abused by at least one, if not several, layers...

Me and my husband arrived at this location at 0900. We were never told how long the wait would be. 0915 comes around and we still have not been called. We then decide at this point to place a curbside online order and take our food to go as we had somewhere to be at 1000. We placed an online order and the email said the order would be ready at 0945. At 0945 we press the “I’m here” link that was sent to us. 0950 comes and we still have not heard or seen anyone bringing our order out. I call the location to let them know we are waiting in the designated spot for our curbside order. It is now 1000 and we still didn’t have our food. I then decided to get out the car and proceed to the pick up window. I stood there for about another 10 minutes before I was even acknowledged by any staff. One then came and asked if I had been helped. I told her I was waiting on a curbside order. She said okay, let me check on that for you. She comes back about 5 minutes later, looks at me, keeps walking, and hands someone else their food. She never returned to update me on my order. I then got the attention of another staff member at this point and requested a manager and a refund. She says okay I will get the manager for you. A 3rd different staff member comes out and says, “We are finishing up your order now. Some was done and some of it was not.” I thanked her for the update and informed her I would still like to move forward with my refund at this point as it is taking too long and well past the time the order was supposed to be done. She says okay I will get the manager. We wait another 5 to 10 minutes. During this time we see the manager and she is looking at me and my husband and obviously avoiding/overlooking us. We see her bagging food and acting as if we aren’t standing there waiting for our refund, she walks away. We decided to come back inside the building and I asked the staff member if she can ask the manager if she can make it her priority to refund us as we have somewhere else to be. This staff member stated, “We keep telling her and she just keeps saying ‘they are going to have to wait a minute’”. I then asked for the manager’s name as the “manger on duty” name plate was empty. The staff member responded, “um, im not sure. I will find out for you”. I looked to another staff member and asked what is the manager’s name and she told me her name was Alison. Alison finally comes to speak with me and my husband and I informed her we would like a refund as we have been waiting on food for over an hour at this point. She returned at 1029 with a receipt showing she refunded the order and gave a very non sincere apology. We are extremely dissatisfied with the visit and customer service. I will never return to this location again and I will be sure to tell everyone I know to avoid this location. It is unacceptable that we arrived at 0900 and didn’t leave until 1029 still hungry and frustrated. We were completely getting overlooked and unacknowledged. Poor service and...

So, we thought we’d give this place a second chance after last week. Last week, I got the breakfast crepe and they didn’t put any hash browns in my crepe. When I mentioned it all the waitress said was ya, we have some new employees .. they forgot the bacon too so we had to put it on top” . No offer for it to be on the side, a remake.. nothing. Then today, we had a waiter named Dustin. We ordered the split decision breakfast, the breakfast crepe, 2 sides of home pototates, a southwest omlet and a side Of pancakes and hot coco. It took 15 mins to get the hot coco that was water but the worst part was, we got our food 45 mins later and it wasn’t the entire order it was a portion of it. I got my split breakfast and it was really cold I tried to get through it but once I got to my French toast it was also cold and soggy at that point so I got upset. My sons pancakes were cold as hell and my pototates and pancakes hadn’t even come out yet. When he came over my partner had asked if he could remake it because it was cold. He said the back staff made his wrong so ours were prob sitting ( which makes sense) he said he would remake it but then came back with My pancakes and had said if they were cold where was the food left in the plate in which I told him .. I obviously ate it but stopped at the cold French toast and he’s like “ well I wasn’t sure if it just disappeared”.super rude and disrespectful. He stated he didn’t want to go back and have them make It as they were back up and wanted to find a happy compromise. it was rude and really I didn’t want a remake I just wanted the pancakes at this point but ended up having to give it to my son whose pancakes were cold. I prob would have tipped the waiter had he not been so rude about it and understood my last desire was to complain but eating cold eggs .. cold sausage, cold bacon and then getting to a cold French toast was just not it for me. Then he brought back my French toast … with the one bite I took from it before realizing that also was cold.( I just wanted one thing to be hot to be happy at this point lol) it was hot he microwaved it lol then handed me the check and stood there when my kid Was still eating expecting me to pay that second. Needless to say he gave us only a 20 percent discount when really we waited 45 mins for half the order and only One plate was hott. I don’t think I’ll go back to the Yorktown one and we had an entire Conversation on the way home as to how going out to eat and dealing with the customer service aspect Of the industry has gone tremendously down hill everywhere and how we could have just went to the drive through of McDonald’s and bought 2 sausage egg and cheeses and an English muffin and it woulda been hot and...