IHOP — Restaurant in Virginia

EDIT 3/15/25 the store’s GM, Evelyn, was thoughtful enough to reach out and call and give me a very sincere apology and make up for the odd visit. a lot of the times you see owners get really defensive in their responses so i really appreciated that intentionality to reach out, apologize, and make sure that my review was taken seriously.

everyone has off days, lots of businesses have people going through stuff, so dont let my review stop you from going and having a really reasonably priced meal. iHop is a classic that i’ll never stop going to and getting that call was a breath of fresh air in reminding me that not every higher up is in it for the bottom line/money.

this was a pretty odd visit last sunday i believe it was. i want to preface by saying myself and my friend, who ate here, have both worked food service and are always pretty understanding.

we were sat by a kid who seemed to not wanna be there. he just seemed down/sad but we were sat immediately because the restaurant was basically empty.

the waitress came over and took our drink orders pretty fine. she wasnt very inviting or welcoming, just base line civil. her oral health threw us off in all honesty but who are we to judge. we got our coffees and water. they didnt have anything other than half and half, which sucks when youre lactose intolerant.

she got our food orders, that was fine. food came out pretty quickly because the restaurant was basically empty on this sunday afternoon.

i think before we got our food, i noticed my water glass was pretty dirty. my friend’s had something floating in it. immediately made me uncomfortable so i set our glasses at the end of the table so it was clear we weren’t drinking them.

when our server came back, i asked for new water without explicitly saying the glasses were dirty to avoid being rude. i figured she would pick up on that by literally looking at them (at the very least, mine was clearly dirty in my opinion), and most people dont ask for new water unless something’s up. she said “what?” so i repeated myself. and then she LITERALLY just walked away and didnt acknowledge what i said. i was actually so shocked at that.

i thought maybe she’ll bring us the waters. nope. her energy was off the entire time so i didnt even bother mentioning it again because i said it twice and she literally ignored me like my request was stupid or unjust. that irked me to say the least and i didnt want to be a difficult customer so i just ate my food and kept my mouth shut because obviously my request was not important or valid to her.

we got the check and i paid with a $10 gift card and my credit card. she took the cards and brought back the receipts and wished us a good day.

i sign the receipt and we get up and leave. she catches us on our way out and asks if we paid…did you not remember laying down the check, picking up the cards, running a gift card and a credit card, and then bringing it back not TWO minutes prior? the restaurant couldnt have had more than five tables, and thats being generous, so it’s not like she was slammed by any means. so i was pretty annoyed and insulted that she was insinuating that we were dining and dashing when she JUST took my payment.

outside of whatever was going on with her, the food was VERY okay. eggs, bacon, sausage were normal. pancakes were good. but the french toast was undercooked and so were the hashbrowns. still ate it because we were hungry but couldve been better. coffee was fine.

overall? skip this location. like i said, we have a lot of sympathy for food service workers because it’s a thankless, grueling job. but when your tips are directly correlated to your attitude and level of service, i think you gotta do a little bit more than be a basic level of civil, try to mask your annoyance and discontent for your job, and do more than the BARE minimum. and maybe not ignore people when they ask for a new glass of water. severely disappointed and left the restaurant annoyed to say the least. the only positive is that it was $30-$40 for the both of us which pretty...

Decided to try this location because out of all ihops in the area it had the highest star rating. Our server didn’t care about anything we needed. My fiancé and I had asked for a half sweet, half unsweet tea. Only to end up receiving half tea/half lemonade… WHEN DID I SAY LEMONADE. We hadn’t seen him so I had to call someone else’s attention and was told the server would be told the correct drinks. He came back without drinks and said “unsweet tea?” 🤦🏽‍♀️ I replied with what we wanted. He came back with the correct drinks and I saw an AirPod in his ear. Instantly knew this wasn’t going to be a pleasant outing. We ordered and I really thought that anything else couldn’t go wrong. My fiancé ordered the big steak omelette(no customization) and I ordered a BELGIAN WAFFLE combo(2 eggs scrambled with cheese, hash-browns, choice of 2 sausage or 2 bacon. I asked for bacon and then a side of 2 sausage because I wanted both). Saw him one time before our food finally came out (drinks were low) and he said the food would be out in a moment. My fiancé got his meal piping hot. My meal was of course room temp and WRONG. I got served pancakes, 1 egg no cheese, 1 sausage link and 1 bacon piece. I looked at this meal like my whole life had been a lie. No way was I paying $15 for something I didn’t order. I told him what it was supposed to be and he came back 5 times 3 times each with a plate of food 🤦🏽‍♀️ first plate was 2 bacon, second was 2 sausage and the third plate was 2 eggs with cheese. Mind you each arrival was 3+ minutes apart. Was I supposed to just let the food in front of me get cold while I wait for the rest?? Honestly I guess I could’ve because the food was already room temp when it came out. (I only needed one more sausage one more bacon and one more egg.) He brought back double so I ended up with more food than I could even eat but felt like I had to eat it or else I wasn’t valid to complain. After he brought the last plate he put the check on the table and we never saw him again. We needed refills. But I decided I didn’t even want to be in the building anymore. So now we needed drinks to go and a box. Waited hoping we could spot him. No luck. My fiancé had to stand up and a lady came over to ask if he needed anything. FINALLY got our stuff, paid and left. The lady took 20% off of only my meal. Imo if it were me I would’ve give the 20% off the ticket as a whole. Or not charged for the second meal but that’s just me I guess because what she gave us took like $3...

Many issues. No one in restaurant. We decided to stay in spite of the place being completely empty. Very nice waitress/hostess. Took our order. We waited 10min. Then I seen a guy come in. Looked like he clocked in from break or just getting there. I clearly heard waitress tell him the order. I guess he began cooking at that point. Remember, we waited10 minutes before our order was submitted and started cooking. And the place was empty. (Waffle house, when empty, we walk in and staff is ready to cook immediately.) I seen 1 other employee. He was putting away glasses. So I seen 3 employees total. We get the food. We eat. Go to checkout. Seen sign Thursday 20% discount for military. I ask for military discount and present my military ID. Waitress/host tells me she has to go get the manager for that. I said OK and waited. Same girl comes back with maybe a manager's key to authorize discount I am guessing. Waitress does discount. I present cash. $20 x2, bill was not even $35. Waitress says do you need change. I said yes then I will tip you. Because I was going a add more money with SOME of the change. Waitress then says, I will be back. She takes my money and walks to the back. I guess to see how to gain access to the actual money drawer. I have no clue whom she was getting with because I never seen anyone but a cook, a waitress and a dishwasher. We waited a few minutes and then we decided to just leave. I never seen a manager. It was ridiculous but I was happy that the food tasted mediocre. We left. Picked up baby from daycare right down the road. We came immediately home. It took 30min to pick up baby and get home. We both rushed to bathroom with horrible cramps and diaherra. Sweating. Nausea. 4 rounds of diaherra. Effing inconvenient and made us sick. I would have put this on Google review but I was too sick to type all of it yesterday. And now you know what happened. And the sad thing is....we were looking for a replacement from waffle house because the one on j clyde Morris closed I think...