IHOP — Restaurant in Vista

Its 8:45pm. I walk in with my woman by my side. We’re hungry and stricken with some late night munchies. As we make our way inside IHOP, were confront with a cold and eerie atmosphere. There is no music. No customers. No employees. Images of backrooms memes Ive seen online flood my mind. I hear a faint and whispered conversation in the distance. A couple, also perplexed by the quiet environment decides to converse quietly, as if not to disturb a lurking presence. All of a sudden a vibrant middle aged woman appears seemingly out of nowhere and asks, “Table for two?”. We are taken to a booth and seated and can now hear the chef in the kitchen working alone as he prepares the other tables meal. My girl and I already know what we like and order when she asks for drinks. My second half orders the Serrano pepper chicken sandwich with extra Serrano peppers. I take the Blueberry French toast combo with sausage, over medium eggs, and extra crispy hash browns. She notates our requests, and dissolves into the kitchen. My companion and I look into each others eyes, and observe the awkwardness that the establishment had presented with its musical virginity still intact. I joke and suggest to play some light volumed tunes through my phone. My love wasnt joking. We listen to un x100to by Grupo Frontera as we wait patiently for our food. After a short while of the chef practicing his art, the food arrives. We turn down the music whenever the waitress passes by, as not to disturb a silent setting she clearly enjoys. I dig in. The blueberries are crisp and my hash browns are satisfying. I look up to see my dearest removing the top bun, only to see an excessive amount of jalapeños. Not serrano peppers. The waitress stops by our table shortly after our food is presented. I turn down my tunes as my darling asks for a small amount of extra serrano peppers. The waitress complies and scurries away… only quickly returning with a a bowl of roughly chopped and raw peppers. I feel for my baby as she must now pull a card I know she never wants to pull; The Karen Card. “Im sorry but is there anyway I could get them grilled a bit? Thank you so much Im sorry!” The waitress responds “Oh! Yes of course!”. I release the breath I held during this interaction as I did not expect this to play out well. The grilled peppers were returned. We finished our meal to the whispers of another table and our quiet Spanish tunes. A check is brought out and I pay with an added tip. Late night shifts aren’t easy and I recognize that. But playing music through a restaurant is. I would’ve felt more comfortable eating Swedish Meatballs in SCP-3008 than devouring another Blueberry French toast in this unfortunate...

It’s close to my other job, it’s open 24 hours and it’s near some friends houses, so yeah when we ride out late this is often our go to spot for latenight eats. It’s a welcome change of pace form the fast food and Mexican readily available everywhere else. It’s much better than any Denny’s around and they recently remodeled the entire place.

The latenight staff is much more friendly than other places, not even because we are semi regulars here. The key is order some food for here and order food for breakfast tomorrow so you’re not as hungover.

My go to’s are French Toast (kings Hawaiian if they have it, dulche de leche if they have it). Combo for the eggs (overeasy), sausage and bacon. Coffee or iced tea, water. The French toast is always consistent, eggs are never overcooked (unless you go scrambled). Sausage is on the blander side and the bacon I like crispy. We split a sampler for the sauces and fried food similar to a fast food place. We recently tried their new burgers, you know, since they are now ihoB.

The Mega is big, but not huge. Double meat, 2 cheeses, go easy on the onions since they are red. The quality of the bun, burger, build are good, way better than Dennys (you never go to Denny’s, you just end up there….because your night has gone to hell). We also split the Big Brunch which has hash browns (be sure to ask for extra extra crispy) and the egg is perfectly soft and runny.

With the recent renovations, friendly staff, reasonable prices, late hours and consistent food, decent burgers, it’s a solid go to place for latenight eats. It’s not islands, but better than a lot of places for the burgers alone. I’m not sold on the change in the business focus, but they certainly did not abandon the breakfast items.

Watch out for the drunks, I’ve seen some things go down here, but I guess not everyone can handle...

We came as a part of a very large party. They could not seat us all at one table because of our size So we sat separately which was fine. During that time a waitress came and knew we were apart of that party. She took the other tables order and left. It was quite busy. She did not let us know that she would return. She was gone long enough that our table of three was able to make up our minds what we would like to order. We never received any refills on our existing drinks. Our waitress was not so bad, but the staff was very impolite. At one point my daughter was on her way to the bathroom and accidentally bumped into a staff member. She apologized and the staff member told her "she needed to learn how to walk right." As we were talking, two other staff members were pushing through my fathers seat to try and move a table and chair to the other side of the restaurant and didn't announce their presence until they were pinching their way through and bumping into him. While we paid our bill the cashier Vanessa asked us how we enjoyed our experience. My spouse said we didn't have very good service here overall and she replied "Why Thank you" in a snooty tone and as we left we were in shock at the attitude and Vanessa said "You're welcome" Then she shook her head and rolled her eyes as we left. The manager was greeting people at the opposite door and at no point did she say "I am sorry to hear that" or "here is our manager". Instead she decided to become offended and talk in a very rude tone and this was not customer service or the attitude of someone who should be in customer service. I own my own business and take pride in treating my paying customers with respect and these experiences in no way reflected an enjoyable experience for my children nor my...