IHOP — Restaurant in Waco

I am a profesional chef and a nighttime regular. I usually show up around 3am to 5am. I understand that IHOP is a casual franchise restaurant, and I set my expectations as such. But tonight, the standards from the front of house were terrible, basically nonexistent.

When I arrived, around 420-430 am there was no one to be found in the restaurant, other than an elderly lady who started laughing because I could not find anyone. After a few minutes and seeing no staff, I asked the elderly woman if she has seen anyone. She laughed and shook her head while explaining, "There are people here I just don't know where they went". Eventually I went to the doorway of the kitchen and yelled out "Hello" wondering if maybe the staff was asleep or in distress, maybe locked in the walk in. But approximately 5 to 10 minutes calling out multiple times I was eventually met with a rude waitress asking me if I could get out of the kitchen doorway, asking me "What other restaurants do you go to where you walk into their kitchen?" to which I replied, "Well when you are nowhere to be found I am going to look for you" and the waitress continued to argue, eventually asking "Whatcha you want?" and I said, "to eat, why else would I be here?" she instantly assumed I was a doordash, and I stated No I would like to dine in. When I turned around there were approximately 2 other customers also waiting to be greeted as well, so good thing I found the staff. Instead of greeting me with an attitude the server should have apologized for the long weight, lack of staff presence, and lack of hospitality. Sat me down, got my drink order, and explained that my server would be right with me. This incident could have been overlooked by simply being a little apologetic and polite. Instead of confrontational and rude for something that she caused.

The only thing saving this restaurant was the old man, who was the cook, but took care of me better than any of the servers or any staff that was there that day. When he saw the servers were missing, he got my drink, took not only my order but the other customers orders as well. Made our food quickly, delivered it, was very polite, and hospitable. The rest of the graveyard shift need to take lessons from the old fry cook because he was the only thing that redeemed this restaurant. Food was cooked accurately, and he was very welcoming.

Eventually I met my server, and she questioned me why the old man took my order and "thinks he's a server" when she should have been grateful that he stepped up in the 1st place. I literally was never checked on again by my server until they took my money for the bill. I still tipped them 18% because I work in the industry too. But it was definitely not deserved, I should have insisted the old man get it.

I don't know who is running this place, but training is 100% NEEDED for the front of house staff. If this was my restaurant, I would fire the staff that was there that night, at minimum whoever was the manager, and promote the older gentleman, at a minimum give...

My sweetheart and I decided to do a late breakfast, something we rarely do, and decided on IHOP on New Rd. When we got there there wasn't a host to seat us, and we ended up waiting a couple of minutes... THAT should have been my first clue. When we were finally greeted they were very apologetic and gracious, and all was forgiven. We were seated and moments later were greeted by an older short hispanic lady, we told her we already knew what we wanted and she took our order for drinks and food. I wasn't all that hungry as I was thirsty, and expected our drinks to arrive in a couple of minutes... didn't happen. We waited 10 minutes and I saw her coming out of the bathroom, so I chalked it up to "It happens". A couple of minutes later she whisked by our table and stated "Your drinks are on the way". I'm growing pretty impatient by this point, and I had a birdseye view into the station where she was working, and I saw that she was NOT getting our drinks, but filling some kind of little dishes. I looked around the restaurant, which at that time was not terribly busy, and that's when I decided enough was enough. We waited over 15 minutes and never even got a glass of water, there is absolutely no excuse for this bad service. We got up and walked out. I know IHOP is better than this, but I won't be returning to this location anytime soon. The sad thing is, she had already placed our order, I'm sure they were already cooking it up, and someone is going to have to pay for that...

We chose this Ihop because of it close proximity. I ordered the breakfast sampler and my husband had the senior 2x2x2. His came out fine. I ordered my eggs over medium and when my plate came out the eggs were very runny/snotty and ran all over my plate as soon as I poked them. It was disgusting! I had to use pieces of my pancakes to make dams to keep the snotty whites from running into my hasbrowns and meats. We also ordered decaf coffee, because of medical issues, and a waitress came around and asked if we wanted refills. I told her yes, but we have decaf, and she left. Another waitress came by about 10 minutes later and just filled our cups without asking and left so fast that I didn't have time to tell her that we needed decaf. And I put the sugar free syrup on my pancakes and took a bite and the syrup was so freaking cold like it had come directly out of the refrigerator. Our waitress checked back with us about our food, one time, right after another waitress set our plates on the table. So I wasn't able to tell her about the eggs, coffee or syrup. I don't send food back to have an order fixed at restaurants anyway, because you never know what's going to happen to your food after you complain. I rarely complain about my restaurant experiences, but this trip was not worth the time or money. Definitely will not go to this Ihop...