IHOP — Restaurant in Watertown Charter Township

While the food was fine and the place was clean (and deserted), the service was subpar and we had a real problem with the menu, which was not resolved by the manager.

You have to seat yourself, which means getting a server's attention is hit or miss. Once we sat down, we got some water and the menus. My daughter and I each ordered the Breakfast Sampler that was advertised on their 65th Anniversary menu as part of their all you can eat pancake promotion (photo of menu attached). The food was pretty good (although the sausage links were inexplicably burnt). When our plates were mostly empty, we flagged down the server (she didn’t check back) and asked for two more pancakes for my daughter. The server said that we could get a short stack (3) or a full stack (5). I said we wanted the two that came with the all you can eat promotion. She said no, that doesn’t apply to your breakfast. I asked to see the manager.

The manager came to our table and brought the menu. With no hello or apology or preamble, she said that extra pancakes weren’t included – they were $5 extra. I showed her the page on the menu that didn’t say that. Again, no “sorry for the misunderstanding,” just nope, not included. I took a picture of the menu to include with my email to the company. She walked away.

When the server came by again, I asked for the bill. She brought it and walked away. It took me a few minutes to realize that she wasn’t coming back, and I had to take it to the front. She never said anything like, “I can take care of that up front when you’re ready,” or anything else to indicate that I needed to take it up front.

We went up to pay the bill, and the server finally moseyed up to the counter. She struck up a conversation with an employee of the attached Flying J and didn’t acknowledge us. I paid the bill and left about a 15% tip. She kept talking. Finally, I apologized and interrupted their conversation. I asked her to please tell her manager that if they had just given us two pancakes, they could have avoided any issues with us. As it was, I would not be coming back to iHop. She shrugged and said, “okay.”

I realize that my patronage at their restaurant doesn’t matter to them, and judging from the empty restaurant, I am guessing they rely on travelers, not locals. It’s too bad because with Flapjack Shack closing, I thought I had found a new breakfast spot. Turns out, they don’t have to worry about me going there anymore or the 20 cents it would have cost them to give us...

My two favorite restaurants are IHOP and Olive Garden. Having two young children, my husband and I don't get to go out much. While our girls were away visiting my parents this past weekend, we decided to go out to eat. I was craving breakfast Crepes, what better place to go than IHOP, right!? WRONG! Upon arriving, we noticed that the place was almost empty. We waited almost 10 minutes to be seated while one of the waitresses stood at the "bar" talking and laughing it up with the only 2 customers there. When she finally came over to seat us, she asked what drinks we wanted and I told her we'd only need a minute to order our food as I already knew what I wanted but my husband did not. During this time, I saw a total of 4 other waitresses wandering around which upset me even more for making us wait when they clearly had the staff and only 2 other customers. Waiting another 10-15 minutes our waitresses finally came back to take our order. I ordered crepes, eggs OVER EASY, hasbrowns and bacon. My husband ordered the Classic breakfast burrito that is supposed to only come with hashbrowns, eggs, cheese and bacon on it. A total of 3 more customers came in after we placed our order. (I'm always aware of my surroundings) We waited another 45 minutes before our food was brought to us and it was wrong!! My eggs were extremely well done, bacon was barely cooked, the bread/toast tasted stale, the crepes were not cooked fully and my husband's burrito was made into the deluxe which contained peppers and onions. My husband being the nice guy just wanted to pick them off and not make a fuss but the treatment we'd already received had already upset me so this just pushed me over the edge. I called the waitress back over and showed her the food. She took the eggs and burrito back, that was it, and in less than 10 minutes the replacement food was out. How did that happen so fast when the initial order took 4× longer than that? And why didn't our whole order get replaced? From now on we will make the extra 15 minute drive to the Okemos location as this one was a...

I'm very mixed on how I feel about this place. We didn't even know this location existed and when we realized it we drove the 25 minutes to get there. We were seated and waited about 10 minutes to be greeted. Aleatha was our server. She seemed friendly and all but her actual services wasn't that great. My husband said she smelled like a cigarette and after taking her so long to greet us we then waited 8 minutes to get our drinks. So we are now almost 20 minutes of sitting in this booth and had JUST gotten our drinks. It took about 20-25 minutes to get our food. I know the server doesn't have control of how long our food takes, but she could have at least come to refill our drinks. She didn't even come by at all in that time. Once the food came she realized we needed drink refills and went and got them. That was the last time during the entire meal that we saw her until she came by to ask if we wanted boxes. She must have taken the cue since most of our plates were stacked on the table. The actual food was real good aside from the inside of my blueberry pancakes still being raw pancake dough and my daughters chicken strips looking like they were fried beyond belief. I am somewhat understanding to the pancakes since blueberries have quite a bit of moisture. My omelet was also luke warm so not as appealing as it could have been. I'm not sure if Aleatha is new or not but we were definitely not happy with her speed of service. We were happy that seemed cheerful the couple times she interacted with us. Like I said at the beginning, I'm mixed about this visit to...