Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in West Milwaukee

We should have followed our first Minds but our teenagers want to eat here to celebrate the last day of their incredible stage play performance at school.. 3/24/24 5ish pm we entered and were sat within 3 mins, which is great. That was the best of the event.. we sat for 20 minutes before we were even greeted by our server, and finally our drink order was taken. After 15 mins, two of the six drink orders came out. One water, one soda. The others were also water with lemon, two kids lushy and a brandy old fashioned, and another soda.. let me add. The other lady who brought our drinks put her fingers around the rim of the glass as she placed them on the table. ( who is training these kids) we put our order in right away during the ordering of our drinks. Because we knew!! There were four orders of boneless wings; we asked for those to come before the meal. There were two kids' meals, one steak skillet, one chicken skillet, a caso burger, and a half a rack of ribs. While waiting for the other drinks to arrive after only two of the people received their drink, I noticed the server who brought the first two drinks eating and sucking and liking the food off the same fingers she used to handle drinks. I did not see her wash her hands at all but go services another table close by her with kids that looked like they were her kids or family. After another 15 minutes of placing a food and drink order and another 10 minutes of getting the first two drinks, I inquired about the rest of the drinks to our server. She went and checked and returned to my sister and said they did not have Brandy Ol fashion; my sis asked for a different drink. After 7 mins of that, the server came back still not with the rest of the drinks but to tell my sis the bar did not have the items to make her other drink. She said forget it, just give me water... at that point, I told the server that we ordered wings as an appetizer, which should have come out by now. And for me, if she brings the wings with my entrie, she can not bring them to me and take it off the bill.. 7mins after that the manager brought my six wings. My daughter received her supposedly ten wings and other received theirs. My daughter got eight boneless out of the ten she told the manager right away before she left the table and I asked about the rest of the drinks. 5 second after my daughter said she was miss chicken from her ten count they brought out 2 lonely cold chicken on a plate. 8 mins after that that is when the table finally received the rest of their drinks. The boneless chicken was Lukewarm. So we had no hope after that. Finally we received our food! Horrible!!! My daughter ribs was Cold! My fries stile and cold.. I asked for the manager while waiting for the manager my sister who ordered the chicken and shrimp skillet thought she was OK because her plate was sizzling like it should low and behold her mash potatos was cold as could be I thought she was lying I tried for myself and she was right! I said the hospital mash potato is better and warmer than that. Her shrimp was tough and cold. We were trying to figure out how was that possible and the skillet was piping hot! The manager finally came I asked for to take a fork into the mash potates and touch it to see how cold it was she refused. I told her how disrespectful it was that all of our food was cold and the amount of time to receive any kinda of service. She said she will remove those items or ask did want them to be remade we declined we asked for the check!. Wait it get better.. the steak skillet my teenager ordered, she was so hunger she didn't realize she was eating chicken.. 😫 I was done then.. while waiting for the check 10 mins goes by I seen our server and asked who in the kitchen! She ordered steak not chicken! The server chuckled and say I'm be back.. came back without our check still and said they will remove from the bill.. after 20 mins of the finally poor service and asking for my check we got it! of course I gave zero tip signed and I ran out! This was by far the worse experience of my 42 years...

This was the greatest meal and experience that I have ever had at a restaurant let alone a chain franchise. Were seated with my two good friends, and my wife. By a hostess who couldn't seem any less enthused if her mask was not covering her face. Was greeted by a waitress who due to covid wanted us to use our phones to view the menu because of sanitary reasons. Then to our surprise we were met with a second waitress who informed us she was new. After taking our drink order it took an additional 45 minutes to bring us our drinks, however, to make absolutely sure our drink were correct our waitress informed us that the bartender didn't know how to make amaretto sweet, amaretto sour, or a long island. We all had the opportunity to find the recipes to make sure they were made correctly. Whilst ordering our waitress, who keep mind now has informed us shes new, asked us four separate times how to make our drinks, and carded us with our salt and pepper hair, looked at the computer pos system to see what dressings were available for our salads. Our guests at dinner were thoroughly impressed that even thought we ordered at the same time, my wife and I had our salads brought out before theirs. However, not before informing my wife and I that the dressings she read to us from the pos system were in fact unavailable, keeping in mind she is new, we were delighted that they chose to give us the dressing they felt was better die to the unavailability of our previous decisions. Twelve minutes later after the kitchen staff who had roughly 15 people in the entire restaurant pain stakingly assembled their caesar salads, our guests were treated to their master crafted salads.

Onto the entre portion of the evening, we all ordered our meals. Our guests felt it was best that they ordered the steak bowl with rice. The gelatinous blob that was in the bottom of one of my guests bowl, combining the overcooked rice with the delightfully grey sauce would appease any foodie connoisseur's appetite. Whilst my other friend had no special additions in his bowl, to which he was sorely disappointed with. My wife received her entre along with our guests leaving myself to receive the special treatment from the Miller Parkway's Applebee's kitchen staff. When I ordered my steak medium rare, they recognized the concern of bloodborne pathogens and made a judgement for my health, and cooked my steak so we'll done, and so dry it would have taken me a cattle trough of water to restore my dehydrated body. Clearly the Applebee's staff were aware of that when my long island contained only sours, pepsi, and water. Sipping down my delicious soda, sour, and water I thought to myself "why, there is no alcohol to be found in this drink" along with one of my guests. Applebee's being the pillar of chain resturants had a strict policy that if a drink was 1/4 drank it was the responsibility of the the patron to provide the monetary burden of the establishment.

Our glowing and ever bubbly waitress felt it be best to let our group know how well versed she was with the Applebee's way, that she was transferred from Beaver Dam, and assured us that miller park way just did things differently than her old store. Which by all accounts told my group not only was she a phenomenal waitress for being new, but a superstar for being so adaptable for switching locations.

As I handed her the 8 oz. sirloin and heaved a heavy sigh because I felt me taking control of my own life, begged for her to plead with the kitchen staff to cook my steak medium rare. She fought me at first insisting that the tough leather laid before me was conducive for a healthier lifestyle. Accepting my poor life choices she seceded to my foolish demands.

After waiting an additional 25 minutes, I am now thankful for the water version of my long island. The kitchen staff must have known, because they provided my steak with a surplus of salt. I highly recommend this location if you want the kitchen and wait staff to make your nutrition...

What a disappointment! We were in town for a volleyball tournament and decided to go out to eat as a team. We called ahead to let them know we were coming and were asked not to arrive until 5pm (when they would have more staff). We arrived a little before 5pm and waited about 10 minutes to get seated, no big deal as we could see them setting up our tables. There were only 2 other tables at the time, so we thought things would run smoothly. We were wrong! It took 15 minutes before a waiter introduced themselves and took our drink orders. Once they returned with the drinks, they didn't know who ordered what, it was very disorganized. After about 10 more minutes, they came to take our order. They messed up on the appetizers and wrote down the wrong dressing for most of the salads. As they were fixing that, we had to track down our own napkins and silverware as they were not set on the the table. There were no touch points during this time and we had to go up to the bar to refill our water and soda glasses. We noticed our food piling up on the warming station, but no one was bringing it out. After 45 minutes, they finally started bringing the food out. Most of the food was either luke warm or cold. Oh wait, the coleslaw was warm. Not all of our food was served, so they had to go back and make it, leaving some of the girls to not get their meal until others were done. Several plates were sent back due to under-cooked and cold food. I asked to talk to the Manager to get an explanation of what was happening. He was very apologetic and said he would see what was going on. He came back to the table and said he wasn't sure what happened as this is not the type of service he wants to offer his customers. He stated he removed some of the entrees from our bill as they were wrong or missing items. He then told us the waiter would bring our bill and it would reflect the discounts given. The waiter brought out a small computer and we had to scroll to find what we ordered and then try to figure out what deductions went with what meal. This would be a great tool if we didn't have 20 orders to go through. However, it was extremely frustrating and time consuming. As the manager came back to see how things were going, he noticed the computer screen and questioned why the waiter would bring that to us - he apologized again for the waiter not bringing us a paper bill separated as initially asked. He found the waiter and asked him to bring us each a separate bill (again, something we initially asked for prior to ordering) that would reflect what we ordered and the discounts given. The waiter brought back a bill showing all 20 orders, nothing separated out. After another 15 minutes of trying to figure out who owed what, the Manager came back out and told us the General Manager said there wouldn't be any discounts and we would need to pay the bill in full. She offered a card for us to call and complain. At this point my husband, who has been a restaurant manager for over 20 years, asked to talk to the GM. She basically told us that we could call the number on the card and complain but she wasn't going to doing anything to make things right. When all was said and done, we spent 3 hours in Applebees, most of it waiting for food and trying to figure out our bill!! We eat frequently at our local Applebee's and always have amazing service, friendly hosts, knowledgeable waitstaff and good food. The service and management was extremely disappointing. I would NOT recommend this...