IHOP — Restaurant in West Whiteland Township

I just had the worst dining experience of my life! I strongly recommend that you do not waste your time or money by patronizing this poor excuse for a resraurant. I made the mistake of taking my wife and two grandsons there today for a second visit in two weeks. On our first visit we found the place to be filthy with scraps of food on the floor and under tables in abundance. We attributed this to the location being just several months old and staffed with poorly trained employees. On our second visit today I ordered eggs, scrapple and home fries. After a 20 minute wait my breakfast was served minus the scrapple because the waiter said it was still being cooked! About 15 minutes later with my breakfast almost completely eaten the scrapple arrived with an appology by the waiter. I asked to speak with a manager to give constructive criticism that a breakfast should not be served until all items ordered are able to be served at the same time. A man came to our table dressed in cooks clothing and told me he was one of the mangers. He then proceeded to verbally chide me in front of my wife and grandsons for not understanding that everything was cooked to order and served when ready. I suggested that breakfast was not served that way in any restaurant I have ever eaten at in the last 50 years. He then said he was actually the cook and that the waiter had not ordered my scrapple. I called the waiter to our table and he showed me the printed order ticket. It clearly showed everything that had been ordered for our table including the scrapple! The cook, a la the manager, had blatently lied. Another patron in the booth behind us overheard everything and told us he was mortified by the way the cook/manager had patronizingly spoke and lied. You would be foolish to go to this location for anything! There are too many other nicer and better restaurants in the Exton, PA area that know how to properly serve breakfast and treat their customers, who they value. Pkease, don't waste your time and money at this...

Good news first. The server and other employee servers were in clean uniforms. My wife's eggs and my eggs were properly cooked.

Now for the bad. It appears this is a soft opening as only half of the restaurant was open. The wait was twenty plus minutes. When we sat, I observed the servers seamed to meander around not quite knowing what they should be doing. Definitely more training needed. With only a dozen or so tables filled, the meal still took forty minutes to show up. The server did not refill my water until she showed up with the food. Instead of bringing a pitcher of water to fill my glass, she took my glass away to fill it, rather odd.

In the hopes of having a good meal, I splurged and had the country fried steak and eggs with pancakes. My wife had overeasy eggs with three types of meat with pancakes.

My hash browns were nice and crispy but over salted. My eggs were properly cooked. The country fried steak was crunchy but overly breaded and salted. The gravy was thick and pasty. The pancakes were hard and dry on top and room temperature.

My wife liked her meal. Crispy hash browns, two eggs over easy, three meats and pancakes. Her complaint was that she asked for poached eggs and was told no. The server stated she had never heard of poached eggs and could we explain what poached eggs were. She was unsure if the IHOP cooks could make poached eggs, so my wife switched to over easy eggs.

I was able to see part of the kitchen staff and found at least two wearing hoodies. One even had his hood up. He looked like a hoodlum, not professional at all. No chefs jackets used for kitchen staff, nor uniform shirts, tee's or other etc.

I went into the men's room and found it to be dirty, paper towel in urinal, garbage can full and bits of paper debris on floor. I think the twenty five to thirty dollar breakfast not worth the value.

We will...

Stopped by for a late brunch yesterday. As we were being seated, the lady in the booth behind us was complaining to the manager about being charged for additional ingredients and stated that she shouldn't pay for them because the waitress didn't let her know it was an extra charge (note: additional pricing is clearly marked on the menu). A few minutes later, the lady interrupted the waitress as she was taking our drink order. The waitress politely stated that she will be right with her and immediately went to her afterwards. The lady was curt and told her not to worry about it. Fast forward a few minutes, the lady is towards the back of the restaurant speaking loudly to the manager. Not sure what was said but as she stormed out the door, the manager was walking behind her apologizing that the lady was upset. Fast forward a few more minutes, the manager says to the waitress loudly, in front of the reception area, in front of other staff and patrons, "You need more training!" The waitress questioned why and the manager started to list reasons why. There was an exchange and the waitress was upset (as she should have been). It was clear that the manager was angry about the exchange with the lady and she was taking her frustration out on the waitress. It's also clear that the person who needs more training is the manager. She needs to be trained in effective leadership, emotional intelligence and professionalism. If the waitress made a mistake, a good manager would have addressed her personally, informed her of the focuses for the additional training, and offered to be a source of support through the process. Unfortunately, this manager decided to humiliate the waitress amongst her peers and a dozen patrons. This was an embarrassment on your establishment and...