IHOP — Restaurant in Wichita

I'm very disappointed in my recent visit to this IHOP. Our food was decent but our service was horrible from our waitress...

Our server was Eva, when we first came into the establishment we were looked up and down as we were seated on the bench. My husband, myself, and my 3 children (2 being infants). She proceeded to ask if we had been helped. I said no she replied with how many? I said two adults one child and two high chairs. She sat us in a corner booth right up front and by the kitchen doors. She then proceeded to make jokes about taking our engery drinks from us ("no out side drinks allowed I'll have to take those from you") instead of asking what she could get us to drink. She then stated that she sent a trainee out to get her an engery drink while still being on the clock. She then laughed and stated just don't tell anyone. This went on for about two mins as we were settling into the cramped booth. She gave us about five minutes and came back to our table. My husband and child were ready to order. She still proceeded to make comments about our drinks. She finally took our drink order . She came back in a few minutes to grab our order for our food but was very distracted and had to ask several time what we had said. Another waitress brought our food out. Our bacon was still raw. The waitress that brought us our food replaced the bacon. We asked Eva in her passing for syrup, my husband's short stack and salt and pepper, she said okay just a second. About 5 mins had passed with her walking by several time i finally asked the other waitress to grab these things. She was back within a minute with the things we asked for. Eva our waitress checked on us once the entire time, which was at the very end of our visit. While were there she seemed too busy to wait on us. When we asked to speak to a manager for the service, the waitress dropped her head and informed us Eva was the manager and asked if she could help with something. We said no but expressed our concerns. The next thing we knew the waitress and Eva went to the kitchen and the waitress had told Eva about our complaint and she came over to the table to confront us while bringing our check, saying "she is the manager and it's her responsibility to seat the front of house and she had such a large section and the other staff only had half of the section she had and that's why she was too busy to take care of us." I was like okay thank you. I was embarrassed for her to make a scene at her place of work. I am really disappointed and probably will not be going back to this location. I didn't get the waitress name but she did so well we tipped her instead of Eva.

I called into corporate and left information about this as soon as we left the restaurant no one seemed to care...

I came in at 4:30 A.M. on Friday, March 18, 2016 and it was a fantastic experience. I have ate at all the IHOP's in both Wichita KS and Kansas City KS/MO. I will say this is the best blue building IHOP I have been to yet, the food was super fresh and tasted to perfection, I had Jaime K as my waitress but all waitresses at one point or another greeted me and asked how I was doing, they had fantastic conversations with me and in the middle of talking were wiping down tables, taking dishes to the back and sweeping the floor, and in the middle of all that, they still focused on the conversation.

The environment is very welcoming it was laid back and calm, and even though it's brand new and understaffed, they carried the weight and made the job that is very difficult seem effortless.

My personal input to the negative comments is that no matter what business you go to problems arise at one point or another and personally I don't know how the staff was being so called "rude" or any background info, but if the staff was being rude, then yes that is a problem. But I did not see that on this visit. As well I would like to add that if equipment doesn't work, something is lost or whatever the case may be, instead of making the store look bad since their equipment malfunctioned, go more so off of the staff and the way they either resolved, or failed to resolve the issue.

I don't care what business you go to at one point or another equipment breaks down and there is no way for it to just be fixed just for the customer on their demand in many cases, so if that is the issue what you should do is learn how to be more workable with the employees and reevaluate the way that you perceive whether a store is good or bad, because if you go off the fact that equipment malfunctioned, then every store in the world is a bad store.

That's my input and instead of taking these reviews for your decision of whether or not you come in, I suggest you come in with an open mind and see for yourself whether you like it or not. Because not all businesses work for everybody, because people in general are...

Edited, see end. Took my family and parents here for a late night dinner, we got here at about 8PM, upon arriving there were 4 employees sitting outside on the sidewalk not far from the entrance smoking, one of which had her red work uniform unbuttoned revealing her sports bra and full stomach, it wasn't very busy, appeared to be just two tables seated inside, we go inside, stand up front for a couple of minutes waiting, which was kind of surprising being that there were 4 employees doing nothing, a very nice young presumably new Asain girl politely seated us, and said your server will be with you soon. About 10 minutes go by and she came back and said "your server is busy but I will go ahead and take your drink order", she returned with our drinks and said "I will go get your server, she is busy", in which at this time there was still the only two seated tables that already had food... 20 minutes go by, no one came, and another couple came in and was seated by a server, and immediately had their drinks ordered, then another couple came in and same thing, then finally their servers came back to take their orders, didn't even look in our general direction. At this point it had been about 45 minutes, and then, yet another couple came in and was seated and had their drinks ordered, while two other presumably servers, were sitting at a booth folding silverware into napkins.... we decided to leave, as this was not the first, nor second time we have experienced bad service at this location. This was clearly not an issue of being understaffed... there were plenty of employees there, maybe even too many for as slow as it was. We will absolutely not return, very poor management, very poor customer service, and poor cleanliness as well.

After this review I was contacted by Chris, they carefully reviewed the situation and made immediate changes. Chris was from another location and was running this location along with the District Manager. He was very cordial, very attentive to the situation and offered for our return. We did end up going back for a much more pleasant experience!...