Applebee's Grill + Bar — Restaurant in Woodbridge Township

I am compelled to express my disappointment with my recent experience at the Applebee's location in Woodbridge on Saturday, September 20, 2025. As a loyal customer of this establishment for many years, I was dismayed by the subpar service and overall experience. My friends and I visited after attending an event at the Rahway PAC, intending to take advantage of the half-priced appetizers offered during after-hours. Our waitress, a young lady whose name I unfortunately cannot recall, seemed somewhat off from the beginning. Her initial mistake with our drink orders, which required repetition to correct, was dismissed as "she may be a new employee" given our familiarity with the establishment. However, the issues persisted as our food arrived, only to discover that one of our friends had not received her meal. She had opted for the 2 for $25 deal, selecting the Ceasar salad and requesting the remainder to-go. Shortly thereafter, a party of approximately 10 individuals was seated literally on top of us, despite the area being relatively empty. The proximity of this group to our table was unsettling, with some members' backs literally touching our table. Furthermore, one gentleman's hair (he was scratching his head) fell onto our food, prompting us to request a manager. Unfortunately, the manager failed to appear initially, and our waitress was nowhere to be found, necessitating our requests for drinks and managerial intervention to other employees. As the wait grew excessively long, I took it upon myself to demand the manager again! Only upon the employees witnessing our frustration did the manager, Mike, appear. Regrettably, Mike's demeanor and response to our concerns were utterly disappointing!! His apology and offer to give me a complimentary drink seemed hollow, particularly for an additional strawberry iced tea. This response struck me as tone-deaf, given the circumstances. We requested to-go containers and sought to expedite our departure. Upon presenting the check, Mike claimed to have deducted $20 from our check, yet overcharged us for the 2 for $25 deal, charging $30 instead, and also charging me for the strawberry iced tea. After bringing this to his attention and explaining the situation once more, he made the necessary adjustments while offering excuses for himself and his staff. In conclusion, this experience was the worst I have ever had at Applebee's. It would be prudent for Applebee's to reconsider seating large parties in close proximity to smaller groups seeking a quiet dining experience, especially when physical contact between tables was not necessary!! The pic was just before the party of...

Very poor experience. We should have seen the warning signs from the beginning and just left... The restaurant was fairly empty (maybe had about 5 tables filled); however, there were tons of staff. We got seated in a booth; we couldn't even sit in the booth because the seats were so far pushed towards the table, maybe a toddler could have fit. We had to push the seats back ourselves without any assistance (talk about embarrassing!). We ordered our food pretty quickly and received drinks. This is where things go wrong because the waitress didn't write down our order... We received some of our food, (my main entree, my salad, and friends 3 for $12 appetizers). We ordered the chips and queso appetizer that didn't even come until 6-10 minutes later and it was wrong! It came out with a mound of ground beef when we asked for just chips and queso because we can't eat ground beef. She took it back. I thought you were supposed to receive appetizers BEFORE your meal?!? Not only that, but my salad too! My Caesar salad had no dressing so I had to ask for dressing which was a little ridiculous. My sandwich was also covered in barbeque sauce when I specifically said no sauce of any kind please. My friend ordered the 3 for $12 (he chose a house salad, mozzarella sticks, and boneless BBQ wings). The ranch he received was completely frozen, making it inedible. The salad had more tomatoes than lettuce (also requested no tomato on the salad). Wings were lukewarm at best, not necessarily an issue there other than he couldn't use ranch with the wings. Queso came back out approximately another 10 mins down the line and by this time we had already finished most of our salads and other food. We also only received 1 refill on our drinks the entire time. Again, restaurant was not busy, so no excuse for this experience...also was overcharged on the bill for 2 things of queso and had to have them correct it. Very very very poor experience....

I frequent this apple bees with my family anytime we visit Woodbridge and I want to emphasize that it is normally a pleasant experience. For some reason today, we were given a hard time by the hostess with the long braids. We have 2 toddlers one at high chair age and one at booster seat age. When we do come, we are normally placed in a back booth, out of the way. We are able to sit with our stroller and a high chair and still not block the pathway. Today we were told we had to leave our stroller at the front. This made me uncomfortable because we had valuables in the stroller and it would be out of our vision but whatever. She then took us to sit at a table with chairs and we expressed that we couldn’t put our daughter to sit in a booster seat safely here. There was a booth available right across the aisle. She explained we can sit there but we wouldn’t be able to use the highchair for our son. Our son is too small for a booster seat. Especially considering there is no seat belt. She said that we would be blocking the pathway. This was absolutely not true, like at all. There was still at least 4-5 feet for people to get around. I’d also like to mention there were about 5 people in the entire restaurant at the time, it’s not like it was packed. She made no attempt to accommodate us or resolve the situation. It kind of was a “too bad” situation. How are you telling me it’s not possible to be seated in a place where I can have a highchair and booster seat. When someone in a wheelchair comes, does she refuse to seat them? We left and went elsewhere.Idk, generally a good Applebees but this just rubbed me the wrong way, especially with her nonchalant attitude. I felt compelled to...