This is not a localized problem as I have lived all over the east coast and the midwest. What is the deal with the service at Applebees? I am convinced that they have a universal management system that has waiters and waitresses to be the most unattentive in the business.
Not that they aren’t polite and get your order correct. They just seem to disappear into the back room forever.
Is this they’re operating style? Are they doing double duty with some other responsibilities in the back? Are they told to purposely “stay away” from the customers so they can stay all night?
I made it a habit to be ready to pay when the bill comes, otherwise they’ll disappear for another 15 minutes after dropping the bill.
Has anyone out there worked at this place? What in god’s name is going on? TGI Friday’s and Ruby Tuesdays don’t seem to have this problem.
Again, this seems to be a universal problem at all thier locations.
The deal with Applebee’s: they fuckin’ suck, in all respects.
Any other questions?
Twice in my life, I have sat down in a restaurant, asked for and received sweet tea, and then never seen my waiter/waitress again. Both times, I walked out after 30 minutes without paying for the tea.
And yes … both instances occurred in an Applebee’s. Different locations.
Humm. There’s a new Applebee’s here in Calgary and I’ve eaten there a few times - it was quite good all times - the prices are a bit high for what you get (I’m compairing to Moxies and Cheesecake cafe) but the food was decent and the service was pretty good.
Sometimes the hosti are bimbos, but I always assumed that went with the territory.
I dunno - maybe they’re better in Canada.
Ever since they got rid of their gyros, it’s been nothing but downhill.
I eat at the Applebee’s around here all the time and the service is great. It’s a bit expensive, and the food is not fancy or anything, but it’s enjoyable enough for me.
Maybe it’s a franchise issue.
I think I’ve been to an Applebee’s once or twice in my entire life, and that was many, many (probably close to 15) years ago. But I decided never to set foot in one again after having read this post in the “What is gaybashing like?” thread. Seems their service is pretty bad universally. Good thing I won’t be going there.
I agree that Applebee’s has to worse service that I have ever seen, or had to live through. Ate at ones in California and Oregon and it is the same crap service in both states.
They’re all the same, and I dont even remember the last time I was in one. I met UncleBeer at one point for drinks a couple years ago – that may have been an Applebee’s, but it could have just as easily been a Thank Chilis it’s the Olive Friday.
Anyway, of course the food is average and the service is usually below average at these places. What really chafes my ass lately about Applebee’s is their fucking radio commercials.
Cue cowboy voice, “Home on the Range” style vocals:
“I want steak, I want steak, lots of juicy juicy steak…AT APPLE-BEES”
This fucking jingle was looping in my head for a better portion of the day last week. I was fucking homicidal by the time I left work.
mmm…I guess my home Applebee’s must be special. It not only has decent waitstaff, but they do the whole friendly neighbour deal. My family has "our"waiter, who sometimes tends bar there. Even when he’s on the bar, he’ll take a second to come by our table and say hi, inquire about recent events, chat about his SO, etc. We don’t go there more than once or twice a month, but it is our preferred spot for big "family " dinners.
(“Family” in this case refers to not only my family, but my best friend’s family, both extended a degree or two, plus boyfriends, just friends, and friendly people we found in the street. An “intimate family” dinner can consist of about 11 people.)
- Applebee’s on Amherst St. in Nashua, NH.
After waiting 20 minutes to get service…at 3pm on a Wednesday (not exactly rush hour)…I finally have Miss Surly McSurly come up to take my order.
The food took long to arrive; not because of a delay in the kitchen, but because Surly had to stop at the bar and shoot the breeze with the bartender and a couple of her friends. WHILE HOLDING MY MEAL!!! She is EATING her own food at a table as my burger is getting cold. I finally walk over there and ask if I could get my food as I am in a hurry. She rolls her eyes, clicks her tongue and says “huff this is my first break today” and hands me the food.
I place it on my table and walk out. I then wrote a nastygram to the store manager, and he sent me $50 in gift certificates which I used at a different store.
Every other time I have been to Applebee’s has been excellent. But after 11 years I still remember that as the absolute worst customer service I have ever received.
El Paso, TX Applebees. “Let’s stop and grab a quick bite.”
I ordered a salad, he ordered, I dunno, a hamburger? It took us about an hour and a half from being seated to paying our bill and getting out the door.
My previous, and only other experience with them wasn’t so hot, either, so now I avoid them as much as possible.
My sister, in her waitressing days, worked at one for about three weeks. She had a hard enough time dealing with forced tip-sharing (which, from what I understand, is illegal in Minnesota). When she found out the waiters - ALL of them - made more than the waitresses regardless of experience she went through the roof.
When you have a management which condones such practices it doesn’t take long for the help to not give a flying fuck.
My personal Applebee’s complaint is the itsy-bitsy portions. I have a healthy appetite for a relatively small person, and I always leave there still hungry. Lame, considering the prices. Gimme a Grindstone Charley’s any day… they really feed ya.
I haven’t eaten at an Applebee’s in ages. Not since the time that someone in their kitchen thought that “rare” meant “well-done”. Twice!
Sent the first one back, they brought out another one, still brown all the way through. :rolleyes:
The last time I was at Applebees was about three years ago for a Karate Black Belt graduation party. There were about ten of us, mostly black belts, with some of our stuff along. We still got lousy service, but it did improve when we started to complain and show our irritation.
Needless to say, I don’t go there often. But for all-time bad service, it had to be the (now closed) Mamma D’s in Robbinsdale, Minnesota, with Billabongs in Edina, MN as a close second.
Of course, many California restaurants would qualify for a good pitting if they were not in California. I remember taking about an hour and a half to get our food at a place in San Diego (after taking an hour and a half to get in the door and another 45 minutes to get our orders taken). When I said something at about the hour mark, my California friends expressed astonishment at my “impatience”. Two hours and 15 minutes from seating to food? Fuck that noise! I don’t know how anyone could tolerate that as ‘normal’.
Lordamercy, what do you call big portions?! The Applebee’s by me serves their food on platters not plates.
It seems to me that it is a style of restaurant service engineered, researched and developed and honed by profit and loss statements. All the chain restaurants seem to use it. Serve GIGANTIC PORTIONS with as few waitstaff as possible. It’ll take each customer x amount of time to wade through that 14 ounce stake and y amount of waitstaff is the minimum amount of people needed to shovel t amount of platters.
If this equation is spoiled by missing ketchup or a extra fast beer drinker then you are shit outta luck.
Every time I see one of these “Adult-oriented deep-fried stupid-assed junk on the walls theme restaurants engineered for men wearing golf shirts and women wearing Gap”, I refer to them by the shorter descriptor, “TGI McScratchy’s”.
I mean, shit fire and save the matches - they’re all the same, aren’t they? Scrambling and clawing to join the pack to show how “neat” and “risque” they are by putting a hat on a stuffed alligator on their wall, or hanging someone’s old rotton canoe from the ceiling?
What do we have on the roll-call of crapitude:
TGI Friday’s
Ruby Tuesdays
Applebees
Chi-chi’s
Chili’s
Houlihan’s
?
(although, I will admit the TGI Friday’s in Paris was very nice. )
Ah, so thats what Houlihan’s is. We passed one earlier today.
Ok, no need to bother with that one…
The last time I was at an Applebees was years ago, for my sister’s college graduation (it was her choice, otherwise my food snobbishness would have tried to get us to go somewhere else). The wait was horrendous because the place was packed and they just didn’t seem to have enough people on staff to handle the crowd. One poor little waitress was hustling down the aisle, carrying a tray bigger than she was, loaded with at least two tabes’ worth of dirty dishes. Right as she passed us, she slipped in something–cleaning was suffering too-- and the whole tray ended up on my sister. From her neck to her toes, she was covered in nasty old food, drinks and who knows what else. Everybody apologized until we started to feel bad for them. Lots of free meals and they paid for dry cleaning, gave my sister free t-shirts to wear home, so at least they weren’t jerks about it all.