Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar

[BSIGrimreaper]

Here is my & BSIBetterHalf's experience at our friendly neighborhood grill & bar:

We were seated in a timely matter. We ordered drinks & boneless wings honey bbq. I mentioned to the waiter to please have the wings sause (the dip) brought on the side. He came back with our drinks & we ordered. My wife got the Chicken Faj rollup & I ordered a
P L A I N cheese burger. I mentioned to the waiter that I had been here before & had it messed up. I wanted to make sure he understude my message that I wanted Meat,Bun, & cheese. NOTHING ELSE.
We waited a while the server did an okay job of making sure we had drinks. Our wings were brought WITH THE SAUCE IN THE PLATE, not on the side as we had asked!
The sause was dripping onto the wings. (I do not care for the sause personally) Then our food was brought out. First thing I noticed, the hamburger had lettus all on the plate. He made excues that the kitchen had screwed up the food. He left to go wait on others, I lifted the hamburger up & there was stuff in between the cheese & the hamburger & the fries had mayo or something on them. The server came back & asked if things were okay. I told him NO! I asked for a new hamburger prepared LIKE I had asked from the beginning. I told him I could have gone next door & gotten a hamburger at burger king done RIGHT & for less trouble & MONEY! He left, I saw him go talk to a guy & then go to the back. AS I watched my wife enjoy her meal. I was hungry, but did not feel like waiting another 15 minutes for my meal. The server came back & I told him to just make it to go! A man came up to me after that, did not tell me if he was manager or not. Asked what the problem was & I told him, he then made excuess's then told me that the hamburger would be on the house, then left. Another man brought me the meal back & said he was sorry for my inconvence. (note my orginal hamburger & fries were taken back to the back a 5 minutes before the man came to me with the bag) Once again THIS man did not identfy himself, nor did anyone we talked to said they were mangers or anything. I got home opened the box up & there were my SAME orginal fries ! How do I know, you say, well they had that white ?mayo stuff on the edge of a few of them. My wife smelled it & said it might be mayo. Then I looked at the hamburge & it had lettus on the bottom of the bun.

I did not want to know what was that mayo stuff on the fries. ONLY reason we ever would set foot in those doors again is if there are some big changes in management & servers! Our server gave us bad looks from the first time I said there was a problem till he left us at the end with the check.

Well just wanted others know about the kind of service you can expect at applebee's. Especially if you say there is something wrong, & what friendly managers they have.

I decided to post a complaint on there webpage to see if that has any results or not. I did this on Sunday Morning, March 13,2005. If I get contacted or anything I will post the messages/Emails here.

[beastmanjack]

Good luck getting them to send you anything. most of the time I've did that i got nothing. Our Applebees in Columbus is the same way. service sucks. The only reason I still go is that they do make a great Margaretta.
Again Good luck' I hope everything comes out ok.

[wittzo]

I've never had problems with the service or food quality there, the food used to be the same old stuff, like it was just boring, nothing special..

I make it a point to spell out what I want when I order anywhere I go to make sure they know what I want.

I guess they are so used to people just ordering the food like it is in the menu with no mods..

Of course if I just wanted meat and bread, I would get a steak, it costs about the same in the end, and there's only a couple of things they can screw up..

[wittzo]

I take everything back about Applebee's in my previous post...Daaaaang!

My wife wanted me to meet her at Applebee's, since we had pretty good service and good food the last time we ate there, I said okay..But BSIGrimreaper's review was stuck in the back of my mind. I figured I would try them out to make sure...

I got there at 12:00, my wife hadn't gotten there yet, I was immediately seated in the smoking area, so my wife could schmoke and feed her inner demons..It wasn't busy, they had two people handling the area, there were two other tables to my right and one on my left that were being served. I waited about five minutes before I was introduced to my server, she took my drink order about five minutes later. I was being served by a heavyset German woman with short, grayish hair. She took my drink order (12:10) and my Wittsenses started to tingle, but I didn't know why, yet.

She didn't give me a chance to order sweet tea for my wife, I usually do that to save some time. About 5 minutes later some other girl came to take my drink order because I hadn't been served yet, the German lady told her that she was getting it. I told the other girl that I needed to order some sweet tea for my wife who wasn't there yet. She was back in a flash with my wife's tea. A few minutes later, the German woman showed up with my tea and was about to admonish the young girl for duplicating her "efforts". I told her that my wife was coming, so that could be her tea.

My wife came in a few minutes after the tea, no one had come by to take my food order yet. The tea was totally unsweetened, it tasted like effluvium with a lemony aftertaste. It made my tongue want to jump out of my head and slap me, it was so bad. My wife agreed.

The German lady came back to take our orders at 12:20 and I told her that the tea was unsweetened. She tried to tell me that it was sweet tea, they just didn't use as much sugar as other places. She offered that I could add some sugar to it. I told her that I wanted "real" sweet tea. She took our glasses and came back and had me taste it. It was "okay", at least the sewer taste was covered up by my lemon and the sugar. She then told me that she added sugar to it herself. Wth

Around 12:35 I made a comment outloud that hopefully our food would get there before my wife had to go back to work. The lady must have heard me, she rushed past saying,"I'll check on your food." She wasn't saying it to us directly, we were talking to each other when she said it..She came back a few minutes later(it was about 12:40) and asked,"I hope you aren't in a hurry?". I asked why and she said that she forgot to put in our order at the kitchen.

Oh d*mn... I told her that the whole point of coming to a restaurant was to eat food. People order it, it's brought to you, and we eat it. She offered to get us some dinner salads on the house, my wife's shrimp would be ready quickly. I ordered a salad, my wife declined. She brought back the salad and I told her, "You FORGOT to put in our order? That's your job isn't it?" She told me that "It happens sometimes."

I don't know about you, I do not like non-apologies. . I told her we weren't paying for a thing. She insisted that the shrimp would be out right away and left us there. Didn't ask us if we wanted to speak to a manager or anything. I was so upset for them wasting my wife's lunch hour...

We had to leave before I blew a gasket. It was just too much to handle. Poor service, crappy tea, a non-apologetic server..We just got up and left at 12:45. I'm debating whether to call them up and complain, but I don't want to get riled up again and ruin my whole day. Good Lord!

Edit: I wrote this when I was still really upset, going Postal upset, so I took out the insulting descriptors of my server. She didn't show any tact or regrets. Effluvium is a fancy,dancy word for swamp or sewer water or at least I meant it as such.

[BSIGrimreaper]

Your e-mail has been received at Applebee's Guest Relations.

We will review your feedback and be in touch within approximately 3 - 5 business days. Our normal response times are between two and three business days. Please keep this e-mail so you have your case number for future reference.

If you are contacting us about an e-mail you received promising a free $50 gift certificate for forwarding it to nine other people, please be advised that the e-mail is a hoax. It was not started by Applebee's and there is no validity to its false promise. Unfortunately, it is extremely easy for someone to begin this type of scam. We know of several other large companies (i.e. Microsoft, Cracker Barrel) who have had similar e-mails started without their knowledge too.

Your Case Number is 000000. (I left the correct number out)

Thanks for contacting us.

Applebee's Guest Relations Department
1-888-592-7753

(1st Email I recieved Monday, March 14, 2005 9:22 AM)

[BSIGrimreaper]

(2nd Email I recieved Tuesday, March 15, 2005 9:39 PM )
Dear (BSIGrimreaper): (changed from my real name)



Please accept my apology for the poor service you received at my Tupelo restaurant. I will be calling you in the next day or so to speak with you further, as I research with the restaurant as to why this occurred.

Thanks for your comments as I take them very serious.



Eddie Cook

Regional Manager

601-000-0000 (I was tempted to leave his number, but I am not that kind of person)

[BSIGrimreaper]

(3rd Email I recieved Wednesday, March 16, 2005 12:01 PM)

March 16, 2005


Dear BSIGrimreaper,(left my real name out)

We received your email regarding your visit to the Tupelo Applebee's and have forwarded it to Quality Restaurant Concepts, our franchisee that owns this location. One of their representatives should be contacting you within the next four business days.

If we may be of further assistance, you can reach us by calling 888-59-APPLE (888-592-7753) between 8:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Friday, or between 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., on Saturday. All times listed are Central Standard Time.

Sincerely,

Regina Pierce
Guest Relations Coordinator
Ref # 000000(changed to 0's)

[BSIGrimreaper]

(4th Email I recieved Wednesday, March 16, 2005 2:07 PM)

Mr. (BSIGrimreaper), (changed from my real name)



My name is Court Welch, and I am the General Manager of Applebee’s in Tupelo. I recently received your comments concerning your last visit, and please allow me to apologize for the poor level of service that was extended to you and your wife. It is embarrassing that we could mess up an order that simple. It sometimes seems that the easier the order, the more difficult we make it. The fact of the matter is that regardless of what issues we have, you come to us for a service, and obviously you did not get the service that you deserved. Our company motto is “A Great Guest Experience – Every Time!” There is no question that we failed to reach our goal on your last visit. I would love the chance to speak with you concerning your experience, and will attempt to reach you at the number that you gave at our website. If you would like to contact me, my phone number is 840-4009. Again, please allow me to apologize for our lack of service, and also for any inconvenience that we caused.



Best regards,



Court Welch







Court Welch

General Manager

Applebee's Tupelo

[phone] (Left the number here because anyone can look up the number for Applebee's in the phone book)

[wittzo]

BSIGrimreaper, when did you receive each of the emails? How long was their response time? Did you call them yet?

[Pontotocmom]

How did the manager act when you talked to him?

[BSIGrimreaper]

(Today March 16,2005 7:00pm)
I edited all my posts with the times that the emails were all sent to me & also posted on the orginal post what day I posted on the Applebee's website.

I talked to Court Welch, General Manager of Applebee's. He asked a lot of questions & informed me that he was not there on that day that I visited. I told him that I was not happy with the service & also informed him that I had seen a post on this website listing about a forums member having a bad visit today.
He asked me if I knew his number, which I did, but told him instead that I would let Wittzo know that he was wanting to talk to him. The Manager apologized for my experience & asked to have the chance to make it better. He asked us to come back again & the meal would be on him. We plan on going back Saturday.
I will post my experience here Saturday night or Sunday.
The only thing I did not really like, was there was no excuess for the ?? assistant managers not identifing themselves as management & I really did not get into why they didn't do so. Also why the food was brought to me prepared wrong in the first place, or why they have been having a run of bad service. I told the Manager that me & my wife have been to Applebee's 3 times over the past two months & 2 out the 3 visits were bad. The one good visit was not really that great, its just they got the food right, it was not great but it was not bad either.

I will post again After my next visit to Applebee's
(I also sent a link for this website to the Manager & Regional Manager of the Applebee's store in Tupelo)

[Pontotocmom]

At least they are responding. When a topic for Barnhills is opened I'll tell all of you the horrible time we had. And even their website didn't respond.

[countrygirl]

Posted by: Pontotocmom Posted on: Mar 16th, 2005, 11:45pm
At least they are responding. When a topic for Barnhills is opened I'll tell all of you the horrible time we had. And even their website didn't respond.
[/quote

Hi pontotocmom! You can start a new thread anytime you like. Just go to the upper right hand corner and post a new thread. I'd like to read about your experience.

[BSIGrimreaper]

(update Friday March 18,2005)
Eddie Cook, ,Regional Manager for Applebee's gave me a call @ my work. (I sent him an email with a link to this website & also my home & work number) We talked a bit, he expressed to me that he was sorry for my experience & wanted to make sure that I had talked to the Manager their. Also I asked if he checked out this webpage, which he said he did. I mentioned to him that this was not the first time I had bad service there & that a friend (Wittzo) had bad service the day before. He asked that If I would to let Wittzo have his phone number & he would talk to him about his experience there. I told him that me & my wife planned on eating at Applebee's Saturday night & were told to inform the Manager when we came. I thanked him for calling me & told him I planned on posting here my experience from Saturdays Night.

[wittzo]

I talked to a lower member of management on the phone, then I called the regional manager, he's going to hook us up tonight. BSIGrimreaper, our wives, and I are going to be there. Come watch the Applebee's FunFest Freakshow! ;D