Applebee's
Reviews and Complaints

i have an issue that i don't know what to do about. i had a justifiable write up for a guest complaint. i was the one to tell my manager that she should either write me up or fire me. she decided to write me up, so that was acceptable. i then had a table who had a very non valid complaint, which you know happens all the time. since the the other complaint had only happened 2 days before, they took me off the floor and i had to come in for a "meeting" with the GM and the assistant who wrote me up. i held to the point that the last complaint was bogus, yet i then brought up all the problems i had been experiencing with management and the running of the restaurant, and consequently, i was "let go". they did allow me to wait for almost 3 days before they could apparently make a decision and although i knew what the outcome would be i was very frustrated by the way this was handled. as far as i know, in california one has to get written up 3 times for the same issue, not once------any advice? applebees has problems, at least her in socal

So disappointed with the apple bees in Sacramento ca I was so excited to bring my family there today since my son has never been there are waitress did not know what she was doing my son never got his food my grandson did not get his French fries with his hamburger my son walk out and will never eat there again my grandson did not eat his hamburger because he wanted his fries my salad was good but couldn't eat because my son did not get his food so I paid for our meal and walk we live about 100 miles from there and I brag about apple bees all day couldn't wait to feed my family and leave happy thanks for ruining my day, , , ,

I ate at Applebee's in Roanoke, Va. today which was Saturday. My friend and I both ordered the Pick 2 . Spinach and Shrimp salad and french onion soup. They informed us they did not serve that on Saturdays. Only Mon through Fri. If you can make it Mon. through Fr. you can make it on Saturday. I will not eat at that establishment ever again. If that is the way you treat you customers. Linda Cord

I agree 100%!
I was at the Applebee's in Arlington, Tx on cooper street & I-20. Me and my fiancee' were eating and the manager was yelling at his staff using the Fuc...word more than 6 times and then not 5 minutes later an employee was pointing to us and used the Fuc...word over 15 times talking about us..that the rest. was closed and that this was "f...ing IHOP!" THAT WE SHOULD GET THE "F" OUT! Even though we had asked the manager if it was ok to stay since they were in fact closed and he stated "yes" that they would be there for another couple of hours. The person who was angry with us...NEVER WAITED ON US AND WE WEREN'T EVEN IN THE AREA WHERE HE WAS CLEANING!

THE MANAGER DID NOTHING BUT THREATEN US WHEN WE BROUGHT IT TO HIS ATTENTION! OUR WAITRESS NEVER BROUGHT BACK OUR CHANGE & WE DIDN'T EVEN GET TO EAT HALF OF OUR MEAL WHEN WE HAD TO LEAVE!

DO NOT EAT HERE!
IT'S A NIGHTMARE!

I would have to agree with you and I work for an Applebees! Not the one you attended, and I'm very sorry you had to deal with that. But there not any better to there staff! i have been there well over a year and I'm 5 months pregnant and my husband has been in Iraq the whole time. I got news of this home coming and told them as much as I knew right way. But I was told that I would NOT be aloud to be there to get him home if i was sch. to work and no one to work for me. And then was told by a MANGER that he has been gone this long, and that he could wait a few more hours if he has too. It took Everything in me not to say anything back.

So i understand and again i'm very sorry you had to deal with that. i have been a server for years and Applebees by far is the worst place i have ever worked. And if i did not need the money I would have walked out.

Acknowledged by who? Restaurants don't check this site. If you want to complain effectively, call the restaurant.

i went to your gainsville restaurant thurs evening, i gave the waitress 2 gift cards. one had 50.00 written on it. the other was a 25.oo gift card. she came back with the 50.00 card saying nothing was on it. but the place where it said 59.00 was not on it. the manager came over and said he called the number on the back and it was empty. we had 7 people and it got very embarrasing. i live in deltonam fla and we eat at the restaurant in orange city, and have never had this problem. i was very upset. i know someone switched my card, but had no way of proving it. the manager said he was going to get the general manager to come over but never did. i really feel i was scammed and should get some restatution my name is sheila martin, i live at 2318 matthew circle. deltona, fla. 32738 my phone number is [protected]/ thank you

I wouldn't be so harsh to call the server a theif. maybe that's because i am a server who is dealing with this at the moment from a customer i had tonite. Many cc compainies automatically put in 20%-25% tip when you use their card at the restaurant. at the end of the night when the restaurant calls them through THEN they adjust it to what the tip actually was. In my case, our manager recieved the phone call an hour after the lady left... we were slammed and i didn't have the time to go through to claim any of my electronic tips let alone hers (which we are supposed to do at the end of the night anyway)... our manager even was there with me then when i claimed my tips that night and saw that i put in that i received cash for hers... i wish people weren't so stupid and would know the policies of their credit cards... it would have saved me a lot of hassle.

Some restuarants also put the tip charge in automatically but at end of night the actual charge is what the reciept states. Charlie Browns is good for this... I used credit card & when I got home I happened to look at bill, I called the restuarant and sure enough they included the tip but at end of night they ring up as what the exact charge was.. yes , I contacted CC co to watch this charge and this is their practice. They say most people who use their CC to pay for meal also includes Tip when you give separately always put a zero with huge line across or write given in CASH. When my statement came sure enough it was what I ACTUALLY signed for.

Ypu should not have signed the credit card reciept if you had any dispute with the charge.Perhaps the waitress made a mistake when she entered the total.

Have you contacted your credit card to dispute the charge? They would be the ones to investigate if the tip was placed as incorrect, they would require the copy of the slip from that Applebee's.

Pablo

Servers work on tips. There is no financial benefit to them giving bad service to someone, simply based on race. I think the only people worrying about race was you and the people in your party. Face it, we've all had bad customer service experiences.

"Since you frequent the place, the server may have known or been told that you didn't leave a good tip at one time... so they had other priorities. That's why you should always leave a good tip..."

How do you know that she DIDN'T leave a good tip? There is never an excuse for poor service.

It's not the restaurant, it's the individual, she was intimidated by the fact that " a white woman is with a black man", her personal feelings toward the matter got the better of her and caused the occurrence. I recommend if you go there again, which I do not suggest, but never the less request another server if she happens to be the server, or try another location...

Since you frequent the place, the server may have known or been told that you didn't leave a good tip at one time... so they had other priorities. That's why you should always leave a good tip...

G o To The Applebees in Fenton, It is WAYYY Better, and if you smoke there is a smoking section, but other than that their Steak is Delicious, especially the bourbon street and the Sirloin

"No, no, no. Applebee's is a supurb eatery. It is very unfair to be so cynical just because you order one meal and find it unpleasant. I know for a fact that Applebee's serves some of the FINEST quality food in a family eatery. People please get a life and be kind to Applebee's."

lol, i cant believe you would say that. Applebees in Arnold has gone wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy downhill. the only time i will ever eat there is if they have half off appetizers after 9. no way will i pay full price for food there and no way will i ever buy regular entrees there. im surprised it hasnt gone out of business. the servers suck and get everything wrong. one time i didnt even leave a tip it was so bad, and i always leave a tip even if you suck. Theres so many other places to get good food and service. 54 street, TGI Fridays, hell even Steak N Shake.

Applebees=crap food and service

No, no, no. Applebee's is a supurb eatery. It is very unfair to be so cynical just because you order one meal and find it unpleasant. I know for a fact that Applebee's serves some of the FINEST quality food in a family eatery. People please get a life and be kind to Applebee's.

totally agree with ya on this one .. I went there with my mom and we both ordered shrimp w/ spinach and it came to us horrible .. the shrimp was boiled instead of BROILED and there was crumbled up bacon on top and it was sooo greasy that it didn't say there was suppose to be bacon in the salad .. applebees is sucking and that's a shame cause it USED to be a great place to eat

There is a key difference between Nutritional Information (calories, fat, sodium, etc) and Ingredients List (the break down of what ingredients go into each item on the menu like you see on the backs of canned foods and the like.) Applebee's does provide Nutritional Information, but thus far has not released a list of what goes into making their food. Places like McDonald's, Burger King, etc, provide both, but I have heard that the Big Business owner of Applebee's, Olive Garden, Outback, etc, do not release an Ingredient List. Even if you cannot tell your consumers the exact portion of what goes into their food because it is different every time you make it, at least tell them what exactly you are putting in it, portions aside. (i.e., high fructose corn syrup, whey protein concentrate, milk, soy, etc, etc, etc.)

They could add a nutritional approximation giving the consumer acknowledgement that the exact measurements may vary. In addition, I'm not necessarily interested in how much of something is in my food. I want to know what the ingredients are. Applebees says that certain entres are less than 550 calories but I'm far more interested in the chemical composition of my food.

try going to their website-they dont list em all but they have a category labeled weight watchers of about 8 dishes with cal counts fat grams and fiber grams-funny how folks can find the time to complain but not enough time to do basiuc research

When you add the nutritional information to a menu, the recipe has to be EXACTLY the same EVERY single time. If the recipe for babyback ribs calls for 3 ounces of bbq sauce and you serve it with 3.056 ounces of sauce, you are actually breaking the law. Because the said nutritional information is now incorrect. And you could very easily find yourself served with a lawsuit. In this day and age thats not a far reach. Most restaurants change menu items on a fairly regular basis. For large chain restaurants the r&d, and the expense that goes into one single dish would boggle your mind. Then you have to understand the logistics to supply the new ingredients of that recipe to, lets say 500 restaurants. Every time the menu changed you have to update the list and add it to the menu. 500 stores with 500 menus each=250,000 extra printed pages, if it was only 1 page. Just imagine the paper waste and cost of extra printing. Why would they spend and extra 20,000$ for nutritional analysis on a dish that will be on the menu for 6 weeks? McDonalds can do it because they are a huge company, but even they have a disclaimer.

P.S. www.nutritiondata.com is a great website for someone on a strict diet. You can look up info on almost any food. And you can actually analyze any recipe you make at home.

I work as a restaurant manager, but not for Applebee's. I can tell you, though, that most cities actually regulate what (if any) information must be posted. For example, the city in which my store is located requires us to provide nutritional information for anything pre-made (i.e. pies, etc.).

It would be nearly impossible to provide accurate nutritional information in a full-service restaurant. Each portion may differ slightly, and may come in contact with some items that are not actually IN the food. For example, we make pies with nuts in them. These are made on the same counter that all of our prep-cooking (pre-portioning of meats, fruits, and veggies) is done. Yes, the counter is cleaned in between, but someone with a peanut allergy could have a reaction just from their food touching a surface where a peanut once was.

For this reason, most restaurants will provide a generic statement like, "Peanuts are used in this establishment, and it is possible they may come in contact with your food."

Another reason restaurants don't usually provide complete nutritional information is because doing so may compromise the confidentiality of their recipes.

Usually, if there is a specific ingredient you are worried about, a manager will probably be able to answer it. But don't be surprised or upset if they can't. Managers are not always trained or provided with the information about the amounts or names of every single ingredient in a given product, again for confidentiality reasons. If that manager was to quit tomorrow, he or she could take that knowledge and sell the same product under a different name if he or she knew all the ingredients.

The general rule is that we know about common concerns: nuts, oils, pork, MSG, etc. When you get into gluten-free and things like that, we don't know much about it. And a manager saying, "I don't know" may ACTUALLY be thinking, "I'm 99% sure, but if I'm wrong, I don't want to get sued."

As the previous person said, if your diet is so strict that you MUST see exact nutritional information for everything you consume, you should not be eating in ANY restaurant even if they DO provide such information. As I said before, such information would be an estimate at best and may not include every single ingredient. I sympathize with you - such an strict regimen would be difficult to deal with. Unfortunately, unless legislation comes along on a national level, you'll probably be on your own.

If your on such a strict diet, why are you going out to eat in the first place? I doubt very much your very strict diet would allow anything but raw vegetables bought at supermarkets that swear the product is strictly organic, grown in a local farm that does not use migrant workers.

I agree with u on this. the kitchen manager didnt not handle the issue as he should have. ur best bet was to call the regional manager about this situation and the km wouldve been fired on the spot. but u have to look at it this way, eating at franchise restraunts, u dont expect great service. actually the reason food comes out cold, or incorrectly is becuz the kitchen manager, expo, or servers dont double check the food before it coms out. the only thing management cares about is the times the food has to come out. they dont want the food to come out 14 minutes or more. this is how food orders mess up, or come out 15 minutes late. people bump the food off the screen, and dont run the food for other servers. service is not an issue, its mainly how the restraunt runs. id rather have the food come out late, than it come out messed up, and infuriate the customers. this is how servers dont make good money at applebees. the reason i know this, is becuz im a server as well at applebees, located down in mississippi. if u want good service, go to a local restraunt where everything is ran right. not some franchise, unless u want packaged food thats cooked, when u couldve just stayed home. next time, choose chilis or something, i get better service over there.

but if i was ur server, this issue wouldve never happened, becuz i usually make sure everything is correct before u get ur food.

Applebee's workers can't accept IDs that have been modified in any way whatsoever. It's against store policy. Maybe you shouldn't be cheap and get a new ID

We went to eat at the Applebee's in El Paso Texas on Yarbrough and gateway east (I-10) we had our kids with us and it was one hour after they had opened the restaurant there was only a couple of customers but when we walked in they try to seat us at the very back of the restaurant and when we asked for a table half way towards the front we were denied any seating and of the excuses for one of the tables we tried to request was that it was for seating 6 not for the five of us. We left the restaurant after being denied seating. Sounded to us like a good lawsuit! Our lawyer agreed.

went for my birthday on sunday after noon at the Herkimer NY, and the place was empty only few couples. Long story short the Long wait about 30 min after order, , , food was ice cold, meat was raw and bloody ..the butter wouldn't even melt on the veggies. No coffee refills..Told the waitress and received bad attitude, and talk back...will never go again...

OK LET ME START BY SAYING ME MY BOY FRIEND AND TWO OF MY FRIENDS AND THERE KIDS WHERE ALSO THERE IT WAS MY BOY FRIEND BIRTDAY WE HAD POOR SERVICE THE LADY THAT SEATED US WAS ALSO OUR WAITRESS IN IT WAS CRAZY THE ONLY THING THE WAITRESS DID WAS BRING OUR DRINGS THEN WE ALL ATE AT DIFFERENT TIMES I HAD POOR SERVICE...

Aoolebes is one of my favorite resteraunts, however the past 2 times I have eaten there, I left angry. We were seated right away, howver, we waited for the wiatress to come. finally she came and then about 10 minutes later another came. They argued about what table belonged to who. Then it took 30 minutes for us to get salads. My coffee was cold, my sld for 8.69 was not 1/2 it was 1/3 and it was horable. My spinach was wilted. The service was terriable and the food sucked.

I will not go back there. I usaulalybring my associated there for lunch, no way not now. Thank you Applebees for the wilted spinach and the 1/3 portion of the worst garbage I ever tasted.

I have a complaint i was at the applebbes in addison ill. This afternoon, with my wife i asked for smoking and the guy at the front said there was not any booths because of having a large party, which i understood and went to non. After about five minutes he sat two women in the smoking area, and then three more and then four more i was very upset and couldn't figure out why he did this it wasn't a party at all. Is it because me and my wife our overweight it seems like that. Then my waiter when i ordered my chicken and garlic i ordered a salad we waited over an half hour and he brought my salad with my meal well i usually get the salad first so i told him to take it off the bill, don't know if he did or not we just wanted to get out of there and away from the prejudice people. It seemed like all the help was playing games and the greeter was talking about when he went to the bathroom and he pulled it out. I don't want to hear this neither does my wife. We will never re visit any applebees again no wonder they are being bought buy ihop.

I am a regular customer at applebees at 674 w. Arrow hwy., san dimas, ca 91773. Two weeks ago your bartender deanna served me a small and large bottle of wine. Yes, she cut me off which is fine. But i have to disagree where she could have been nice enough to let me know it was last call. We where talking about a personal friend my daughter was dating. She then out loud for everyone to hear said "you are cut off"... That night my 30 year old daughter went to applebees. She is a l.a. Sheriff. Deanna showed her how much i drank. Which was uncalled for. I can't believed what I've been through. The following week i showed up on a day i didn't realize she was working. She came up to me and told me she would like to talk to me outside. She told me she was still 'angry' with me and other things. I don't feel i deserve this treatment from your employee. I feel harassed. She took a personal issue and made a seen in front of customers walking in. I am a good customer of applebees and would like this issue to be addressed.

My family and I went to Applebee’s after being at the pool to have a late lunch on Friday, June 08, 2007. We wanted to have a nice family lunch, just relax and enjoy our time at Applebee's, as we have in the past. NOT anymore! Our server was great however, when the food came out I took a bite of my chicken & portabella mushroom sandwich and thought it was good so I proceeded to give a bite to my wife. She took a bite and there was a piece of plastic in the sandwich. We were very surprised since we've never experienced anything like this at your restaurants before. Nothing was asked of the server. I showed her the plastic and she took it to the back saying she would get us a replacement. No problem. We did not ask for our meals to be free, we did not ask to be compensated; we did not ask anything at all. The server offered to get us a new sandwich. A few minutes later, the kitchen manager came out and proceeded to insinuate to us that we "purposely" put the plastic in the sandwich. He went on and on and on about how he personally made the sandwich and that he would never do such a thing and there was no such plastics inside of the restaurant. Fine, but the point is that the plastic WAS INDEED in the sandwich. He then said that he would make us another sandwich but then would have to charge us for TWO sandwiches. OBSURD! We did not cause a scene when we discovered the sandwich had plastic in it, but then it became a blown out fiasco with him trying to convince US, that we put the plastic in the sandwich.

I was angry, my wife was furious, and we asked to speak with the manager and the kitchen manager informed us that there was no other manager in the restaurant our waitress informed us otherwise and had the manager stop by our table. Still not causing a scene the manager came out and defended his kitchen manager, WITHOUT apologizing in any way, shape or manner for what had happened, and he also began to insinuate that we put the plastic in the sandwich. He sat there and looked at us as if were making up some grand story to get out of paying for our meals and went on to tell us that people do this sort of thing all the time. ON THE CONTRARY! We have plenty of money, and we have plenty of options as to where we can eat. We chose Applebee's.

Never have we ever been through such an ordeal as we went through at your restaurant located on 2728 Spring Road S.E. Atlanta, GA 30339. Check# 1762, Table #5. Even now, my wife and I are upset that this scene was caused IN FRONT OF our children. We are a mixed couple, I being Hispanic and my wife African American. After the incident they were constantly BLASTING rock music whenever a rock song came on in our section ONLY, it became borderline racially offensive. Why would the music be so loud ONLY when a rock song came on? Why would a piece of plastic be put into MY sandwich only? And why did they still charge us for TWO sandwiches?

Either way, we are still not seeking any compensation or asking for anything in retribution. Not food, drinks or appetizers. Nothing in exchange at all. Our wonderful server, Crystal saw what we had went through and she had the heart to not charge us for 2 drinks. But the managers of that restaurant, not only were completely unprofessional, but also were borderline racial toward us. I am contemplating making a call to Lord, Bissell, & Brooke, and trust me; they are not a two-bit law firm.

We still are not asking for anything, the reason of this letter is to notify whoever has the power to make appropriate changes and ensure that no other family will have to be embarrassed or harassed the way we were. Bottom line, Applebee's has lost our business.

I read your story above and the cry for racial discrimination seems unsupported. It sounds as if the hostess and her order of rotation of servers tables were off and its that simple. Why do black people always assume its because they are black? If you ever came to ANY of the Applebees in Atlanta its the exact opposite of what you reported. Its mostly African American and very few Caucasian!