This summer I took my sister out to breakfast at Friendly's in North Haven, CT. Our server was Nancy who was a delight. The meal, however, was worse than terrible. We ordered pancakes, eggs and bacon - a meal that's pretty hard to mess up. She could barely cut her pancakes and mine were like cardboard. I tried to cut the top one and it shot onto the tabletop like a frisbee. We burst out laughing and Nancy came over. I demonstrated that it couldn't be cut. She apologized profusely and took the offending plate back to the kitchen for a do-over. While she was gone we amused ourselves by trying to see through the bacon strips. That's right -- they were so thin they were nearly transparent. I actually had one that I could make out my sister's profile through when I held it up to my eye. The bacon and eggs tasted fine and I just made a mental note not to come back to Friendly's for breakfast. When I got the new pancakes back, once again I couldn't cut them. I was laughing my head off at the sheer incompetence of someone who could kill not one but two orders of pancakes. Once again Nancy took them back. The ones she returned with were undercooked, but I tried to eat them because...hey...I could at least cut them. I should have kept the cardboard ones. The new ones were absolutely without any sort of flavor. It was like eating cooked flour and water. My sister said hers were just as bad. I should have said something to the manager, I guess, but he can only serve the food that Friendly's ships him. I decided to complain higher up. I tipped Nancy well, paid my bill and went home to make a decent breakfast for us.

I found Friendly's complaint form on line and filled it out with the date, etc. I said simply that the food was terrible, the service was terrific and that I thought they should do something about their pancake recipe and shaved bacon. I didn't request anything other than an apology. I didn't hear from them for a long time, a month or more. So I went looking and found a phone number. I called and was told that the person assigned to customer service had called me, spoken with me and had offered me a coupon. Uh...no. I said that was not true and was not happy to have them lie about contacting me. I was transferred to my area representative. She was apologetic and said that she didn't know what happened and why it was written down that I was contacted. At that point I still had my receipt and she confirmed the information that I gave her. She said she was sending me "some coupons" to make up for the misunderstandings. I said that I hadn't called to get anything except an apology. She said that she would send them anyway. Ok, free stuff is good and I was not happy about the handling of this problem.

Well, that was a month ago or more. I no longer have the receipt -- nor have I received any coupons. Now, I'm REALLY unhappy with the way Friendly's has treated me and, although I love several of their meals, I don't want to go there again and support a company who has such poor customer service. I feel I've now been lied to twice as well as being out the cost for a horrible breakfast. Way to go Friendly's. Keep this up and you can lose all your customers.

They owe me 2 breakfasts and an apology. I honestly didn't ask for compensation with the first contact. After being lied to not once...but twice, I'm less forgiving. I am now angry that a company would treat a polite honest complaint this way.