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 Disappointing Visit to Applebee's
Posted Fri September 7, 2007 12:00 pm, by Matthew W. written to Applebee's International, Inc.
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I write regarding our recent visit to your restaurant in Vancouver, Washington, near the intersection of NE Highway 99 and NE 99th Street (the evening of August 31st). We found our service to be lacking in a number of ways. It took nearly fifteen minutes for our server to serve beverages after we ordered them, then another fifteen minutes before he came back to take our order. After some delay, three of the four of us received our entrees, though one of us did not receive his entre for another ten minutes. Even then, that last delayed entre seemed to be delayed, in part, because our server was holding it while he spend several minutes chatting with a table of attractive young women. Of the four entrees served, three were incorrect. One of those, one entre had to be sent back three times as it was served incorrectly each time. Rather than apologizing, our server instead asked if we could just "power through" and eat it as served. When we asked for the manager on duty to be sent to our table, we saw that our server had to go interrupt the manager, who was having a drink with a friend at another table. The manager, in fact, removed his name tag on his way to our table. We spent several minutes explaining our concerns regarding our service to the manager before he finally agreed to remove the late arriving entre salad from our bill. When we pointed out that the salad was late but another item the fajitas were wrong, he said he'd take care of that as well. When we received our check from our server, we saw the fajitas had not been removed. We asked for the manager again and asked him to fully remove the fajitas, since they were served wrong and it took the staff three attempts to correct the dish. He spent several minutes arguing with us that he can't be responsible if the microwaves aren't working correctly, that they brought a dish of the correct meat to us once we pointed out that they served the wrong choice. We pointed out that Applebees is, in fact, responsible for ensuring their equipment is operational and that brining the correct item to us half an hour after serving an incorrect dish is not a kindness but a correction and that we'd appreciate his removing the charge from our invoice. Nearly two hours after we arrived, we were finally able to pay the bill and leave.
I cannot express just how disappointing the service we received was. We had a server who couldn't remember our order (but also didn't write it down as he was taking it) then delayed our food while he flirted with a table of young women (though our party of four gay men would have likely tipped him far better had his service been decent), a manager who was argumentative and disgruntled (though he failed to lead his staff in a way that would ensure quality service), and of course three incorrect orders at a table of four customers. At present, the four of us are resolved to avoid Applebees in the future if you're unable to make this right by us. I will look forward to your kindly providing us another meal for four so that you can show us just how abnormal this visit was, as we've long enjoyed eating together at Applebees.
I appreciate your prompt attention to this matter.
Best regards,
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IN the words of my husband : "I will power thru your head with my
fist".
HE made me write it.
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by Mike Holly Posted Sat September 8, 2007 @ 9:14 AM
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I have had problems likethat with waitresses in the 18-23 age group
who seemed to neglect me and my family because I am a man in my 30s.
If I were in the 18-23 age group, i would have gotten decent service
but since i am 34 years old, it seems the young late teens-early 20s
waitresses sometimes don't like me.
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What a well-written, reasonable, even-toned letter. Kudos to you. I
love the detail about the manager removing his nametag before speaking
with you. What kind of manager does that?
Applebees is, at best, a mediocre, pre-prepared (yes, much of the
"fresh" food you receive here is precooked and merely needs to be
nuked) food chain. You're not missing much.
I do hope you hear back from corporate!
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I bet if you were an attractive woman he would have remembered your
order and served you right away. He is there to work not to flirt
with female customers. Also he just pay more attention to the
attractive women. He should give every diner the same attention. I am
surprised the manager did not say anything about the flirting and
spending too much time with the other woman. I wonder what his wife
thinks of this.
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by donno Posted Fri September 7, 2007 @ 10:06 PM
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This is a well written letter. I don't know how Applebee's works (is
it a franchise?) but I hope you get some satisfaction for the poor
service you received. It sounds like they were busy, had equipment
problems, and had trouble keeping up with the orders.
I had a very bad experience at Applebee's once. Your letter reminded
me of it. The manager was actually working in the kitchen, and when
he appeared per my request, he was sweating and in a very bad mood.
Like you, I felt he was disgruntled and overwhelmed, and his attitude
left a bad taste in my mouth.
I also experienced a chatty waiter that sat at another table and
socialized, instead of checking on my overdue food. I think that it
is totally unacceptable. If the kitchen is behind, have the servers
do anything (like updating the customer on status) but stand or sit
around talking with their friends.
The "power through" comment is hard to take when it translates to
"Bear with us even though we appear terribly inept." Improved
communication and attention to detail during a difficult time like
this would help improve the customer's experience. It can't be fun
for the servers, but anything they can do to mediate the situation
would help.
Dinner for four sounds a bit generous - they did take at least one,
and maybe two items off your bill, didn't they? In any event, I hope
they reply.
You are gay, but is that pertinent?
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by Angelic Princess:) Posted Fri September 7, 2007 @ 6:29 PM
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a few questions.. why wait a few days to write this letter?... you
mention it was in the evening, was it busy?
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by DragonflygrrlTheGreat Posted Fri September 7, 2007 @ 6:21 PM
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Goodness! I'm trying to picture what my reaction would be if my
waiter asked me to "power through" and eat food I didn't want, and
let's just say it wouldn't be pretty. I'll be honest with you,
reading letters here has jaded me to the point that I assumed your
letter would be about some silly, minor thing. Thanks for proving me
wrong.
The only advice I could offer about the letter itself would be that
you might want to break up the first paragraph into a couple of chunks
to make it a touch more readable. Other than that, excellent letter
and I hope they get back with you soon! Good luck!
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