Renee B.
Yelp
Oh wow... Where do I begin? I think this might be my lowest star review to date, but I see it's their average, so I'll rid myself of guilt off the bat. I'll start off by saying that I know IHOP isn't fine dining so I wasn't expecting much to begin with. I came here because my son was begging to know what this 24 hour breakfast chain was about. I was perfectly cool with not leaving a review until my experience became hilariously dysfunctional.
1st, there was a 10 min wait at the "Wait to be seated" hostess stand with no hostess or waitress in sight. (The place was virtually empty.)
After we were greeted by a random restaurant employee, we were told to wait for a waitress to seat us. Another five minutes rolled by, and we were still waiting on someone to seat us. In a situation like this, you would expect a restaurant to be pretty bustling, but there was only one table occupied in the entire restaurant, and most of the employees in the place were sitting around at empty tables.
The waitress was very friendly, but she seemed to struggle with the basics of waitressing. We were a party of four, yet there were only two placesettings and one menu presented. I realized it was going to be a challenge for her, so I tried to keep things as simple as possible. The food was orderedand I asked for a couple of things like extra napkins, hot sauce, and two extra forks for the other people dining at our table. Each time the waitress brought back an item, she left off everything else so she had to keep making trips to the kitchen. I actually felt bad for her because I was trying to make it easy for her. I kept subtly reminding her of the next item, and it became pretty obvious that she was a "one task at a time" kind of lady.
Fast forward to the food...
About 20 minutes after we ordered, I was told that my main item was not available. After re-ordering my food, our items started randomly arriving, in no particular order. That was no big deal, because we were still waiting on forks anyway.
The food was what you would expect; not that great, but decent. My bacon was a little gross, and had that musty taste of old bacon left out all day. Coffee was plentiful... I like the fact that I had a big pot of coffee, even if it was weak and the color of tea. It is IHOP after all, right?
Like I mentioned earlier, I wasn't expecting much out of this food chain so I was prepared to just keep quiet. The dysfunction actually made for an entertaining dining experience for me and my kid. He couldn't believe how much they were struggling, considering we were the only ones dining at one point.
It seemed like everything that could go wrong,did go wrong, which made for an ironically hilarious experience. It wasn't until after our meal that I had enough. What could actually go wrong now? A hair in the toddler's mac & cheese, of course! That's where I draw the line. Fun over.
I sternly explained to my 13-year-old, that we would not be coming back here. To my surprise, he exclaimed, "Mom, it's ok and I understand. If they can't get it together for one table, can you imagine how crazy this place is when it's busy?"
I would be shocked if the IHOP lasted as long as the shortest lived business venture that ever lived in the Midcity. I'd feel bad if this was a local business, but I think they will survive in general, making sure that people all over this great country know what it's like to enjoy a mediocre pancake.