Applebee's Grill + Bar

When I lived in Oregon I visited Apple often because the food was great and inexpensive. I didn't even know Applebee's was in Illinois till I saw a TV ad last night for one of their specials. I drove 30 minutes to reach the closest Applebee's to me. We all know that being able to go out and eat even lunch for under $10 is very rare nowadays so I was excited to try their chicken sandwich. I've posted pictures of the menu deals that are good till the Superbowl. I upgraded my chicken sandwich because, well the upgrade had bacon and ranch, and it's bacon... 😆 My food came with shoestring fries and a soft drink. I opted to skip the drink and had water. The fries were okay. I expected more flavor from my sandwich. The bacon was undercooked and the chicken was dry. I'm not sure if they have a new cook or if this is just normal? The highlight of my meal was my waitress, Bianca! She was attentive, kind and answered any questions I had. She also brought a side of honey mustard for my fries because I'm not a fan of ketchup. The restaurant was really clean on the inside, the outside looks rundown. I'm not sure if all Applebee's are like this here in Illinois, but right now if you want an inexpensive lunch where you will pay no more then you would going to a drive through somewhere else, then stop by. But in this case you get what you pay for.

PLEASE DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME/MONEY HERE. We had an absolutely awful experience. We waited over 40 minutes for our food, with hardly any update from our server because she was too focused on tending the bar. We watched a few other tables who came in AFTER us receive their food long before we did. When our food finally arrived, the server explained that the manager would be over to speak with us. When the manager came by, she was completely apathetic and unapologetic and exhibited zero customer service. She just said they were busy and handed us a coupon for a free appetizer on our next visit. The catch? The coupon only provides for a free appetizer WITH the purchase of a full entree, and what's worse is that the manager handed out the exact same coupons to every single table in the restaurant, including those who had only been there 10-15 minutes. That was incredibly insulting based on what we went through and completely minimized the egregious delay we experienced. Not to mention, the atmosphere was just plain terrible. The music was incredibly loud, and servers kept opening and closing the back door, bringing back in with them the most pungent smell of cigarette smoke. The whole place seemed all bar, no grill. Needless to say, we will never be back.

Good service but dishes ain’t clean had to use plastic dishes all because they wanna have people working 2 days straight you ask me they need new workers fr, They had these small trays all my food den fell out of it then they forgot to order certain people orders and they had to eat while everybody else was done eating already and at that I was out with my family experience was horrible but service was good. Please reach out back to me. Workers were tired and worn out don’t make no sense at all

I'm elderly and came for a to go order. Since I was waiting, I thought I'd get a drink at the bar. After waiting for over 15 minutes and trying to get the bartenders attention I gave up. She even asked if I was waiting to order a drink. It's very frustrating. Update: I got the canned response below. The link doesn't work and there is nothing to add. Why not just say sorry and it won't happen again. The response was totally inadequate and I won't be back.

This place was severely understaffed. The parking lot was not that full and many empty tables but yet was qoated at 15 minute wait time. There was no host. There was one employee apparently busing tables and acting as host. Another family arrived after us and got seated before because of over worked this man was. There were no clean plates for our appetizer. Took till we received our appetizer to receive our drinks. Took longer for our food to get to our table. Ordered my steak medium well. It arrived extremely well done and dry. Walking to the bathroom there was a partially smoked cigarette laying on the counter. Smoking is not allowed inside Illinois establishments. I saw what appeared to be the manager look at the seating list and walk away. I don't know if she was helping in the kitchen but she definitely could have offered some help to the poor man busing and acting as host. We debated to tip 20% or not... my reasoning for doing so was in hopes that the employee that was doing 2 jobs was tipped out. Otherwise this was a disappointing experience. Especially since all the Applebee's that were close to me have closed. All the extra time, made us late for a show we were on our way to when stopping for dinner.