Applebee’s

VERY DISAPPOINTED
Date of visit 2÷13÷16 5:10 pm
Checked in with a party of five and told 20 – 25 minutes. After about 10 – 15 minutes of waiting, noticed the hostess was telling everyone that came in 20 – 25 minutes, but nobody was being seated although I was able to count at least 6 empty tables. Right near where we were waiting there were two tables for 2 open as well as a booth for 4. In the main dining room I could see a large corner table that would seat 6, a combination table (bench & highbacks) that would seat 5 or 6 and a booth that could seat 4.
After about 20 minutes, I tried, but couldn’t locate a manager to ask why they weren’t sitting anyone in those open areas so I asked a server. She couldn’t tell me why, but one of the bartenders chimed in and said, «they are backed-​up in the kitchen and that’s why they weren’t seating anyone hoping to catch up.» I responded with, «well you are getting a bit backed-​up out the front door and she keeps telling EVERYONE 20 – 25 minutes!?!» I continued with, «Wouldn’t it make more sense to seat people 1) to clear the entrance and 2) to at least get some drink & appetizer sales while the kitchen catches up?»
It was amazing how quickly they then started seating people in the empty areas.
Once seated, we were quickly greeted. However, two of us at the table were still trying to read the menu as it was SO dark we had to use the flashlight on our phones in order to read the menus. Our server tried, but she was very awkward, socially. Couldn’t tell if she was trying too hard or frustrated with being very busy???
Food was mediocre at best. Wife said she has had better chicken strips at home from the frozen food section. I had the Blazin’ Texan burger. It was OK, but definitely not worth what it cost! I will say the fries were very good.
In summary, very disappointed!!!

One word summary: Mediocre
We have been to Applebee’s many times in the past, but every time we’ve gone there’s been some aspect of the meal that makes us not go back for a long time. We had reached the threshold of boycotting it long enough, and one of my kids wanted to go there because they saw their commercials recently, so we took a chance and met for lunch on ⁰²⁄₀₅.
Service:
Our waiter was reasonably attentive. Not outstanding, but nothing to complain about either.
Food:
We ordered the pretzels with beer cheese as an appetizer. The cheese sauce was average, but the pretzels were pretty tasty. There were only four and they were long and thin, so if you have more than a couple people in your party you might want to consider ordering multiple.
The kids got chicken fingers meals. In times past, Applebee’s had pretty good chicken fingers, so this was a fairly safe choice. Again, pretty average fare. My wife and I ordered the lunch combos. She got french onion soup with a sandwich (?). I generally don’t get salads much for lunch, but I went out of my box and got the Thai Shrimp salad and the «Clubhouse Grille» sandwich. The sandwich portion was a small half sandwich on Texas Toast with what appeared to be chicken, bacon, and ham. The portion of the Thai Shrimp Salad was good, and it had a good taste, so it was definitely the nice surprise of the meal.
Overall, just an average visit. I felt like we could have done much better at any number of competitor establishments in the area for the same price.

We went for lunch on 12÷23÷15. We all ordered the salad bar with either soup or baked potato. Food was good and our server was very friendly.
Only issue was the LOUD music. We could barely hear each other talk. There were only about 15 people in the whole restaurant and all you could hear was this blaring music. We asked the server to turn it down, he said he had & will do it again, but that the bartender will turn it up again. When you look up, there are speakers about every 5 feet on both sides of the ceiling so there wasn’t even a table where you could escape the noise. We all sighed with relief when we walked outside…

Our server Ray was great with a great attitude. The menu has changed since our last trip to Applebee’s and it was a refreshing change. The American BLT was very good.
My burger was done just right and the blonde brownie was wonderful.

There’s been a lot of places I’ve been to that I’ve liked, A lot that I haven’t liked, and one that I’ve hated that would be Apple bees Applebee’s. Applebee’s is horrible don’t go. I can’t believe people actually like the food at these restaurants.

service is really depends on your waiter, it’s okay if you go at dinner time, before and after awful.

Yes. It’s a chain restaurant and it’s average. The service was fairly good and the cajun steak I ordered was definitely satisfactory.

good food and good prompt service
2 orders for ruben sandwich and 1 club sandwich.
when in t5he mood, I shall return.

After spending all of my 22 years of life watching the commercials on tv, I finally got around to going here. It wasn’t half bad.
My server was attentive, but I was never offered a refill. I’m not sure if they do that, but after traveling around Europe (and free refills not being a thing over there) I missed the free refills that America offers.
I decided to try steak because there were so many choices of entrees with steak. I would go back just to try another steak entrée.
I got the Grilled Vidalia Onion Sirloin because it was one of the summer specials and I love grilled onions. The dish was the steak served with a onion on top and had a sweet and spicy Hawaiian BBQ sauce and served with steamed garlicky spinach and crispy smashed potatoes.
The garlicky spinach was my favorite part. I never had spinach that flavorful. The steak was good too. The sauce definitely tasted good with the steak. I just wish it was bigger.
Overall, I liked the food. I thought that the portions were small. I was still hungry after so my friend and I went to get food some other place. The food was cooked really well, but just the portion size disappointed me. It’s a toss-​up if I would go back or not.

literally the worst restaurant I’ve ever been to. Hideous food, awful service. The food was burned and tasteless. Can’t believe our waitress gave us the bill in the middle of our meal. Definitely won’t come here again.

Today I feel unamerican.
Freedom, liberty, the right to speak and choose without punishment is one of the most sacred treasures we have as Americans. Out of all the good food, restaurants, and entertainment choices given, Applebee’s on N prospect was chosen. To think I have free will and I picked Applebee’s?!
Everyone on staff could be potentially the stupidest people we have in America. The manager hired them so that goes without saying. Not one item was correct that we ordered, except the drinks, in which half were water. The food looked like it was picked out of the dumpster and put on a plate from Walmart. The food tasted worse than it looked. The manager apologized and charged us for the drinks only, so at least that almost made up for the rest of the night.
The rest of my night, miserable. I, and another member of the party, have had stomach pains and have been throwing up from eating their food. Conspiracies arise as to what happened back in that Applebee’s kitchen Saturday evening, but only my stomach has the facts. As I turn and hug the toilet for life, the founding fathers are turning over in their graves disgusted. Disgusted in the fact that they gave us independence and freedom, and I chose Applebee’s.
Please execute your right, independence, and freedom. Do not choose Applebee’s. god bless.

Some person gave me a gift card so I went for a couple cocktails and I brought two family members for a weeknight dinner.
The atmosphere is very cookie cutter, dated and full of LOUD families and spazz kids. The booths are big which I like (though it really bothered my aunt).
The cocktails (I’ve tried 3) are all WAY too SWEET!!! Ugh! You know it’s serious when I say avoid any mixed drink or cocktail at Applebee’s and just stick with beer if you need an attitude adjustment (the wine list is like 4 total and mundane) or water.
My guests were taken with their entrees. My aunt ordered the half portion of Grilled Shrimp ‘N Spinach Salad: spinach, bacon, roasted red peppers, red onions, toasted almonds and hot bacon vinaigrette topped with grilled shrimp. She really liked the shrimp and found the salad refreshing. My only grandma ordered the Fiesta Lime Chicken, which she LOVES and always orders at Applebee’s (according to her). It is grilled chicken in lime sauce, Mexican ranch sauce (?) mixed with melted cheeses blanketing the breast, tortilla strips, seasoned rice and pico de gallo. It was a hearty portion and she aced it except for the pico de gallo, which she thought was too hot and tried to eat with a spoon… maybe she thought it was mexican cole slaw?.
I ordered the Bourbon Street Chicken & Shrimp: cajun-​seasoned grilled chicken breast served on a skillet with blackened seasoned shrimp, garlic and thyme, with fried red potato bits, sautéed onions and mushrooms. It was all very queer. None of it tasted CAJUN or hot or blackened. A lot of it tasted pre-​fab and/​or frozen, and what was seasoned were strange flavor profiles… but it was good. The chicken was juicy however OILY in the skillet. I liked the garlic and thyme on it and shrimp; complimented well. I would ask for extra sauce next time. The potatoes were really crispy! I’m naughty.. . I dunked them in ranch on the side. The only things that were duds were the onions and mushrooms (i like both in general, just not stale, ill-​prepared, greasy, and mushy like the ones served here).
I would return and would order any chicken and/​or shrimp dish again. Plus, family likes it.

My boyfriend & I recently had dinner here. The 2 for $ 20 special was pretty decent. We weren’t particularly fond of the music that was playing that evening & our waitress was slow to keep our glasses full. We appreciated that there was another waitress who brought us a couple of refills on the drinks. The restaurant wasn’t exceptionally busy so there wasn’t too much extra noise. Overall, we enjoyed our dining experience here although we’ll probably go somewhere else next time we’re in town.

Good service, good food, 2 for $ 20 a pretty good deal.

I wish I could review the food, but I never even got the chance!
My Mom and I were shopping on N. Prospect and decided to stop in for lunch. We walked in and waited by the hostess stand. We waited and waited and waited. Several servers walked by and just looked at us. So, we decided that if they didn’t want to seat us, we’d go somewhere else. As we turned to leave someone finally noticed us and we told them that we were going since nobody would acknowledge us. After an apology and a promise that they’d take great care of us, we were taken to a table.
Once at the table we waited again! No waiter came by at all. They walked by our table but didn’t stop. We gave up and just left. We went across the street and got Steak N Shake and got immediate attention.
Very frustrating. I just wanted a light soup and salad for lunch. I never got the chance.

It’s difficult to find food worse than what now Applebee’s offer. Used to be great, but horrible now.

Went here on Saturday afternoon because it’s never crowded and we never have to wait at Applebees. We ordered the 3 for $ 20.00 which is a choice of pre selected appetizers and entrees. We chose the Queso dip, steak dinner and chicken penne dinner. The Queso was really good and so were the chips that came with it.
However, we waited entirely too long for the entrée to come out. I was very hungry and that may be why it felt so long but it felt like forever. we were done with the appetizer for a long time before our meals came out. My husband loved his steak. I tried it and I have to admit it wasn’t bad. My chicken penne pasta was awful. I think there may have been three strips of chicken in it and the rest was a serving bowl full of penne pasta that was dry. I ate as much of it that I could but when I was done it didn’t look like I had even touched it.
Way too long of a wait for some bland mac n cheese!

Used to enjoy eating here. The waiting staff was always, and continues to be, friendly and in general top notch.
The cooking, however, has a lot to be desired. A few times I have had clearly undercooked food delivered and had to have it re-​made (and had to wait around for it too). They were always really nice about it so I continued to visit.
Unfortunately that all changed when I fell ill for a whole day after eating lunch there. I made a point to contact the management and notify them that something was wrong (cook, ingredients, something) and to make them aware that I might not be the only one.
I did not expect, nor did I ask for, any compensation for my trouble.
The manager did not care about it. They did not take my number, name, time of order, nothing. I tried to offer it to her, and she cut me off saying that it was not necessary and ended the call. My wife and I did not visit for months following that incident.
The first, and last, time that we tried to give them another shot my wife’s food was completely wrong. Again the wait staff was very gracious about it all, but they lost a customer permanently after that visit.

This place, to put it in simple terms, is a knock-​off Chili’s and TGI Fridays, but it just tastes worse.
It stays open late, which is a good thing, but the food is just, for lack of better words, meh. I also had those dessert shots (that they stole from Chili’s) and the ice cream was old and there were ice chunks in it. Booo…
They have a nice bar, though, I must say. And the atmosphere is okay.

This gets 3 stars, like all mediocre down-​home, corporate, American bar & grills. The chicken strips, like those at Friday’s and Cheddar’s and Chili’s and Bennigan’s and whatever the hell else (+ ‘s), are reasonably good and the honey mustard dipping sauce has just the right amount of high fructose corn syrup.
The reason I’m reviewing this place, however, is not to heap another three-​star review onto Applebee’s long tradition of receiving three-​star reviews. My motive, like that of so many other Unilocalers, is to tell a strange personal story.
We went here for Smacko’s 21^st birthday party. For this monumental day — indeed, the date that will probably always be the most relevant for his life — Smacko decided to steal my idea and do a family restaurant barcrawl. A family restaurant barcrawl works like a barcrawl, except that you only hit the bars of family restaurants. Champaign’s strange microcosm of a suburb, North Prospect Ave, was the site of this 7PM debauchery.
We hit all the staples: Ruby Tuesday’s, O’Charley’s, Red Lobster (which has a special place in my heart for not ending in apostrophe ess), etc. Applebee’s was, as usual, a forgettable portion of the evening (thus receiving a 3 star even when only being compared to his mediocre peers; this is truly a homogeneous group of depressing dead-​ends where dreams go to die). We were kicked out of Red Lobster for being a drunken disturbance, after which someone began vomiting in their bushes. Ruby Tuesday’s, on the other hand, was a beautiful experience. Not only were we allowed to stay and create chaos; the manager actually brought us an array of appetizers for free — salty, of course, for they were brought to keep us drinking over-​priced long islands.
So, to summarize: if you ever plan to get drunk in the early evening at a bunch of generic family restaurants, all of which probably serve chicken fettuccine, be sure not to exclude Applebee’s, because nothing is more generic than that.
EDIT: oh wait, i guess it wasn’t entirely forgettable for everyone. Spritz, upon reading this review, gave me the following addendum:
Spritz: You neglected to talk about Ducky projectile in the stall
and then I was peeing in the stall next to him
Kyle: didn’t hear this one rofl
Ryan: and all of a sudden I see liquid coming from Ducky’s stall
and I was like «Shit, Ducky puked you puking on the floor?»
and then Smacko yelled from by the urinal «NO DUDE IM PISSING ON IT THO»
Kyle: lolol
Ryan: That was in Applebee’s