IHOP

I’ve eaten there a few times and it was decent. But that last time I visited, they had a special celebrating their 57^th birthday, a short stack (three) of pancakes for 57 cents. I thought I“ll get a decent meal cheap this time, normally I spent 12 – 14 bucks to eat at IHOP, which is okay. I order the 57 cents short stack of pancakes, a side of bacon, and a side of hash browns, and I drank two glasses of milk, one before the meal and a second one when it arrived. The food was good, I don’t take issue with that. The service was good. My order arrived, and the first thing I know was how SMALL the short stack of pancakes looked on a regular plate. They were barely 5 inches in diameter, where normally the pancakes actually cover the plate, being close to NINE inches in diameter. I thought, how cheesy, special on short stack of pancakes for 57 cents and they make tiny little pancakes instead of the usually huge pancakes I’ve come to expect at IHOP. The bacon and hash browns were good. I get my ticket and it’s 12 dollars and change and I thought, I was getting this meal cheap because of the special, how can it be 12+ bucks. They charged me 2.39 EACH for the two glasses of milk. I understand there’s no refills on milk, but come on, 2.39 each is gouging. They no doubt pay no more than 2 bucks for a gallon of milk, and a gallon is 10 glasses of milk meaning they make 23.90 for serving a gallon of milk. That’s just gouging because they can do it, and it shows even more disrespect for the customer than the cheesy tiny little pancakes for 57 cents. And then the side order were almost 3 bucks each, come on now, 3 slices of back for almost a dollar each, and I think the hash browns were about 2.79. If I had known that, I would been better off ordering one of the three pancakes and 2 sides combinations for 6.99 or something and would have paid about the same price and I would have been served full size pancakes instead. Overall, this is an instance where they showed in several ways how they don’t care about the customer. I did their survey after the meal, and I they emailed me a coupon for some free pancakes. It expired two weeks later. Wonderful. And they wonder why customers are cynical?