Friendly’s

Never will I go here again!!! Slow service, extremely rude young waitress, who walked by us multiple times noticing we needed drinks. Yet she ignored us after we asked for new drinks. Cold food, only thing worth it was the ice cream which was handed to me with whipped cream all over the top of the container. Don’t go to this location, go somewhere else. Not worth the frustration

The food was acceptable for a restaurant of this type. The service however was laughably slow.

Can I give it a zero? I went here with my daughter on President’s Day, because for some reason the Denny’s down the street was closing early.
It started out waiting about ten minutes to be seated. There were probably half a dozen open tables when we walked in, but they hadn’t been cleaned yet. We were seated, and then waited another 10 minutes before a waitress came over to take our order. Another ten minutes passes before we get our drinks. Looking around I see that there are a lot of people sitting around waiting for their food. People that were already seated when we walked in 30 minutes prior. The whole time we are waiting for our food I notice families coming in waiting forever to be seated, and just walking out after waiting 10 – 15 minutes. Finally, 30 minutes after ordering we get our food. My daughter’s burger and fries looked like they had been sitting under a heat lamp for hours. Dry and hard. I had ordered fish and chips, expecting some frozen fish patty quality. It was worse than that. Over cooked (almost burnt) fish fillets (more like fish sticks), and dry, dry fries. Again, looking like it had been sitting under a warmer for way too long. A few bites into my meal and it the smell of smoke, like someone burning food, starts to enter the dining room from the kitchen. A few minutes later the fire alarm goes off. Loud. Most people stay sitting in their seats eating, clearly there is no fire, but you wouldn’t know from the staff’s reactions, because they kept going on like business as usual. One of the waitresses opened all of the doors (its in the mid-30’s outside) and the place immediately turned into a freezer. After about five minutes of the fire alarm going off they start to tell everyone that the fire department is on the way and they’re the only ones who can turn off the alarm. They instructed everyone to WAIT OUTSIDE while their already gross food gets cold inside. One waitress was telling people not to leave if they hadn’t paid for the food yet. LOL… yea… I’m going to stick around and pay for cold, overcooked, reheated frozen food. Right to my car I went. Bye.
So when I got home I sent Friendly’s a nice message to their FB account explaining my visit and how I would NEVER go to a Friendly’s again. Their response was to ask for my address so they could mail me a Friendly’s Gift Card. I guess they missed the part where I said I would never go there again… even if it is free.

We had breakfast at the North Andover Friendly. Its not so much about the food but the service. The breakfast, if you have any eggs, are clearly small to medium and is served plainly. But if you have Monica as a server, you are in for a treat. She has the right attitude, knows how to give and take, is fast and cares. I had her bring over her manager for a complement in person. You don’t go to Friendly for haute cuisine but comfort food fast. If you get a great server, Tip her well.

Went here due to the 50 percent off breakfast. Ordered at 10:50a receieved meal at 11:20a. Limited to no aknowledgement while I downed coffees waiting. On table POS are worthless. They certainly aren’t ready for this promotion. I told the waitress I had to go and I offered to pay for the coffee. Terrible experience. Here I am at dunks having a wonderful experience. Now we know why the Friendlys in Stoneham closed.

Can’t say I was expecting much at a Friendly’s…
The food is your typical greasy, artery-​clogging stuff. But the service. It was probably the slowest service I’ve ever experienced. The ordering part was quite prompt, so we had hopes that we could eat and leave all under an hour.
Nope.
At one point, a crowd of 15 hockey players came in, got their ice cream orders, paid, and left before we were even served our ice cream even though our orders were already in! After over two hours of being inside a Friendly’s, we were all going stir-​crazy. Unless you have plenty of time to kill, heed caution.

If I could give this 0 stars I would. I went in tonight with my sister to grab 2 frappes. It took 20 minutes for someone to even take our order… Whatever, you kind of expect that service from Friendlys. Finally, we order. 20 more minutes goes by and there is 1 girl making ice cream sundaes for guests dining in (literally 3 tables in the entire restaurant). Two other girls were just walking around, not helping at all. Finally I got one of the girls’ attention so I could ask for our $ 9 back. The girl gave us our money back without question — didn’t offer to make the frappes for us and didn’t even apologize. Waste of 40 minutes.

Having 4 kids, Friendly’s has a great kids menu and typically is fast with their service. Unfortunately, this particular Friendly’s doesn’t hold to those expectations. I have been there a couple times in the past month and didn’t want to write a poor review based off two bad experiences. I’m a give them a second chance kind of guy. I have been to worse but that doesn’t mean they should be given any slack.
1. We were seated. It appeared they could have been understaffed but the place wasn’t that packed. Maybe 10 other people max. The establishment was very dirty. Had that grungy feeling.
2. Before we just left and walked out, we had been sitting there just talking for over 10 min and still no one came over to take our order for drinks or anything. We did look around several times only to find a couple of waitress’s sitting at the front talking and on their phones.
3. We were able to get up, walk out and not one person noticed us leave.
Needless to say we are now at the one in Haverhill, MA. ***I highly recommend this one***
We talked with the staff at the Haverhill restaurant and they mentioned the district manager was in the restaurant with them. She came over and spoke with us. She was very polite and showed a general concern for the issues we had.

Ultimate grilled cheese was amazing. Soup was perfect. Service was great. Price was worth the food. Not bad vs expectations.

We ordered the apple harvest salad which was good and it arrived in a timely manner but I asked the waitress if the salad was supposed to have walnuts on it. She said she’d get us a side of walnuts. While she was away I looked over the menu again. When she returned I asked if it was also supposed to have feta cheese? She went back for that. Time I put the extras on the salad it was really good. This was not the fault of the waitress. She did all she could to make it right. We also splurged on sundaes which were very good! There was a lot of noise but it was young people out having a great time. It was good to hear happiness. Ashley was our waitress and did a great job.

Compared to the other Friendly’s I have been to in the area, this one isn’t as packed with people. The service was extremely slow even then and the management doesn’t seem to care.
Our waiter could barely be heard and he won’t be getting a tip.

I usually don’t like Friendly’s service due to lack of customer service and no consideration in how long they take to bring the food over to the customer. But… I am here now and can say the complete opposite. Our waitress Crystal, is flipping AMAZING. Her service is applauding… short, sweet and to the point, but most of all friendly and she’s got the hang of making the customer few important. Her service deserves at 5 star. I can’t encourage you more but to get this waitress. Overall the place looks great, up to date and the team looks great. They have a great staff since the last time I’ve been here. Now I’ll enjoy my sundae while you debate whether or not to come or not.

Worse service ever they are always under staffed and always running out of Ice Cream, how does that happen? You sell Ice Cream why not have enough on hand makes no sense to me, last night I waited almost 30 minutes then left with out the ice cream first you ran out of Pistachio, then ran out of Jimmies, then ran out of watermelon sherbert?
What a waste of time…

First off, who doesn’t love Friendly’s !? It just brings you back to when you were a little kid and nothing else mattered besides what flavor you were going to get.
This location gets pretty busy, but the staff is a tad on the slow side. Food is still decent, and the Icecream is good quality.
I love when they have monthly /​seasonal specials. I just had the munka chunka PB I believe it was called. Vanilla with Hot Fudge, PB, and PB chunks; SO GOOD !

Everytime I decide to go to Friendly’s, I make sure I have ample time allocated to cover the whole experience. That is, I find that all Friendly’s run at a very «deliberate» pace. The visit to the Lawrence location was no exception to this seemingly proven rule.
I decided to satisfy my sweet tooth on a Sunday evening and was seated at 7pm at the Lawrence restaurant. My mission was to order my long-​time, guilty pleasure, the Jim Dandy sundae and I was alone which, despite my prior experience with Friendly’s, I naively thought may make this particular visit different. Once seated, I waited for 15 minutes before anyone even came by my booth to take a drink order. After watching another table get seated and then have their orders placed in front of me, a waitress finally came by and apologized for the delay. Not sure if they figured I was waiting for someone to join me, but this initial delay quickly dispelled my notion that this visit to Friendly’s was going to be different from the others.
I placed my order and the waitress again apologized for the inconvenience of waiting so long. Ultimately, my server, Victoria was very personable and dare I say «Friendly» so I have to add a star for that.
After about 10 more minutes, my sundae arrived, though it wasn’t quite what I remembered from my youth (or even just a couple years ago). The sundae just wasn’t as large as I’ve had previously, and the amount of ice cream was disproportionally small compared to the toppings/​bananas. Additionally, no hot fudge; just chocolate syrup, which was disappointing. In the end, the sundae was merely so-​so and by the time I got the bill, the whole experience was up to 45 minutes; that’s Friendly’s for ya!
Had the sundae been better, the wait would’ve been more excusable. Though, to reiterate, my server Victoria did a very good job and was very attentive once she was made aware of my presence; not sure exactly where the blame falls for those first 15 minutes.
Overall, this experience goes down as a 2.5 (rounded up to a 3) out of 5, though I can’t say I wouldn’t give this location another try. I guess I just have a nostalgic, soft spot for this franchise, despite my underwhelming experiences in recent years.

Went in today for lunch had a coupon for a free super melt. I have to say our waitress was excellent very attentive and very pleasant the place was full. i let the manager know and said I’m sure all the servers were but I wanted to let him know about ours. The food is always consistent and was served very quickly congrats to the chefs for a great job. Now for desert who can leave home with out thanks again to all the staff for working so well together.

This is the WORST Friendly’s location I have ever been to. I came on a Sunday night around 8:30 p.m. with my 6 and 8 year old boys and literally waited at the counter for TEN minutes for someone to seat us (there was NO one in line in front of us and PLENTY of empty (and dirty) tables. Meanwhile, waiters and waitresses kept walking by, running back and forth between their tables and making ice cream… all the while, totally ignoring us. I finally had to flag down someone to ask if they were going to seat us — and the first girl blew me off. I flagged a gentleman down and he said to give him a few minutes b/​c he had to clean a table off — which from my point of view at the front of the restaurant, was entirely necessary b/​c although there were plenty of empty tables and booths, ALL of them were filled with dirty dishes.
I had walked in to this same location a few months ago b/​c my boys were craving ice cream, so I thought it would be a quick and easy stop. I could not have been more wrong — it took over 15 minutes to get two ice cream cones! Nothing fancy or crazy… they were way understaffed and totally inefficient.
Management is totally lacking here — the staff was running around like their heads were cut off and the place was a total mess.
The only reason why I’m giving this two star is b/​c the waitress we finally got was very sweet and was efficient — plus, my kids enjoyed their food and sundaes.

Took my wife and kids there, got a meal and ice cream, we were kind of in a hurry and the server has able to provide speedy service which we appreciated.

Just arrived from Los Angeles so I went here because it was walking distance from my hotel. There was kind of a stale smell that I noticed when I walked in but after a while it got easier. I did not read the Unilocal reviews until after I had ordered. The service was quick and friendly… thank you for the great service Maria. The food was only OK. I had the fried chicken sandwich special. The cheese was not melted fully. The veges on the sandwich did seem fresh. It definitely beat fighting the cold and the traffic to go out further.

I had the late-​night munchies while staying at the HI Express across the parking lot from this place… so I made it over and grabbed a bite. I was waited on by a very competent and friendly tanned Latina named Ivelis. I had the grilled Reuben sandwich with fries and a clam chowder.
It hit the spot, what can I say? Food was just okay — not great, but the service was excellent. It was second time in this place in a year… and it looks like they have made some upgrades to the facility — which was nice to see.
The best part about this joint was that it is so conveniently located to where I was staying, and is open late.