Last night, Soccer Chick had a game in a city two hours away. This was the second out of three games I had to attend…three nights in a row…to the same city. Rooster played the night before, and Chicky plays again tonight. It makes for a lot of traveling.
A friend of mine has a daughter on Chick’s team and a son on Rooster’s team, so we decided to carpool. Last night she drove.
After the game, we loaded all of the kids into her van (it was her family plus mine minus Mr. AuburnChick who’s working very long hours this week). We let the girls decide where to eat since they had played hard.
They selected iHop.
Now, I’ve gotta tell you that I was hoping for something quick so we could get back on the road and make it home earlier, but I rarely eat “breakfast” out, so I figured it would be a nice treat. I could already taste the French Toast.
We walked in, and there weren’t many customers. I mean, who’s going to be out eating at 9pm?
We sat down and placed our orders. The server brought our drinks and left.
And remained gone.
Several of us had finished our drinks, and there was no sight of food. The waitress had disappeared.
We finally called over another gal and explained that we needed more water. After a delay, she brought us more.
Things were not looking good.
We sat.
And sat.
And sat.
The kids started telling corny jokes:
“What does a 200-pound bird say?”
In a very deep voice, “Tweet.”
That was Chicky’s joke. Kind of funny when she said it.
Guess you had to be there.
Anyhow, we ran out of jokes, and we still had no food.
I should have realized this was going to be a long night when, upon going to the bathroom, the toilet wouldn’t flush. I found that gross. I turned back and lifted the lid of the tank, thinking I could pull the chain that goes to the flusher. No cigar. The chain had come off of the latch thing. I decided that I was NOT going to reach my hand down into that tank water to pull out the flusher thing. I had to draw the line somewhere.
Anyhow…in my opinion, an unkempt bathroom is another sign of lack of care in a facility.
Finally, after about an hour (I kid you not), half of our food arrived. It was the food that my family had ordered.
I didn’t want to start without the others, but they insisted, before my food got cold.
I dug into my spinach and mushroom omelet (I had changed my mind from the French Toast).
The others at the table finally received their order.
My friend started eating her salad when she realized that it was missing the chicken. She had ordered a chickn/appple salad. All that was in her bowl was a hunk of spinach and a few apple slices, along with a slathering of dressing.
By this time, we were beside ourselves. It was kind of funny. It was like someone had taken a bag of spinach and dumped it into her bowl…little effort required.
We called the waitress over and explained the problem. She left and returned with a menu in hand, reading to herself…
“Oh yeah, it does look like there’s supposed to be chicken in there.”
She returned to the kitchen.
Meanwhile, my friend continued to pick at the salad, realizing as she did so that not only was the chicken missing, but so was the bacon, the eggs, and a few other things.
Very bad.
Her husband, who had maintained his composure to this point, called over a manager.
The manager was somewhat less than understanding, claiming that we had not been waiting as long as we claimed. That was beside the point. We had waited much too long for our food, and when it came out, it was wrong. And we had a two-hour drive home.
Not good.
Anyone can tell you that the salad should never have left the kitchen.
She finally received her salad, sans the eggs and bacon, but with the chicken.
When we received our bill, I had been comped $10, and they had been comped part of their meal as well. Good thing.
Interestingly enough, this family has had very bad service at several iHops. I guess it’s always fair to give them another shot. However, after the latest experience, they’ve decided to pack it in. It would appear that several things are wrong with their training program and quality control.
It did make for an interesting night.
We’re going back to the same city tonight. I think we’ll hop on past the iHop this time.
Filed under: This-n-That | Tagged: customer service, dinner, iHop | 1 Comment »
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