cybercat wrote:
>
> Yes, that's right, I still have not managed to go to anything but crappy
> chain restaurants!
>
> I had lunch with a client in a town a couple of hours away from me
> yesterday, and he chose Applebees. Since he was paying, what could I say.
>
> He had the Chicken Caesar Salad, which is served as half of a salad and soup
> thing, but he just got two of the small salads. It sounds great on the menu,
> but when it came, it was loaded down with those pale green little pepper
> rings I think of as pickled peppers--I mean LOADED down. Not much chicken,
> lots of black olives, and a dry piece of sourdough bread on the side.
>
> I had the Shrimp Spinach salad, and it did not look very good but was
> excellent. Broiled shrimp on a bed of spinach with rings of roasted red
> pepper and a hot bacon dressing. Very tasty, and not too pricy at $9.
>
> Per my comments about being packed in at Applebees, e.g. it being crowded
> with tables too close together, this was not the case at this restaurant.
>
> Just thought I would share. FWIW.

My one and only experience with Applebee's was so bad that I blacklisted
the entire chain and haven't been back since. So you don't think I
overreacted, the location in question had been open for about one month,
so it certainly should have had some corporate supervision at that
point. The experience was universally bad, bad service, bad food, bad
customer service, etc. Not a single acceptable point in the entire train
wreck, and not even a visit from a manager to apologize.
Plenty of competition, no need to give them a second chance.

Pete C.