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I tend to shy away from chain restaurants,
especially when I've had bad experiences at them
in the past. Every so often though, a group of my
friends insists on going to such a place, for
whatever reason; and I find myself morbidly
curious as to whether or not the restaurant has
gotten better since the last time I went. Almost
invariably I end up regretting this decision.
This was in fact the case on my 4/28/2002 visit
to the Applebee's in this review.
Like so many other barely mediocre chains of this
type, the walls are adorned with lots of tag sale
rejects and "chic" theme junk. They at least had
some order to their setup, and we were seated at a
"hollywood" themed booth. The waitress was young
and a bit inexperienced, and though she was mostly
prompt in meeting our needs, there was a mixup
with one of the dinner orders - one of my friends
was brought the wrong meal, and had to wait for an
entirely new one to be prepared while the rest of
us ate.
If you could call it eating, that is... my burger
was burnt, dry, cold, and utterly lifeless. It
completely lacked any flavor, and was really only
edible after being totally doused in ketchup. The
onion peels, while somewhat tasty, still had that
mass-produced, processed feel to them that you can
only get from fast food joints.
Few of my friends had major complaints, but then
again I suppose their expectations were about the
same as mine - nobody thought they were going to
get anything more than the lowest common
denominator here. We didn't pay much for our
food, but we certainly got what we paid for.
Yet another example of horrendous dining experience
that will hopefully keep me from making the
mistake of "trying" again...
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