We ate here this morning and had a very pleasant experience that we HAVE to share.Everyone, especially our waitress (Denisee??),was super nice and accommodating!You don't usually find a restaurant where every single employee is this nice!!! 5 STARS AND MORE :)
Today my 3rd son graduated from high school. We went to the IHOP on Assembly St in Columbia SC for breakfast. Mr Sam and his team were more than amazing! When we arrived he informed us it would be a 20-30 min wait because they were short two servers. No worries we thought we love IHOP. I have to say while we waited and even after getting to the table I watched in amazement. Mr Sam assisted his staff in between touching base with the customers in the lobby. I was very impressed with the level of teamwork displayed. Every member of the team was doing something to help customers and each other. I told Mr Sam this speaks volumes to his leadership and how he has developed this amazing group to work together and get the job done. He might have been down two waiters that day but he had everyone he needed for that shift. He made everyone’s graduation breakfast a great experience. Thank you Mr Sam and staff working on June 3, 2022. You are appreciated!!!!!
Use to eat here a couple times a yr in 05'-08' always great. Renee greeted and seated with a pleasant smile . Then Renee flipped a switch and her voice changed and she became verbally aggressive with my waitress who just arrived to my table to offer drinks. IHOP is half full and everyone is watching.. Renee then carried on inside the kitchen in the same behaviour. We couldn't see her but we still could hear her . I thought Renee must be the manager. So I inquired only to find out Renee is not management and has been employed over a decade. Renee if after 10 yrs you are not promoted to management you will never be a manager and should refrain making a spectacle of yourself and making customers uncomfortable. Seat the patrons and stop behaving inappropriately or maybe she should be promoted to dishwasher where she can't be seen or heard.
I suggest to the management that they need to hire more servers and kitchen staff to accommodate the guests. That likely be will only possible with better wages and benefits. It is not a matter of "people not wanting to work," but a matter of people not wanting to work for less than it takes to survive. All the issues mentioned below would be resolved with better support and compensation.
One waitress, one host and one cook running the entire place. I felt bad for the waitress because she was going all she could, but the place sucked. We waited a while to be seated, so long that other customers had started leaving because we had all been waiting and couldn’t be given an estimated wait time. We finally got seated at a sticky (literally globs of syrup stuck to the table) table, which the host promised he’d come back and clean but never did. The waitress got our drinks and took our orders, but we didn’t get silverware. Eventually a man they said was the GM showed up, but he didn’t look or sound the slightest bit professional and didn’t seem to be helping the large crowd; he just laughed around with the host and eventually sat outside. By the time we got our food, it was cold; the main courses were soggy and the hashbrowns were burnt. We still had to wait for silverware because it didn’t come with the food. Unfortunately, we read the reviews for this place too late. Everything was dirty, even the bathroom. Luckily we didn’t see roaches like previous guests. . Many tables still needed to be cleaned from the previous customers, but they were still seating new people. The second waitress that came in and took over had a bad attitude, but we still give it two stars since the first waitress seemed like she was trying her best.
We visited on a Saturday morning with about 20 people. We could not be more happy with our experience and food. Mrs Violet and crew were very friendly and so efficient for such a large group unexpectedly. We’ve found our breakfast spot whenever we visit Columbia.
I ordered through Ubereats. First off, I placed my order around 12 AM and didn’t receive it until 2 AM. My delivery person told me it was because they apparently only had 1 cook in the kitchen, which I could be sympathetic to because there are staff shortages everywhere. That didn’t change the fact, however, that my order was partially incorrect when I got it. Instead of receiving a side of hashbrowns with my steak omelet , I received soggy, undercooked pancakes that literally broke apart when I picked them up. The omelet was okay; I didn’t finish it. Ubereats refunded me for the amount of time I waited for my order. I don’t think I’ll be ordering from this iHop again.
I would not have even gave them one star but I had to give them one star to be able to write a review they took forever to even take my order after three people come up there I finally got somebody to take my order everybody acted like it wasn't their job my wife's food was wrong the coffee tasted old or something it was just nasty they gave me pancakes with no syrup and no silverware to eat with and the service just sucked the people were rude and nobody wanted to take orders nobody was up front for the first 20 minutes I stood there literally did not see any workers and the man that was taken orders come from the back never will I go back and the butter looked old and nasty..not warm like spoiled
The food was good but I was thoroughly unimpressed with the service. We stopped by around 8:15 for dinner and questioned whether the location had closed early because there wasn’t an employee in sight. We waited about 10 minutes before someone came from the back to seat us. This employee was very friendly and promptly provided us with menus and silverware but the booth did look as if a sticky drink had been spilt in the seat. In their defense, there didn’t seem to be any other clean tables. After being seated, we waited about 15 minutes for our waitress to acknowledge us…despite there only being one other table dining at the time. While she was taking our order, she interrupted us repeatedly to address the 1 other table in the building. She rudely told them she’d get to them in a minute and that she’d bring them their napkins when she got to it. She brought our food to us about 15 minutes later and didn’t return to check on us until the end of our visit. She resurfaced from the back about 30 minutes in to our stay and we flagged her down to ask for drinks. She never brought them. 10 minutes later she came back out to take an order for a table that just arrived and then stopped by to ask if we wanted our check yet. We said yes and asked for to go cups of our Dr Pepper at which point she said, “yeah I forgot about that” and left. She came back with the receipt and drinks but didn’t return to check us out for another 20 minutes. I really wish we would’ve just gone to Waffle House.
One of the creepiest meals ever. Stopped there for breakfast in the middle of the week around 9:00 am. Any normal iHop or breakfast restaurant would be packed at this time — especially one across the street from a state capitol building. Not this one.There were four tables taken in the dark, dingy room. One solitary waitress was working, and she was very slow for only four tables. I finally got to place my order after waiting about 15 minutes. She brought my silverware. There was no knife and the fork was sticky. She returned with a steak knife and said: “I guess this is better than no knife.” I’m wondering how tough the pancakes might be.I waited what seemed forever for a simple breakfast. That’s when it got even creepier. An employee kept coming out of the back cursing loudly at other employees — F word and all. He kept coming in and out, ranting about someone. When he left the restaurant, I wondered if I was going to be in a workplace shooting upon his return. It didn’t happen, but I felt very uncomfortable and concerned as I waited. I thought about just leaving.The food arrived about 45 minutes into my stay. The eggs and sausage were fine, but the pancakes were a joke. I ordered blueberry pancakes and instead received regular ones with some sort of blueberry topping. I ate my eggs and sausage and skiddaddled. I didn’t want to be around when that irate employee went fully off the rails.What a strange place.