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My friend “itchy” (I know,strange nickname but he’s really a nice fella who’d totally give his right kidney to you if you asked politely..) posted the cartoon above on a forum we both frequent and I thought it was way too cute especially seeing as it accurately describes my experience at IHOP this past Wednesday night…

If you’re not familiar with IHOP (International House of Pancakes),its a restaurant that sells what appears to be good food at an affordable price.Their speciality is pancakes but they do have a whole bunch of other stuff from steaks to salads to chicken…anyway,I’d never been to an IHOP before so this past Wednesday night when I was out with my family,we decided to give IHOP a try.We got there,got seated by the hostess,got our menus,the kids got their crayons and then the drama began…

For starters usually when a hostess gets you all settled into your booth or at your table,your server comes and asks you what you want to drink while you wait to order.No server showed up at our table.Now I know you’re thinking the place was busy and all the servers were attending to other customers but no,the place was “dead”,there were very few customers and what were the servers doing?Standing in the kitchen talking.Yes,you read that right..the IHOP servers were standing in the kitchen gossiping with each other instead of attending to us.

No one came to our table to ask if we at least wanted drinks.No one came to ask if we were ready to order.No one even bothered to come and tell us of any specials..I hate when restaurants try and force their “special of the day” on you right before you order but on Wednesday night I would have appreciated it if someone had tried to at least force the special of the day on me!But these people did NOT even acknowledge our presence.It was like we were invisible.My son even tried to get the waitresses’ attention by waving his hands but they looked at him and went right back to their gossiping!To say we got frustrated would be the understatement of the year.We ended up walking out of the restaurant.

Clearly these people don’t like their jobs because their customer service sucks.They don’t understand that they have jobs because of customers like us.They don’t get it that without customers going to IHOP,they wouldn’t get any tips or their weekly pay cheque.They are just lucky we were so pissed off we just walked out and didn’t file a report with their manager.

I do know one thing for sure…I’ll never eat at an IHOP ever.I’ve never eaten at one and after my experience at the IHOP on Panola Road in Lithonia,Georgia,I’ll never even set foot in another IHOP again.