Hopping out the Door
By Sharon Carpenter
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
AUDOBON- When visiting a chain restaurant, people can usually count on consistently. This particular IHOP in Audobon was a little different than most others I have visited.
The International House of Pancakes is a family-orientated comfortable chain restaurant. They are renown for mostly their pancakes and breakfast items, but they serve a wide variety of lunch and dinner items too. The items at IHOP are moderately priced, but the food is high quality.
I should have known how the meal was going to progress when I first entered the doors. Although there wasn’t any wait time on this particular Saturday afternoon, the cleanliness of the restaurant was at first glance a little on the messy side. The atmosphere of the restaurant was nonchalant and a comfortable setting, but maybe a little too comfortable. As my dining partner and I sat down, we were surrounded by families of all sizes. There were a couple people actually dining alone for this particular meal.
As we were seated at our table, I couldn’t help but get a bad feeling as my elbows stuck to the leftover syrup on the table from the previous people’s meal. The table was not cleaned and my dining partner was missing silverware.
The waitress took a while (about 15 minutes) to greet us and take our order. She did not know much about the contents of the menu and she had a negative attitude about wanting to wait on us.
We declined on any kind of appetizers as the meal portions were large enough for us. I ordered a Cinnamon Swirl French Toast platter, which included two eggs any style, sausage or bacon, and hash browns. (PRICE.) My dining partner ordered a Big Basic which included three eggs any style with either ham, bacon or sausage, and three buttermilk pancakes. My dining partner asked for a little zest with her meal and ordered chocolate chip pancakes instead of regular buttermilk pancakes.
Our food seemed to take forever, but I’m sure it was because we were starving. When the food finally arrived, my dining partner was immediately disappointed when they brought her chocolate pancakes instead of chocolate chip pancakes. When she asked for her order to be corrected, the waitress seemed confused to what chocolate chip pancakes were. Weren’t we at a pancake house?
As I dug into my plate with much excitement, I was immediately disappointed. My scrambled eggs were cold and my hash browns were mostly burned. The three sausage links I received were delicious though. The best part of my meal was the cinnamon swirl French toast. The cinnamon bun was drenched in a sugar frosting and cinnamon and brown sugar were sprinkled throughout the bun. The French toast was delectable and I couldn’t complain about the sausage.
The Big Basic’s scrambled eggs and bacon were cold as well. Once my dining partner was done eating she finally received her pancakes which were cooked correctly this time. The warm buttermilk pancakes had chocolate chips sprinkled throughout. They were delicious and well worth the wait. Speaking of wait, we hadn’t seen the waitress in about 20 minutes or so.
Overall, the service and atmosphere of the restaurant were terrible. The waitress was not knowledgeable of the menu, she wasn’t anywhere to be found, and her customer service skills were absolutely despicable. The food was decent; however the Cinnamon Swirl French Toast and chocolate chip pancakes were delicious and gave us some hope for the restaurant. It was not enough hope to make me ever want to go back to this particular IHOP again.
ABOUT THE RESTAURANT
DETAILS
Chain: International House of Pancakes, 110 Blackhorse Pike Audubon, NJ 08106-1950, (856) 310-1050. Other nearby locations at 285 Route 73 North W. Berlin, NJ 08091-2500, (856) 753-8404;
Atmosphere: Family-oriented. The setting is comfortable; however it is unclean.
Price: Moderately priced. A meal for two people including drinks and all sides comes out to be $21.24.
Portions: Portion size can be adjusted by the discretion of the eater. Since IHOP offers a lot of combination platters, each person that visits the restaurant will have a different amount of food to choose from.
Leftovers:
Leftovers would be small, and most people do not take home breakfast food.
Smoking:
No smoking
Overall: This particular IHOP did not fulfill the expectations of the chain. The food, atmosphere, and cleanliness of the restaurant was below average and very disappointing for people who are expecting a certain quality and experience at IHOP they usually receive from other chains.
Rating: 2.5/5
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