IHOP Gone Bad

I think yesterday was our last time visiting local IHOP located at

1286 Oakdale Ave
El Cajon, CA 92021
Manager pictured to the right

Our last two experiences at this location have not been satisfying at all. We firmly believe that the this location either needs a new manager or the manager needs to be schooled on how to properly manage a place.

Our first bad experience…Lela and I went here for Breakfast (really, is there any other time to go there?) We were enjoying our drinks and chatting waiting for breakfast to make it’s way to the table. I picked up the coffee to fill up my cup and lela starts jumping trying to get what appears to be a bug to me. And sure enough it was. It ran off and so did we to another table. The waitress came over, noticed we moved and we told her what we had saw. She went to look for the intruder when the Manager walked by and asked her what was going on. She told him and he replied with “I’ll look for it later”. Does he really think the bug is just going to hang out waiting for him to come looking for him and be captured? I THINK NOT… It’s not so much that that upset us because it is a establishment with food and we believe that every restaurant has some form of critter. But it’s how the manager handles the situation that says alot about a place. The manager never once come over to us to talk with us to see what happened and never apologized. As much as we would of loved to have a free meal or free drinks. We would of loved an apology alot more. Lela later on called the corporate IHOP and complained.

Yesterday after wondering if we should return to the same IHOP we decided to give it a go.

This second experience upset not only us but the customers at the table next to us. We were sitting enjoying our breakfast (Lela, “K” and “S”). All the sudden I smelled something that really bothered me. I turned around and one of the crew members was mopping the floors with pine-sol or similar product only 2 feet away from me. What a horrible way to destroy the smell of my buttermilk pancakes (with butter pecan syrup), eggs, sausage, hash browns and coffee. Soon as I turned around I heard the ladies next to us complaining about it as well. They tried to deal with it but decided to move since they were still awaiting their food (we were already about 80% done. Now I was taught when I worked at Arby’s back in the day. That while customers are in the store (area) you use a mop that just rinsed in water if you wanted to clean up that specific area. Later on you could go back with the cleaning agent.

The IHOP from outside..