Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar

Totally hung over from a night, (honestly day), of drinking with a gaggle of MMA fighters that we had just watched the night before... I woke up and needed to watch NBA, get food, and get a beer.  So I walked into the Applebee's I was close to, (yes, I know, I said Applebee's). Sat down at the bar, ordered a beer, hangover food and a Rolling Rock on tap.
The bartender, Kacey, so on the ball and quick with refills and quips. I'm not usually a fan of chains but had a great day and a awesome experience.

Let me start by saying that there is nothing spectacular about Applebee's.  The service is always good (but never great) and the food is always good (but again, never outstanding).  But isn't that what we all expect from an Applebee's?  Really, what can you expect from a chain restaurant?

Anyway, with all that being said, this Applebee's did change my mind about most.  I hadn't eaten Applebee's in probably 15 years before I ate here with my husband.  My whole party got very ill at one of their restaurants so many years ago that the memories just haunted me!  Luckily, I've never gotten sick from this one and I hope I never will!

This tends to be our back-up restaurant if all of our other plans fall through (as I'm sure it is for most of its patrons).  I almost feel like there are too many choices to order from, so we spend a lot of time staring blankly at the menu.  Don't worry, we tip our servers well for "dealing" with us!  All in all, they're just okay and I'm perfectly okay with that.

Unfortunately, my first 1 star review.  Strangely enough, the one star restaurants has something in common with five star restaurants.  I'm still remembering my dinner a few days later, just not in the same way.  When talking about bad food, in my book, it boils down to two categories.  Either a bad concept or bad execution.  Applebees had both.  I ordered an appetizer trio with cheeseburger sliders, classic wings, and potato swirls.  At first, the server brought me boneless wings instead of classic wings.  I was like "oh, I ordered classics".  They said, "no problem, I'm sorry, we will fix it".  10 seconds later, they bring out classic wings.  I was like, wow, that was fast.  After I took a bite of the wings, I realized what they had done.  They just had some old stale wings just laying around just for an emergency like that.  But even if it the wings were cooked fresh, the hot sauce they put on it, is just off.  I think they want to be different, but the sauce wouldn't work with yucky or good wings.  The cheeseburger sliders were passable in execution, but the bread was very doughy.  As far as those potato chips, they were okay, but the concept of having a queso to dip it with just didn't work.  But to top if off, I could see the cheese separate from the liquid.  Wow.  
This wasn't my first choice, unfortunately, Bull and Bush was packed and we couldn't wait.  I really wanted a beer, so that's why we came here.  I was a victim of time, geography, and price point at the wrong time.  However, in retrospect, I have no one to blame but myself since I didn't use my Yelp skills.