NC Applebee's Can't Afford Breadsticks Or Candles Anymore
Glenn's family went to Applebee's last night and discovered that the restaurant is cutting back. Really cutting back. You have to bring your own candles now for their birthday cakes, because "Applebee's doesn't supply birthday candles anymore."
So we took our five year old to an Applebees in Charlotte, NC last night for his fifth birthday. He ordered their "mac & cheese" and when it arrived we noticed that it did not have the usual breadstick. We asked why and were told that corporate felt that "they weren't healthy for kids" so they have been dropped from the menu. So the dinner cost the same as before, just that the kids get less. Very nice.Our advice to Applebee's customers in Charlotte: if you have a kid, bring a couple of phone books with you next time. You know, just in case they've sold off the booster seats.Then the real kicker. He wanted chocolate cake for dessert. I told the waitress that it was his birthday but when they started coming out with the cake there was no candle. I asked that they put one in. They went back into the kitchen and came back out five minutes later - again no candle. They sang the song and he ate his cake. I asked "why no candle?" and was told that "Applebees doesn't supply birthday candles anymore. If you want a candle in your cake, you have to bring your own." Amazing. Things are so tight that they can't put a candle in a five-year olds' cake. I guess every penny counts today.
(Thanks to Glenn!)
UPDATE: After reading the negative vitrol posted in the comments, Glenn sent in the following clarification:
Chris, it appears the my original post yesterday was completely taken out of context by the vast majority of those that posted comments in response. I was not upset that we didn't get a candle. My five year old was not upset. It was simply a candle. Not a big deal. I didn't feel that Applebee's "owed" us a candle. We stuck one in a cupcake for him at home and there was no issue. The point I was trying to make was that chains such as Applebee's must be hurting financially if they are cutting back on things such as bread and candles. They told me that they used to supply them and now they aren't - I just found that interesting that a chain as big as Applebee's is looking so closely at small things, such as candles, to save a few dollars. I understand that every expense impacts their bottom line, but things must be worse than we thought if they are proactively removing candles from their kitchens.And as far as the bread, again, I just found it interesting that it used to be part of the kids meal, but now they have removed it, while keeping the price the same. If McDonald's removed fries from their "Happy Meals" but didn't drop the price, I am sure that people would complain that they are paying the same but getting less. That was all I was trying to say. My son got along just fine without the breadstick. He wasn't upset.
As for taking my kid to Applebee's for his birthday - he turned five. He likes their "mac & cheese." As a parent, I just wanted my kid to be happy on this birthday. Nothing more, nothing less. It certainly doesn't make me a bad parent. Is Applebee's the best restaurant in the world? No. Are there better places to go? Yes. But he asked to go there, and it wasn't a big deal. It was his birthday. I wish the people that posted responses would either remember what it was like to be 5, or had a 5 year old of their own. When you have a young kid, you do end up going to restaurants like this. That is why they are called "family friendly."
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Comments:
It's just a candle. And a kid meal breadstick.
........who cares?
Remove the breadstick from the menu cause it's not good for kids but you'll still serve them chocolate cake...
Um ok.
"It's just a candle. And a kid meal breadstick."
They have a right to that breadstick. A breadstick previous advertised and not offered. What if all that kid cared about was the breadstick? Is it fair to make that child feel not so good? Of course not.
Take it to the manager, take it to the district, and most of all, take it to corporate. A candle I can understand, but the breadstick..why not just beat the child!
(Disclaimer: None of what is said above should be taken seriously. It was a somewhat poor attempt at humour. Do not adjust your TV set, everything is ok.)
I understand the whole "getting less for the same price" complaint, but this guy/gal sounds like kind of an entitled jerk. While it's always been nice to embarrass the random unsuspecting friend by telling the Applebee's staff that it was their birthday, a restaurant certainly doesn't HAVE to have candles for your kid. I don't know why the LW would have been offended that they were unprepared for a birthday they couldn't have known about. The kid won't remember anything but awesome mac and cheese and chocolate cake, and hopefully not the fact that his parent was a pissy nitpicker.
This site is getting sooooo whiney.
I can understand being a little miffed at the breadsticks, you are getting less food for the same price. As to the candles, I have never been to a restaurant that put candles in a piece of cake for someone's birthday.
Because the candles got recalled due to trace amts of lead.
Breadstick removed? maybe they were feeding you a line of crap because they ran out of breadsticks that were cooked and were to lazy to make more?
You (Consumerist staff) do a disservice to your site by posting nonsense like this.
This reminds me of the other day, my boyfriend and I went to eat at AB's in KY and I always get this Chicken mushroom sandwhich that comes with fruit on the side and on the menu it said it comes with a variety of fresh fruit. The first time I ordered it, I got a whole bowl of fruit (pineapples, grapes, apples, strawberries, etc.) We went there a couple nights ago, I got 3 strawberries. The service that night was also horrible, it took at LEAST 30 min. just to get our appetizer. The manager delivered our food, but yet didn't offer any apologies or such.
This is silliness. WGAS about candles? Did they advertise them and not come through? I'm sure if you raised a stink about a goddamn breadstick they would give you one but give me a break about candles.
@beavis88: They won't hear your complaint. Take it straight to corporate. Worse comes to worst, you should pull an EECCB. Find instrucations elsewhere on this site.
You (Consumerist staff) do yourself a disservice by posting comments left by sour minded egotists who seem to think if something isn't important to them, it shouldn't be important at all.
OMFG time to boycott Applebee's for not providing a breadstick and a candle.
Seriously, have your kids birthday at home. Don't make the already nerve wracked wait staff sing to your brats people.
paying the same and getting less is the big corporate MO these days. I had a Filet of Fish at the local fast food emporium and it seemed small to me.
The children's menu doesn't even say anything about breadsticks.
This was taken from the online menu for a NC Applebee's:
"*Includes your choice of steamed broccoli, celery with ranch dressing, applesauce or fries."
My gosh you people, defending Applebees or saying that this is trivial. The question to ask is: Did the customer get good customer service? The answer is NO...
I swear Applebees didn't put any chili powder in the chili I ordered there yesterday. Cost cutting bastards...
I threw a fit like a 5-year old over it.
This is pretty dumb. It's a candle.
This site really is getting quite whiny.
Thinking about it, in today's atmosphere of sue first think later, I can't imagine any restaurant allowing open flames near any customer, let alone kids.
A local restaurant reviewer commented about the Applebee's advertisment catch line, "Eatin' good in your neighborhood" that if Applebee's really was good eatin in your neighborhood that you should seriously consider moving.
Applebee's has been horrid for as long as I can remember at pretty much every location I have visited. Take your kid someplace decent for their birthday and they won't end up resenting you and blaming you for all their problems to their therapist later in life.
I guess I missed the part where the customer threw a fit because he didn't get a candle...I don't think it's unreasonable to expect one, and I read the story as kind of a "huh, isn't that weird?" anecdote rather than the complaint of an outraged customer.
I thought it was interesting, at least.
what next? Toliet paper like what B of A did?
where's the 3...2...1... countdown commenter?
Applebee's sucks. Why are you eating there anyway?
The portions at Applebees shrink every time I go there (which is very rarely)
If they just gave the kid a margarita in a sippy cup, everybody would have been happy. Also, what kind of nine year old wants Applebees for his birthday? Or ever?
Not good service? Um, because they were missing a breadstick and oh noes, missing a candle? I've never been to any restaurant that supplied birthday candles, except for like Chuck E. Cheeses...and that's not really a traditional restaurant. Yeah, it sucks the Mac and Cheese is the same price, but the online menu says nothing about it, and I would assume they've updated their menus. Maybe they put more pasta in the dish now (I doubt it, it is a corporation, but it is possible..however slimly possible).
The whole post is just a bit whiny. Now, if they stole her credit card or brought out the wrong food or were rude, that's different. But this? It's your kid..bring your own candles.
Headlines from an alternate dimension:
Kid Gets Burned from Applebees Cake Candle
Applebees "Kids-Size" Mac & Cheese & Breadstick have 93,283 Calories
I think the kid would have been just as happy with McDonalds but god forbid we feed our kids anything but fruit and vegetables and we are automatically considered devil parents by the rest of society. Bread is suddenly the devil while Mac & cheese is somehow healthy?? Last time I checked Mac & Cheese has way more calories than 1 kid sized stick of bread. Its not like removing the bread because it is unhealthy for kids is going to magically make all the calories from the Mac & Cheese go away. I am surprised they don't just have one kids menu choice which is a plate of fruit and vegetables, with no added sugar and no butter on the veggies. If they were really concerned about the health of kids thats what they would do, oh and I am sure they are "taking this very seriously".
Applebees is the place where the tourists who don't know any better eat here, we have recently discovered that the price of a GOOD restaurant here (ya know, one with home-made food, not frozen stuff warmed up in a microwave) is only marginally higher than the chain restaurants. Restaurants that are deemed "expensive" places to eat here, really are not that expensive after considering the prices of chain restaurant foods and the amount of times we eat out a year (less than 5).
While I hate people that whine about missing out on free stuff (and this guy Glenn is whining about pretty inconsequential stuff), I'd hate to think of this as part of a larger trend. If restaurants continue to cut corners, as well as giving their staff poor excuses to pass on to customers, then how small are our plates going to get while prices stay the same or keep going up. It's disturbing what we pay for mediocre food and cut-and-paste atmosphere.
We don't have to eat out, yes, but we also don't have to accept the situations that consumers are being backed into. This isn't just about birthday candles, people. But seriously Glenn, don't whine about breadsticks and candles. Be a man.
Are we really sure that was Mac N Cheese and not Candles that they were using to make that with? That would probably explain why they ran out of candles.
Now back on topic. Really folks. This is getting to be stupid. People are getting out of line with what to expect when they go to a resturant. I blame the stupid commericials they put on.
The people in the story are just plain dumb.
First never take your brat to Applebees or Chili's.
I don't want to hear him screaming while I'm trying to eat.
Second, it's not Chucky Cheese or whatever kiddie place there is out there. Why should they have to cater to your stupid brat.
Third Stay at home and do the birthday celebration like normal people do for five year olds most of the time. You think you are so special that somehow Applebee's a fourth rate resturant needs to bow down to you? Those kids in there could give a sh*t less.
Applebee's is basically McDonald's with table service.
@soulman901: Personally, when I go to resturants like Chilis or Applebees, I expect there to be bratty kids. It's a family resturant, so I expect families. If I want to go someplace kid free, I go to a real resturant.
It's possible that they used to give out breadsticks with the mac&cheese and then started noticing how many breadsticks they were throwing away. It's also possible that corporate said "hey, stop giving out stuff if it isn't on the menu." Whatever the reason, if it wasn't part of the advertised meal, they didn't deserve it. Now, maybe if they had said "hey, could my kid get a breadstick?" instead of "Where's my kid's F-ing breadstick?!" the waitstaff might have gone and got him one.
Also, who cares about candles. Do you really want little pieces of wax that have probably been rolling around in a dusty corner stuck into your kid's food?
Gotta love how a story about a parent whining that a restaurant "can't put a candle in a five-year olds' cake" is followed by a story about a four-year-old dying of lead poisoning.
A) Someone doesn't want to bother to buy birthday candles for their child, angry that restaurant won't do it.
B) Someone's child dies because of a company's product.
Which type should the Consumerist really be focusing on?
I can kind of understand this. If they don't provide the candles they can't be sued by some ignoramus whose kid gets sick after eating the cake+wax.
@ju_ju_eyeball: So should a waiter have run off and bought candles somewhere? Maybe they could have given the kid some bread to make up for the breadstick, but just because a restaurant (or store) doesn't have a freebie you want doesn't mean it's bad customer service.
They aren't the only ones scaling back. I ordered a caesar salad at TGI Friodays a few weeks ago and they no longer have bread sticks or garlic bread served with the salad any more either... I make better CS than them anyway...
Commenters seem more outraged than the OP who doesn't seem particularly outraged.
@johnva: I had a manager training class the other day and someone in class said the exact same thing you said.
Hey Glenn, your whining disgusts me. Shut up already.
All of the "blame the consumer" mentality going on around here lately makes me wonder if corporations have caught wind of consumerist.com and send in people to make these posts. I know we've caught a few shills before, but lately almost every post is "Oh well Joe should have known Corporation Y was going to fuck him, his fault, don't stifle capitalism you pinko Commies."
Geez.
@B: There is no excuse for bratty kids. Shut them up. If you(not you, but to my target audience) can't shut up your screaming kid the leave.
Kids will be kids. I understand that. I love kids around. Even in restaurants. But keep them under control and do not let them scream bloody murder. Leave!
And if you can't control them in general don't go to my local Chili's anymore. Not unless you leave your brats at home or with a sitter.
@bilge: Yeah, some of the comments are really misinterpreting the OP's tone.
OP: "Hey, this is kind of weird and disappointing."
Commenter's version of the OP: "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH I WANNA COOKIE WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH."
If the OP actually was acting like that, then I could understand the bitching, but he's really not.
They're just protecting their assets. The candles might be from Reebok. And made of lead.
@soulman901: Yeah, those nasty children really ruin the class and glamour of the Applebee's dining experience.
They could smply have been out of candles...
And the breadstick is unhealthy, but the Mac&Cheese is healthy? Who are they kidding?