Applebee's - Spanish Springs
 

We have seldom had a meal as depressing as yesterday evening's at Applebee's.

It has always been a dark place inside, but usually enlivened by a crowd of diners.

Yesterday - a Saturday evening - it was maybe 10% full. Yet there were seven people waiting in front of us and it took 15 minutes for us to be seated. Several who came in after us left before being seated.

Around a quarter of the unoccupied tables were waiting to be bussed, which gave the whole place a feeling of neglect.

Never again - we'd have been better off grabbing a burger next door at Wendy's.

Yeah, we fancy like Applebee's on a date night
Got that Bourbon Street steak with the Oreo shake
Get some whipped cream on the top too
Two straws, one check, girl, I got you

Sad it used to be our go to restaurants for lunch and often for dinner when living in Va.

Unfortunate. We've not eaten at that particular Applebee's but that has not been our experience eating at other Applebee's here and there. Nothing fancy but good value for money and very good service.

Every restaurant has the same problem, inadequate staffing due to difficulty hiring dependable employees.

I think that must be it.

The food was fine and the service was friendly and quick once it got going.

Why is this happening now??

Now that IS the question. This area may not have the diversity in its population needed to fill jobs. By diversity I mean to say age, proximity to employment opportunity, socio-economic condition, language skills, yada, yada, yada. We are in a huge geographical bubble saturated with old folks of questionably slightly better than average means. At least that might be one reason. You could throw in a little bit of lack of work ethic and laziness but I don’t think that is the major reason

Exactly
 

The Bonefish was the same way for us. Our exceptions with much better service have all been further outside the bubble. Ocala, Inverness, Wesley Chapel and even Leesburg all have great dining experiences.

This is especially disappointing for me and my husband because for some reason when we moved out of our former home to come here last November our neighbors gave us a $100 Applebees GC as a farewell gift. We haven’t gone there yet because we live down south in DeLuna, but we were planning to eventually. While we appreciate their thoughtfulness we are still wondering why that was their choice of GCs since we have no Applebees restaurants anywhere close to where we used to live. Maybe we need to go outside the bubble to find a better Applebees. 😊

We've always liked Applebees in other places, in fact we would look for one when traveling because they were dependably good, but I agree, the one in Spanish springs is just awful.

No-one wantsto work anymore! Its that way everywhere. We eat at home more ,no sense of going out and getting ticked off.
We have a couple of certain places where we will go and not get ripped off ,you take a chance anymore going out to eat ,foods are expensive .

It's not just in TV, when we went back to Tennessee for a visit with family, restaurants there were not sufficiently staffed.

In my opinion, it's happening now because anybody who is able-bodied that wants to work hard is building houses in TV. That's where the money and job security is.

Same thing here…
 

We recently went to the same Applebees. I thought it was just me thinking that the service was extremely slow! We went in, absolutely famished, and the service was (and I am not over exaggerating), extremely slow. It took forever to have lunch, and it was not like it was overly crowded. I may give them yet another chance, because I too like Applebees, but I will try it at a time, where I have all the time in the world…so it may be a while.

There is an Applebee's in Clermont. Easy to get to.

I'm up north in the far west suburbs of Chicago and finding good plentiful food and great service. Maybe it has to do with the old folks in the "bubble" (why they use that word I'll never figure out as it diminishes the Villages) that are harder to wait on and many times cheaper than working folks. The quality, quantity, service, cannot be compared to the Villages where much is lacking. I am a Fl resident but eat out very little except for a great Chinese restaurant in Southern Trace.

Not true at all. My kids are here for summer break from college. They are working three jobs, because no place will give them more than 20 hours. Unfortunately, diners are just not coming in so management tells them to go home. If the amount of diners picks up, they then don't have the staff to accommodate. If they tell them to stay in anticipation of diners and they don't come, they spent labor dollars for nothing. Its a tough position to be in.

On the flip side, if there is an event at the square and a place knows they will see a lot of guests, they can't schedule for additional hours because of the other part time jobs most employees hold. So, if place A has them from 10-4:00 and place B from 4:30-1030, place A just lost a server so has to serve less people.

Instead of the 60 hours they expect to work a week they are lucky to get 40 between all three restaurants.

If you want to place blame, point it at our economy. No one wants full time help (even with waived benefits), higher inflation which requires multiple part-time jobs, and multiple part-time jobs that restrict flexibility for both the employer and employee.

No doubt about it.
 

The dark years of our government's REACTION to Covid, not Covid itself, changed America's work ethic. Only a few years long, but it has taught people, especially (but not limited to) young people that they don't have to work. Sad.

And yet, “never again”, ?

My observation: there are plenty of restaurants here in the "bubble" and outside fully staffed with good and sometimes great service. Some, not so much. Managing a restaurant staff must be challenging. It's a fluid workforce and keeping staffing levels up must be challenging in any economic climate. I think many in this workforce see it as a temporary gig till a better paying job, or one closer to home, or one with better benefits pops up. All that said, I do find that Applebees to be kind of gloomy inside.

Sorry to hear this, sounds like they were woefully understaffed that night. The scheduled busser might have called in sick. I most likely would have left, 15 minutes is too long to wait for a table at Applebee’s. But honestly I would have sat at the bar and ate, if a bartender was there.

Agree. There are at least three other restaurants in "The Bubble" where I have experienced the same issues.

It is instructive to look at the restaurants that do NOT have this problem. One such is Lopez Legacy. We've eaten there several times now and without exception the food has been great and the service wonderful. The other side of that coin obviously is $$$: Lopez Legacy and (say) Applebee's both serve food but that is virtually the only similarity they have. Lopez Legacy (according to what I've heard) pays their people well, and offers sick leave, vacation pay and health insurance--which of course translates into higher meal prices. Applebees? probably none of the above.

Villagers (some, anyway) are known to be penurious, and paying higher prices across-the-board for better food served by better waitstaff, no matter what the restaurant in question is, would go over like a fart in church with some of them. But maybe that is the price we will have to pay.

Still too much free money out there.

Penurious — good word, don’t see it often. But I would have just said cheap!

Hmmm, Applebees has been one of our ‘go to’ restaurants for several years. Great service, good food, good value.

Our Sunday Bowling Group (12 of us) went to Applebee's Sunday evening - service was excellent. I mean, really good! Our server, Alee, was very pleasant, professional and perfectly attentive. The food was good, served quickly and the bills were all correct. We made it a point to personally thank her for her efforts along with a "nice" tip.

We've had "bad" experiences at other restaurants in TV including Nancy Lopez. We put them in "Time Out" for a while and then try again. Usually, the next time our expectations are exceeded.

Applebee’s
 

Short on staff. I always have good food. Last time I had ribs fell off bones and young gentleman waiting on me was on target as a server. I think it’s touch and go. No real host why waiting to be seated.they have specials each day reasonable priced.

Life is tough. Hope your depression has lifted.

When we moved a friend looked up a restaurant in The Villages and ordered a gift card for a restaurant we didn't have in our hometown. She wrote on the card "new beginnings". I loved the idea! BTW I have been to that Applebee's many times. One of the few open late. It is dark, but food always good and the employees have always been attentive.

Where is the free money?

Correct..staffing is a huge issue everywhere! Employees are opting for jobs with full benefits with salary, over working for just tips and $1.00 per hour salary. My son’s place offered just that to his wait staff: salary plus benefits

This is the menu for Applebees.

Attention Required! | Cloudflare

The classic burger is $11.49. I assume that fries are included.

Menus | Legacy Restaurant

The burger is $12.99 - and includes fries.

At McDonald's, a QPC is $4.79 and a large fries is $3.69 for a total of $8.48.

In addition to the lack of dependable help (all over) Applebee's has struggled for years to stand out in the field of "casual restaurants". They don't really offer anything the others don't, and you could argue, less. When we lived up north had one 10 minutes from us. Can't remember that last time we went there.

Add in the higher cost of eating out, and the expectation of 20%+ tip, and I don't see any reason to go there.

Missed what you wrote about the meal

If I was a young kid wanting to work, I would take the first job offered. And if that job only offered 20 hours a week with a constantly changing schedule and few benefits, I would immediately jump ship for the first job offering 40 hours.

It is no surprise that restaurants offering less than full time have trouble retaining employees. It’s not the employees fault. They are upgrading their prospects whenever possible.

I think we all know why we have a labor problem don’t we? Because that’s what we asked for…… If you're wondering why America's labor shortage persists nearly three years into the Covid pandemic, it's in part because America doesn't have enough immigrants. Immigrants are vital to the US economy and fill thousands of US jobs – jobs many Americas don't want to do

The difference (obviously) is that the items from the Applebee's menu are served all day--including breakfast which you can get at 9 PM if you want (or dare), while the items from the Lopez menu are LUNCH items, served only (if memory serves) until 3 PM. It would be quite a challenge to find (say) an escargot appetizer for $14.99, a salmon-avocado salad for $19.99, Pear and Ricotta Stuffed Sacchettini for 24.99, Chilean seabass for $42.99, or New Zealand rack of lamb for $54.99, at Applebee's, while all five of those are part of the Lopez daily dinner menu.

A man was killed inside Applebees back in March around 1AM. This may have had an effect on staff. Not everyone can witness a shooting and be ok with it especially if you fear for your life. Probably hard for manager to replace staff when lots of businesses are looking to hire more employees these days. Just a thought.

Applebees Spanish Springs
 

I kinda agree with the negative comments on this Applebees. Last time there I had my service dog and asked to sit outside so as not to bother others with view of dog under table. Nope, no seating outside they said. So inside table given me. Service and food stunk. Not going back for awhile till management and staff changed. Somehow need to get those living at home on gov benefits into jobs.