IHOP

I’m trying to think of somewhere my father would prefer to dine at more than Waffle House, but nothing comes to mind. So he was being open-​minded and flexible when he offered the choice between IHOP and Waffle House for breakfast.
After my wife considered whether or not this really was the last straw and our marriage was over, she said IHOP would be her preferred choice between the two. So we went here for our annual check-​in with the family/​domestic conflagration, hoping that coffee would keep me alive until lunch.
The food at this IHOP is very much as you’d find at any IHOP. It was … well, I didn’t get sick from anything. So that’s good. But we had a fellow taking care of us named Erik. Erik is awesome. Erik clearly is a smart fellow, with a great personality. He was an exceptional waiter, keeping us well-​caffeinated and well fed. Erik exercised some quality control, sending back our eggs on his own initiative because they clearly were not cooked the way we’d ordered them.* He was fast, attentive, unobtrusive,** pleasant, and funny.
It was simply the best service I’ve had at any restaurant in the past year. I was astonished. Erik needs to be poached^ immediately by essentially any restaurant in Chattanooga. The man is simply too good for his job.
So if you luck out like we did, you might actually enjoy breakfast here. Simply insane!
As I read this review, I realize I presented food at IHOP as a priori inedible. Trust me, my attitude is very much a posteriori. I took the approach I did because every time I’ve ever eaten at IHOP, the food has been either terrible or actually made me sick to my stomach. So let me emphasize that the food is no better here than any other location — bland, minimally cooked vs. pre-​packaged and frozen, and the layout/​atmosphere just don’t work for me. Give me Denny’s over this every time. But it was competently reheated, so I ultimately left happy. I don’t even know what to say.
* Actually, the replacement eggs appeared to have been cooked exactly the same way as the original set of eggs, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him that. The point is, quality standards at IHOP. Never seen that before.
** Unilocal spellcheck informs me that neither unobtrusive nor inobtrusive is a real word. I feel like unobtrusive is a word, and I’m on a very slow internet connection here, so there’s no time to look it up. Or rather, I have to choose between typing this footnote and looking it up, and it’s clearly the right decision for me to explain my reasoning here instead of looking it up.
^ That’s right folks, it’s a breakfast double entendre.

When I was younger my entire family would load up and head over to this particular ihop. It was always a pleasant experience and the waiters/​waitresses would be very attentive and friendly.
However, things have changed since then…
When my family came this time, we had very terrible service. The waitresses on the floor all smelt terrible and one was wearing a huge jacket loaded with a smell. That particular waitress was at another table and from what I witnessed, they were not recovering good service either but I won’t get into that. Our particular waitress was slow to take our order. She was slow to bring it out and it was ALL cold. My burger was very dry. They never brought us our silverware so we had to search for another table with some. We asked for condiments and it took her well over 30 minutes to bring them. Our waitress never refilled our drinks. One of the syrup holders broke off into my cousin’s pancakes and that was unsanitary to eat so we alerted the waitress when she FINALLY came to the table. She didn’t apologize or take the pancake or the broker syrup holder. She just said «ok» and left it there at the table. We never received new pancakes. We finally asked for a manager but he didn’t seem to care either but I handed him the plate to make sure he would actually take it. I was charged extra for things I didn’t order. I would also like to state that I am a manager and I would never let my establishment run like this.
I will not be back and I do not suggest others should go either. I gave one star for bad attitudes from waitresses, poor service and terrible management.