Last night, my wife, and I decided to enjoy a nice meal out at Applebee's in Indio across from the courthouse. We have visited this location twice before, and the staff was excellent, the food was amazing, and the ambience was such that you could still have a conversation even when it was crowded. Last night, not so much. Initially we arrived and were seated at a "booth" that was four times larger than we needed for just the two of us. We were placed by the windows at sunset and had the glare of the sun in our eyes and had to ask a staff member to come over and close the blinds just so we could see each other without squinting. I ordered an appetizer combo which was delivered promptly to the table and it was just fine. The food was good. My wife, however, ordered a Margarita, and the assistant manager brought the drink over in a shaker cup with a cap on it, and strained the Margarita through the top of the steel cup into her glass without allowing any ice to go into her glass. He then set it down on the table so she could enjoy the rest of it . To her surprise, there was a decent amount of ice inside the shaker, and it is only proper to serve a margarita with the ice in it - not strained. This created a situation where she had to pour the drink back into the shaker and re pour into her glass . She also ordered the Bourbon Cajun burger with an impossible patty, as we are vegan. It took almost 20 minutes for her to get her plate, and when she did, it was an impossible patty on what would've been a regular cheeseburger - not the item she ordered. She asked the server to come back and send the burger to the back and have it replaced with the one she asked for, but with an impossible Patty. The server returned some 20+ minutes later, and set a plate in front of my wife, which had the correct burger, but the same Patty that was on the wrong burger. She could tell this because the Patty still had the American cheese melted on it instead of the Swiss cheese that was supposed to come with her Meal. She told the server that it is against food handlers' practices to re-serve a patty that has already been cooked, brought to the dining room and returned to the kitchen onto another plate. The burger must be re-cooked, and added as new to the corrected sandwich. The server agreed, and stated, "I have no idea why they did that." As she was preparing to take the plate back for a second time, the manager walked over and asked what the problem was. My wife explained to her what had happened, and she asked my wife, "Would you like something different?" my wife replied, "No - absolutely not - I want what I ordered, and I would like it done correctly, please." after a total of one hour, 20 minutes, my wife finally had the dish she ordered. She said it was amazing, exactly what she might have expected - but it was hard to sit there while I consumed my entire meal and drinks and now had to sit and wait for her to eat hers. It's sort of took the joy out of our night out. She had encouraged me to eat my food while it was still warm, so there really wasn't any other way we could have done this. The manager returned to the table a second time and told my wife she was going to comp her meal. This was sort of expected after the experience we had, and my wife thanked her profusely for understanding how difficult their staff made our visit. We informed her that we have been at her location two other times with an entirely different crew on duty and had a wonderful experience both times. We also informed her that we would not be returning to this location again. We cannot possibly predict who will be on duty and we do not ever want to repeat this experience. It is also important to note that when the manager was talking with my wife, she completely admitted to the fact that the kitchen staff was doing "things that they weren't supposed to do and I've been having problems with them because of that." she opened up the restaurant to complete liability and admitted guilt of her cooks who are doing things wrong, but still allowed to remain employed or on duty to continue to do the same to other people. This is very concerning, because if a cooking crew is not honoring the provisions of a food handlers' permit, they should be dismissed for the day and retrained, or fired on the spot. read more