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Additionally, this post is going to double as a ROTM - as you will quickly see.

Last night sucked.  I probably shouldn't say sucked because it wasn't all that bad but I'll let you decide.  At about 7:30 PM my father-in-law, my wife, and I went to Applebees (note the lack of a link).  We were seated within 5 minutes, very acceptable.  Our server was a little behind and didn't get our drinks until we had been seated for 10 minutes.  When we ordered our drinks we also ordered our food (since we had so much time to think about it).  Our drinks arrived in short order, within 5  minutes - ok as far as service goes.  We all sipped at our drinks and talked - and talked - and talked.  Finally 45 minutes later our server revisits our table to apologize for the delay and told us that our food would be out in about 10 minutes.  By this point my drink has been empty for at least 10 minutes (and would continue to be empty until our meals arrived).  He apologized and that he would send our his manager to talk to us.  The manager, obviously frustrated, told us that he didn't know what was wrong with his staff tonight (except that our server hadn't put in our order) and that he would discount our bill and include free desert.  A few minutes later our server returned to apologize again and reassure us that our food would be out soon.  The manager returned again to give us a gift card worth $30 and reiterate that our deserts would be covered.  By the time we got our food we had been in there for an hour and 5 minutes, now that is what I call a lack of service.  We all finally got our refills on our drinks and we enjoyed the exquisitely fresh food.  After our meals were complete we waited for about 5 minutes for our slacker server to notice and come by to clear our plates and take our desert order.  After what felt like forever, but was acutally 10 minutes, our desert arrived and we enjoyed it immensely.  Our server came by shortly after we finished and took our plates, we also asked for the check.  After 15 minutes he finally returned with our check, slightly discounted (basically got our drinks comped) and we paid him immediately but we didn't have exact change and in favor of leaving before we had been there for 2 hours, we opted to give him a 7 dollar tip (that in my opinion he didn't deserve).  So that was how my night was spent - in at 7:30, out at 9:15.
Hope your night went better than mine,
   ~ Mr. Me ~