Review: Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar
I did not think that in the year 2018 I would have any experience with the long-standing cafeteria that is Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar. I believe the last time I had Applebee’s was when I was very young. I thought it was enjoyable at the time; an event that I placed along other special treats like picking my nose, or shouting at stuff in the woods. Luckily for all of us, a flashy commercial for $1 cocktails enticed me all the way through the aggressively-lacquered wooden doors of my nearby location. How could anyone resist?
Applebee’s delivers one simple and beautiful message with their marketing campaign: bring us your damned, your weak, your poor, and we will get them hammered. Being escorted by the hostess to my table felt akin to entering the event horizon of a black hole: I was sure of where I was going but not entirely sure of how I would end up. This was new territory. After taking a seat in the booth and perusing the menu I decided to order some food along with my $1 Long Island Iced Tea (thus literally buying into the machination of this marketing campaign). My waiter, high on whatever extravagant drugs an Applebee’s waiter can afford, stared blankly into the parking lot as I placed my order with him.
In the interest of fairness, the $1 cocktail was pretty good. I certainly expected it to be repugnant or perhaps to be served in someone’s hollowed out leg. Overall the fairly weak and small-portioned drink tasted fine. Amidst the musty wood paneled walls where strange pictures of local juvenile sports teams served as decoration, the experience felt a lot like enjoying a glass of lemonade in Jeffery Dahmer’s kitchen.
Applebee’s, like the merciless vacuum of space, seems to insulate second thoughts and cries for help from passing outside of the walls of the restaurant
My food came fairly quickly, signaling that the microwaves must have not been too busy that evening. After taking a bite of my Parmesan chicken I quickly realized that “Eating Good In the Neighborhood” meant something alarmingly different from what I thought that sentence meant.
The products of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 may seem horrid, but are fairly mundane when compared to the cellophane cheese that caked this rubbery, grotesque piece of meat as it contorted inside of my mouth. The bed of rice it laid upon really pulled the dish together, thereby locking in an overall taste signature that emulates the plastic food displayed in rooms of a model home. I can’t remember the last time I had an actually sickening meal, but this gastrointestinal blitzkrieg will remain burned in my memory forever.
The chicanery of the free drink campaign is pretty remarkable. Though the experience of eating at Applebee’s comes dangerously close to infringing on the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it seems to be getting decent crowds into the place. Giving everyone the benefit of the doubt that none of them were “regulars”, a lot of people were indulging in the cheap drinks (one group, taking the drink deal to its logical end, even got thrown out for being unabashedly plastered). We will see how Applebee’s reputation develops in the near future, but needless to say that anyone who burns through their first visit will have their mind made up for good.