Sunday morning a friend and I decided to check out the new IHOP at DCUSA, which had its soft opening on the 16th. Apparently lots of other folks had the same idea, as it was packed. It was also pretty confusing.
You walk in and the small entryway is full of people. Then there are two cash registers with people hovering around them, and lots of staff going back and forth. We stood there for a minute and nobody talked to us, then we noticed there was a stand with a hostess at it, so we went over and spoke to her. She said it was a 30 minute wait, which was too long for us. So we left.
Not the best intro the place, but I suppose everywhere is jammed when they open. A few things I noticed though: you can get take-out, and they aren’t yet open 24 hours. At the cash register station a bunch of people were waiting to get their take-out food, which is a pretty good idea.
As for being open 24 hours, a sign on the window said they’d start that next weekend.
Something else I had my eye on: a got a Twitter message saying the staff wasn’t diverse, but that didn’t seem to be the case on this visit.
Hopefully soon enough I’ll be able to have some food.
