Applebee's is better known for its wings, steak, ribs, and chicken than for its burgers, sandwiches, or dessert, and is a lunch and dinner but usually not breakfast restaurant.
Applebee's succeeded because of its friendly neighborhood pub atmosphere. It offers familiar American restaurant food – chicken, steak, burgers, salad, ribs, and pasta. Applebee's is relatively cheap, but is clearly a casual dining restaurant and not a fast food restaurant.
Applebee's serves alcohol, including low-cost cocktails. Everyone should try their riblets, which are the most famous thing on the Applebee's menu. They also have burgers, sandwiches, wraps, and desserts even though that is not what the chain is famous for.
Many Applebee's restaurants are open from 11 am to 12 pm, for about 13 hours in total. They are not often open early in the morning. Some restaurants have different hours, sometimes from 7 am to as late as 1 am.
To find out more about Applebee's, browse through the Applebee's website.
Which Countries Have an Applebee's Restaurant?
Applebee's is huge, so you can find these restaurants in 15 countries. The company directly owns only 69 restaurants, but 1,718 are part of the franchise. 1578 restaurants are in the United States, with that number decreasing recently.
What is Different About Applebee's?
Many things make Applebee's a great restaurant. Especially for a large chain restaurant, it is warm, atmospheric, and friendly.
It is obviously a place to sit down and take time eating your food with a couple of drinks. You aren't supposed to show up, eat quickly, and leave, like at a fast food restaurant.
Applebee's is in some ways a sports bar as well as a restaurant, so it's a great place to watch games with your friends. Applebee's is also cheap for its quality and has so many locations, you can find them anywhere if you live in the US.
Is Applebee's Spicy?
Some of their most popular dishes (steaks, burgers, pasta) are not spicy. However, they often use honey pepper sauce, which contains cayenne pepper and is spicy. They do have fairly spicy dishes, but they are not known for spicy food.
The first thing to try is their riblets, which are their signature dish. The steak is also great, especially for its price, and so are the cocktails. The Applebee's menu also includes:
- Boneless wings
- Tacos
- Baby back ribs
- Steak with shrimp and Parmesan
- Many chicken dishes, including chicken with shrimp
- Salmon
- Fish and chips
- Pasta
- Burgers
- Many desserts
- Sandwiches
- Drinks
- Many more items
How Do I Order Food at Applebee's?
You can order food online. If you talk to the staff, ordering is easy, and you can ask if they have a certain dish.
Does Applebee's Cater to Vegetarians?
Applebee's is not a great place for vegetarians to eat regularly. However, if you go to Applebee's the odd time, you can find some vegetarian dishes.
There are both purely vegetarian dishes and dishes that are still good if you remove the meat. Some of the better vegetarian dishes are:
- Quesadeals without meat
- Southwest chicken bowl without chicken
- Tex Mex bowl minus the shrimp
- Broccoli Alfredo (order without meat)
- Three Cheese Penne (without meat)
The restaurant also offers many salads without meat:
- Garden Salad
- Strawberry Balsamic Salad (without meat)
- Oriental Salad (without meat)
There are also many small orders and side orders you can get without meat. The restaurant offers mozzarella sticks, nachos, breadsticks with sauce, onion rings, and french fries. The kid's menu offers pizza, which can be meatless.
Not plenty of desserts contain meat anywhere. You can get shakes, sundaes, and more at Applebee's.
If you aren't sure what vegetarian dishes to try at Applebee's, try the cheese quesadillas. The southwest chicken bowl is also great and quite filling without chicken.
Does Applebee's Have Vegan Food Options?
Vegan options are much more limited than vegetarian options, but you can still find a good lighter meal at Applebee's. The breadsticks are unfortunately made with butter, and the desserts have dairy. The onion rings also contain dairy.
However, the pretzels are vegan as long as you don't order the cheese dip or honey mustard. Nachos are good without either meat or cheese, and you might be able to remove the meat and cheese from some other dishes and have them still be good. Unfortunately, the soups are not vegan or even vegetarian because the broth contains meat.
The sandwiches might be a good choice if you want vegan food. You can remove the meat and cheese from these sandwiches, though many vegan and mainstream restaurants offer better vegan sandwiches.
If you are looking for plant-based meat, it depends on the location. You can find impossible burgers if you are lucky. You can order the salads without meat, dairy, or dressing that contains dairy. Desserts all contain dairy, but you can order a fruit smoothie.
Yes, they offer several children's dishes. Their children's menu includes:
- Cheesy pizza
- Kids chicken quesadilla
- Corn dog
- Kids chicken taco
- Kids chicken Alfredo
- Macaroni and cheese
- Kids cheeseburger
What is Applebee's' Opening Hours?
Hours vary, but they are usually open from a little before noon to midnight. Hours are not wholly unique on weekends, and they are often open seven days a week. Their typical hours are:
Monday: 11 am to midnight
Tuesday: 11 am to midnight
Wednesday: 11 am to midnight
Thursday: 11 am to midnight
Friday: 11 am to 1 am
Saturday: 11 am to 1 am
Sunday: 11 am to midnight
Always call the restaurant to make sure about the hours first. If you want to go for breakfast at Applebee's, your local restaurant might offer it.
Does Applebee's Offer Delivery?
Applebee's offers delivery as well as indoor dining, outdoor dining, and takeout. You can call them and ask for curbside pickup or order it online.
Applebee's delivery uses DoorDash to recruit delivery workers and deliver your meals. Frequently, you can rely on DoorDash, though it might not be quite as good as hiring employees to deliver meals.
Does Applebee's Have Wi-Fi?
Yes, if you ask for it, they will give you a Wi-Fi password.
Is Applebee's Healthy?
Applebee's sort of isn't a healthy restaurant, although it depends on what you order. Some of the dishes are very high-calorie, such as fish and chips. You can do much better than Applebee's if you want to limit calories.
If you would like to limit carbs, there are some fairly low-carb meals, such as a steak and salad. If you would like to limit saturated fat, you can order pasta.
One healthy thing about the restaurant is that their main dishes are grilled rather than fried. This makes their food a cut above the usual fried foods place.
What you drink matters as much as what you eat – you could have juice or milk, not coca-cola or alcohol. What sides you order also matters. You can make your meal a lot healthier if you eat salad rather than fries. A lot of the time, french fries are much worse than whatever the main course is.
You can see a list of Applebee's entrées ranked by calories here. Some of the entrées are much better than others. A grilled chicken breast has only 190 calories, compared to 1890 calories for an oriental chicken wrap.
The famous riblets platter has 1310 calories. However, it has 86 grams of protein, so it is a partly healthy meal. A riblet platter shared between two people might be considered a healthy meal.
Is Applebee's Halal?
Applebee's does not mention halal food and probably does not offer it in most places. You could call them in advance – they might offer it in your area.
Can I Cook Applebee's at Home?
Yes, you can cook something similar to many of their recipes. The ingredients are easy to find, or you can at least find similar ingredients and make very similar tasting food.
One delicious and relatively easy recipe is the Applebee's sirloin steak.
You need butter, parsley, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, cayenne pepper, garlic, and a few other ingredients. You have to marinate the steak, so it is not quick, but it is still a delicious and simple recipe.
While grilled steak is best and most similar to the Applebee's' taste, you can also cook it in other ways. You can first pre-heat a skillet for 10 minutes and pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.
You can then sear the steak for 2 minutes on each side, then put the steak in the oven for at most 10 minutes. Make sure you use sirloin steak, as it probably won't be quite as good as the Applebee's recipe otherwise.