Pros
I've met some of my best friends through working in the food service industry. Applebee's has been excellent in providing time off and my management has been excellent. It should be understood that your experience with management may vary. I had excellent coworkers for the most part. New staff always have a steep learning curve if they haven't worked in food service before. However, Applebee's on average does an excellent job in training new staff from new hire to manager. If you haven't worked food service its common that you'll start as a Host>Carside ToGo Specialist>Server>Bartender>Key>Manager. But it's also dependent on whether the store you're applying for needs more Servers/Hosts/Cooks etc. Overall its an excellent entry into the service industry and learning customer service skills.
Cons
It's the food service industry. Your mileage may vary with guests based on location. The low hourly wage will make you heavily reliant on tips and constant discount campaigns will make it difficult to have high check averages. If your location is bad (terrible regular guests) or management is bad the attrition rate of staff will also be terrible. Which make a store very reliant on the senior most staff.