Olive Garden
reviews and complaints

On Feb 20 2018 my friends and I were seated for dinner .we gave our drink order and waited for 30 plus minutes to receive. Waitress was nice but disorganized places our food order another 40 minutes till the dinner order arrived when it was it was piecemeal multiple trips to kitchen to fill the order water and wine recorders slow in coming
Once served the check was not forthcoming. I am writing because of property manager had given me a warning Same experience
Then a month ago our attorney and his family recounted similar story
He said waitress brought drinks one at a time to table
Three families same problems
Appears to be lack of training and more than that no leadership or on site management
This is a small community and word of mouth has ruined more than one business justifiably

On Sunday, August 12. My husband and I thought we would enjoy a quite lunch after church as we had so many times in the past. Although this Sunday was different because it was the first time out in a week after foot surgery. Since I'm on crutches my husband dropped me off at the door. After waiting a brief moment the male hostess opened the door for me. Upon entering the waiting area i noticed the floor tiles looked wet between each tile. I started to enter the ladies room and saw that the floors tiles were very wet there too. I turned to the hostess and asked if the floor had just been mopped which he said yes. I decided that it would not be in my best interest to enter the ladies room on crutches with wet floors. I turned towards my husband who had just entered the waiting area from parking the car. I took a few steps and my crutches were now slipping on the wet lobby floors causing me to almost fall and stepping down on my injured foot to catch myself. My husband had helped me walk to the door mat for safety. After seeing that the entire waiting area is tile there was no safe way for me to walk to a dining table. At that time I decided to leave Olive Garden and go elsewhere.

So this brings me to my complaint. No where insite was there a wet floor sign nor had i been previously warned before entering your restaurant about wet floors. This is totally against ADA and OSHA regulations. If i had fallen I would have badly injured myself and/or reinjured my foot. The hostess had said nothing nor offer a resolution. I questioned why anyone who had the customers best interest in mind would mop the tile floors just prior to opening for business.

Although I will be on crutches for approximately six weeks I am now more sensitive to the daily struggles of someone with permanent disabilities face in public. Believe it is not easy having limited in mobility. I hope this email will bring attention to how your restaurants are designed and maintained.

Sincerely,
Concerned customer

On Sunday, August 12, 2018 at approximately 5:00 the most busiest time for dinner, my husband decided to dine with our granddaughter at Olive Garden on Route 1 in Laurel, Maryland because we promised her pizza. We decided to go to a step above a pizza store to engage in a family atmosphere.
We arrived and were seated in a timely manner as soon as we sat down the rain began to pour very heavily by that time the waitress came to our table and took our order and nearly three minutes later the power went out. I must say everyone remained calmed by continuously eating. Minutes later the waitress stopped by our table and informed us that the power would not be back on anytime soon.
Therefore, the manager came to our table never apologized, he just mentioned how he was going to tally the bill by hand and rushed to the next table saying the same thing.
I am absolutely appalled that an establishment of this size and notariety does not have a back up generator in place to keep the business moving forward and from my understanding this is not the first time that the power has gone out at this establishment.
It is a great thing that the customers remained calmed, mature and understanding about the event, other than that it could have been chaotic and dangerous to say the least.
Please explain why there is not a generator on site and please explain why the customer like myself who had not received a meal did not receive a complimentary offer, even if was to be a dessert or a free cold drink... or just a simple an apology.
I know that the manager was very busy attempting to collect funds from customers that had already been served, but the waiters or waitresses could have stated that they were sorry for the inconvenience but everyone was too busy trying to collect funds while neglecting the simplier but powerful tool... making sure the customer is informed and satisfied.
Well, if it was not the promise we made to our granddaughter, we would have avoided Olive Garden altogether, but we chose to order electronically at another Olive Garden and eat the meal at home.
Do the business a favor and please purchase a generator for the Olive Garden as you may or may not know Olive Garden was packed with families dining at your establishment, so if you do not care and if it is all about the money... just act like you care please.
Sincerely,

Mrs. Rhonda J Banks

My boyfriend and I decided to go to Olive Garden he has never been due to not really having a taste for Italian but wanted to try it out yesterday. We waited for 20 minutes on a table which was fine we didn't mind but the waiter we got was god awful. Everything we ordered he took to another table, told us we should have told him we needed tea when he had the pitcher out which in my opinion isn't my job that's yours, forgot to put shrimp on the order for my boyfriends dinner so he never got that, then after all that was literally trying to rush us to pay so I guess he could see his tip or not have to worry about us anymore but we ordered a dessert so I could tell that annoyed him some. The list just goes on and on. When I come to a restaurant I expect excellent service I know everyone has a bad day but it's your job to make sure your customers have a good experience espescially when they are paying close to 60 bucks for 2 people. I never complain but on this visit I had to because I was very disappointed, angry, upset that my boyfriend had never been and his first experience was terrible etc. we were at the restraunt for over 2 hours because he kept forgetting stuff and/or taking it to another table which caused him to have to take it back and being out a new one. This waiter needs some serious training or needs to be fired

Aug 5, 2018, Olive Garden in Waterloo, IA, my niece and I had a wonderful lunch with wonderful service and were leaving and I experience a fall on the tile floor, where there was water on the floor. My cane slid and then I fell and was assisted up by onlookers and the staff gathered around. This isn't actually a complaint, but a reminder to those in the restaurant business. Anyone can slip and fall, it's dangerous when there is slick floors. There was just a spot with water on the floor that I slipped on. Thank goodness I wasn't hurt, twisted my thumb just slightly. There were many older people around also and if they had fallen, they might have ended up with a broken hip or other injuries. This is just a reminder for the staff to be aware of spilled food/water on the tile floors and to clean up as soon as possible. Everyone was gracious and I sat in a chair to recover for a couple minutes and was out to the car before the manager came to ask if I was ok. It was a wonderful dinner though. Thanks for listening. Bev Strandell

My cousin and i went to olive garden in Washington, pa. We ordered the meatball bowls 20 min after lunch so we were charged an upcharge from 8.99 to 11.99 which we agreed to. Our waitress never told us about the special of buy a meal for 11.99 and you get to take a meal home. My cousin had a bite of her food in her mouth and our waitress not only took her food fromm in front if her, i had asked for 2 to go boxes one for my food and one for my salad, before i even got to put the salad in my box, she took the salad from me, which i had to ask for back. She was in such a hurry to go home that she literally took our food and we ended up paying 30.00 dollars for 2 lunch specials without being offered the meal to take home. I called and spoke with the manager who then sent a 20.00 dollar gift card( now mind you our bill was 30.09 plus dollars) and never offered for us to recieve the free meals that we should have received while we were there. I am very upset at the whole experience. I still feel as though we should have been given the free meal to go plus the gift card should have been at least the amount of our meal. Our service was beyond horrible as if we were being rushed so our waitress could leave, literally taking food that we weren't even finished with. I would hope that this would be made right.

On August 8th, my family and I had reservations for the Olive Garden on East West highway in Hyattsville Maryland for a party of 25. When we got there the table wasn't available until 45 minutes later. Then when we placed our order, we did not receive it until 1 hour later and it was cold. We sent it back and the waiters had an attitude. We had to ask various times for breadsticks. Some of our orders were mixed up and given to the wrong people. The waiters dropped our food several times and when we asked for the managerPatrick he came but was very nonchalant. He stated what do you expect for a party of 25. No apology or discounts were granted. Then the waiters added extra drinks on three of our bills and we had to wait 45 minutes for them to correct it. It was appalling!This was the worse place I ever experienced!

Had lunch today at the Olive Garden on Southwest Freeway near Gessner, Houston. We were ten (10) celebrating a birthday. Arrival at 11:30, seated immediately. Ordered. Food was delicious. All went well until time to pay our bills. Tickets were distributed and verified by each of us. The waiter picked up tickets, with payment methods, in an orderly fashion. A different waiter came back to the table with everything turned upside down. The wrong bills charged to the wrong credit cards, cash payments applied to tickets to be charged, a gift card incorrectly applied, 'new' tickets not including the desserts that had been on the original tickets. It was after 2:00 pm before we left and I'm not certain everything was corrected. Last minute cash payment for a dessert of an individual who was already gone. Mass confusion. This was not acceptable. We may not be back!

Trying to plan birthday party for my daughter. I have a party of 10-12 and she wanted to eat at OG as her choice on her birthday (which is on a Sunday). Come to find out, OUR closet OG does not take reservations for large parties on Sunday after 3:00 pm, and I quote" because its their busiest time". First and foremost, let me say this. We own two restaurants and that does NOT make sense! To control the flow of customers during the busiest times, its BETTER to take reservations. Not only does it help to plan staff and food needs, it creates a better service to the consumer. But to top it off, this policy at OUR OG is not the same policy at all OGs (as explained by the manager). Seriously, I have a problem with this quality control issue. How is a consumer supposed to understand what the rules are and plan accordingly if they differ from restaurant to restaurant at a chain such as OG. You just lost a customer OG. Not just for me but as the Manager of my child's soccer team. We frequently travel for soccer and I usually look for OGs in the area because the cost is good and the team/parents usually are okay with this place. This is how I knew that some OGs do not have this same policy because I've never been told no before. Since I cannot stand behind double standards, I will no longer be a customer of OG.

My friend and I went to Olive Garden today (8/7) because she has been craving it and she hadn't had it in like 6 or 7 months. There is a bartender, Charlie Osborn, and a server, Brianna Jarboe, that we do not get a long but we just wanted to eat and had no plans to talk to them. We actually thought they weren't working so we figured it wouldn't be a problem. When we walked in, we saw Charlie at the front in regular clothes and we didn't say anything to him. Just walked by. Once we were sat, we saw that Brianna was working. We didn't say anything to her either. My friend asked if that was Brianna because she had never actually seen her in person and I told her yes. I can't see things very well when I'm far away so I had to squint and stare for a second to tell if it was her. We then just sat and ate salads and our appetizer. When we were working on our actually meal, I received a theartening and unnecessary message from Brianna. We hadn't talked to her or Charlie the whole time we were there and didn't try to provoke them. We just wanted to be normal customers and eat Olive Garden. I think its unreasonal to expect people to not come to a restaurant just because you don't like them, especially in a small town like Stillwater, where there's not a lot of food options.

I recently was employed at your rockwall tx location i quit my job do to certain management issues regarding managers sleeping with staff managers repeating in confidence information to other employees not being managment and most of all your manager Raquel who blew up on me in front of a lobby full of people then when i tried to descalate the situation she proceeded follow me into the nale restroom not once but twice i did not keep this to myself. I never made a formal complaint but its logged in direct emails to the gm i did not complain because i could not afford to lose my job. In recent months i have been diagnosed with stage 1 heart failure and have had 2 deaths in the family in the almost 4 years working for this location i never once had an attendance issue i closed this restaurant down almost 90% of my time working there in the past 3 months i have had alot going on and the management git Increasingly unwilling to see reason with my health issues on top of this and what i mentioned above i decided to quit not only that a employee of mine was sexually assaulted by a dmo worker by the name of jamie she reported it and nothing was done she also quit and was told because she left out the fact she was in the parking lot after her [censored] from her statement by the gm that nothing could be done. The management at this location breaks laws and hires illigals for the kitchen which is why i think they do nothing . The only manger there worth a damn that actually cares about the employees and follows rules is Charlie. I will be hiring a lawyer and proceeding with charges against Raquel esquabido for following me into the male restroom i will be suing...this is just a small list of what goes on and yes while irrelevant to my case things like allowing people to work drunk and on drugs rehiring people that serve minors alchol (which u can find the comment qbout that situation on google reviews i was also present for) these things will work in my favor.

I was with my daughter. We both ordered the Duo Lunch special, $6.99. She got the eggplant sandwich with fries and chose the never ending soup.

I ordered the Spaghetti w/ Meat Sauce and never ending salad.

When my order came the spaghetti w/ meat sauce bowl was a much larger portion than when I ordered the same thing a few months back? I mentioned it to my daughter? and thought maybe they just upgraded the portions size as the first time I ordered it, the portion size was pretty small. I even hesitated in ordering it again because the portion size was small the first time.

At the end of the lunch the waitress said we got a free dinner to take home? I thought that was strange? I chose the Fettuccini Alfredo, which my daughter likes and said she could have the ? extra lunch to go?

Then I got the bill and was charged $12.99 for my meal, expecting $6.99? My daughter's eggplant was the expected $6.99.

We both pointed to the lunch Duo options when we ordered...

I would not have ordered a lunch that costs $12.99. I rarely eat out and that is way over what I would spend on pasta and salad.

Please refund me the $6.00 difference. I live over 60 miles from the restaurant and my daughter already took the food home.

Olive Garden, Eugene, Oregon, 8/6/18. 12:14:42 PM. Table 54, Check #68193 Michele S was the waitress, short blond hair.

So today I went to Olive Garden the one in Blue Springs Missouri, (801 NE Coronado Dr) and the food was superb just the service was absolutely terrible! Our server was super unfriendly and unhelpful. I pay good money to eat there I expect great service honestly. The restraint wasn't packed so I don't understand why she barley checked up on us and she didn't offer us any refills! We had to wait or keep a look out just to get a refill on our drinks and breadsticks. Super upsetting. Anyways when we were all done and everything was paid for, I waited for my receipt and she never came with it. I sat there for about 5 minutes waiting with my family and she never showed up so of course I just left. First and last time there, how unfortunate.

We went to Olive Garden for lunch and the person seating new arrivals seemed overwhelmed. We waited for a short time then went to seat at the bar area. We ordered our lunch. Evidently many people decided to go to the bar are, she was overwhelmed.
I ordered a lunch combo which included a soup. Zuppa Toscana is my favorite. There was a rotten potato in the soup. When I told the waitress she took the potato away but not the soup. I called her over again because part of the rotten potato broke away and was in my soup. By the time the rest of the lunch got to the table we had to get to go boxes because I only had an hour for lunch. I used to frequent that establishment because it was close to work however the last visit has made me decide not to go back.

Today is 8-4-18, my husband and I enjoy Olive Garden. But the last 2 times we've been there (Elyria, Ohio) the staff seems like they just don't care. The last time which was about 2 weeks ago I was with my 2 granddaughters, the waitress was very rude. My granddaughters even noticed and then at the end when she brought the check she said"the tip amount is at the bottom off the check and I prefer the highest one." Then today the Hostess took us to a table and as I sat down my arm stuck to the table, It was very sticky. S0 I asked the hostess if she could wipe it down. She said ok and never came back. A waitress came over and asked for are drink order, we gave her the order and again I said my table is really sticky could you wi[pe it down. She brings a dry towel and said where is the spill. I said it wasn't a spill its sticky. She never came back. So, we sat there and no one came for order, so we got up to leave, and finally as we were walking out the door a waitress said hope you enjoyed your meal and come back soon. I said it was the worst experince we've had here. My husband went out the door ( he doesn't beg to get food that he's paying for). The manager asked me to sit back down, but my husband wouldn't come back in. So that's my story. Thank-you for listening.

My husband and I went to the olive garden in irving, texas for our anniversary last night around 8:00pm. I ordered the cheese filled gnocchi alfredo and my husband had the tour of italy. I was appalled and disgusted when I found two black hairs in my food! I sent it back, and again... Hair in my food in my 2nd dish! If that were not bad enough the manager offered no compensation to take it off our check! I have never been so disgusted! I am providing you with my contact information so you can contact me in regards to this matter.

Bethany littrell
609 ne 2323rd
Grand prairie, texas
75050

Bethany. [protected]@yahoo.com

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My wife and i ordered our food and when we got it not only was it cold but my wifes lasagna had a bug in it thank god we saw it before she ate it the black guy that was our waiter. Came over after about 15 minuets and i showed him the bug in my wife food and told him to feel our lasagna so he knew it was cold and his words shocked my wife and i when he responded yea sometimes this happens! This is very unacceptable needless to say we eat at your resturaunt often but ill have to say we will never be back at that location ever again

Ordered 2 fettuccini alfredos one with a salad and the other with the potato and sausage soup for the sides. It was on Friday July 27th. My fiance Daniel Gallegos went in to pay for it. We called in the order at 3:55 pm and was told it would be ready at 415. We arrrived right at 430 pm to pick it up. We also added an extra cup of the sauce. Needless to say it was the most unflavorful meal we have ever had from there. It was like $28 or $29. Last time I had the alfredo was when i ordered the Taste of Italy entree and fell in love. For $28 I couldnt believe it. We couldnt find the receipt.

Arrived at 7:10 on sunday aug 29 2018. Was told it would be a 35 minute wait. We had 8 in our party and taking pur niece there for her first time to eat at olive garden. At 8:10 we still werent seated. Ask if they could split us up into parties of 4 to fer seated. Was told would be 10 more minutes. Waited anyother 20 minutes and watched familys of four be seated as they arrived. Spoke to nanger. They were unaware and was going to seat us but pur party had done went out the door.

Last evening, Saturday July 28th, me and two girlfriends went to Olive Garden in Harlem on 125th because it was one of my friends birthday. We went to our favorite restaurant, Olive Garden, where we go at least once a week, waited 40 minutes for table. Birthday girl ordered her favorite dish, 5-cheese ziti, only to be told that they were out of it.

My girlfriend was very upset and wanted to leave. We left table, only to be told at the door, they did have the five cheeses but they did not have the ziti noodles so then we came back into the restaurant waited again, and my girlfriend ordered the five cheese with a different noodle I think it was the curly but I can't remember. Waitress also waited till the end of the dinner to bring the bread sticks. We requested breadsticks numerous times. Waitress also forgot to bring the knife for me to cut my chicken parmesan.
We requested many times but the food was cold by the time she brought the knife.
To make a long story short (I'm tired of writing on my phone) Our birthday celebration was not enjoyable. Usually we enjoy our visits to OG, but not last night!
Melody
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