Olive Garden reviews & complaints 1041 - 1036

Re: Party of 12, Service on 1/20/18, Olive Garden 1370, Table 42, Server Evan B.

Dear Sir or Madam:

On Saturday the 20th of January I and 11 of my friends had lunch. I called ahead to let the manager know we would be a large group. We were joined by 3 extra people at the last minute.

We were not seated for 40 minutes. Then when we did get a table, we didn't get water for at least 1/2 an hour. I finally went to the bar for 2 glasses of water! Some of our group are over 70, and/or have some health issues and had to take medicine.

Our waiter really did his best to accommodate us. He had an almost impossible job with our group and another large party near our table. I don't understand why he wasn't given some assistance! We did tip him very well because he deserved it.

Worst of all was we received no apology or show of concern. I approached the front desk at least 4 times. At one point there were 3 people just standing at the desk, one of whom I think was the manager. With as many issues as we had the manager and/or another staff member should have checked to make sure we had everything we needed!

Our group has been coming to this restaurant for over 10 years and would like to continue to do so.

Very sincerely,

Carol G. Lotfi

Tuesday evening I decided to use my $30 gift card, that was an Xmas gift, to Olive Garden at your Blue Springs, Missouri location. I ordered the food to go & sent my fiance to pick up the food. Granted he was not very knowledgeable about what I had ordered & what should be included, but he shouldn't have to be. The restaurant should be plenty knowledgeable for him as to what should have been included.

When he returned home I noticed immediately that all of the food was so cold it was chewy. I was willing to overlook that since it was, after all, carryout. But when I started looking for the dipping sauce for the calamari & the lasagna fritta, I realized there wasn't any. I can't imagine there is anyone that would want to eat plain, dry calamari or lasagna with no sauce. I also ordered the stuffed mushrooms & chicken marsala. The mushrooms were cold & disgusting, but I didn't feel like dealing with those as well, but I was highly irritated about the rest of the appetizers. I called the restaurant & asked if they serve any dipping sauce for the items I ordered. She replied, "they serve a marinara sauce & ranch". I told her I got neither & she put the manager, Andrew, on the phone. When I explained the situation his attitude completely reflected how much he didn't care. He asked if I paid with cash or credit & when I replied gift card he was even more rude like I'm low class because I used a gift card. How does he think that gift card was purchased? Obviously with MONEY. He said he would email me an egift card for $9.50 to replace my appetizer. I informed him that my appetizer was more than that. He asked what it was & I said the pick 3 appetizer sampler. I said it cost somewhere around $11.50. So he said, "fine, I will send it for $11.50". I said, "thank you". When I hung up the phone I looked up the price & it was $11.79. I'm not trying to be petty but shouldn't he know how much that should cost? So I don't even get the full amount & any taxes on it. So to replace it I get to pay that part again. Would it have been so detrimental to your establishment to say here's a $15 coupon for the trouble of getting home, expecting a nice dinner & having to eat something from home anyways, because we can't get it together & send the correct or any condiments with the meal? I am seriously disappointed in the whole situation. I can honestly say that if I had never eaten at your restaurant before that night I would never step foot back in those doors & would advise others to follow suit because honestly the entire meal was ruined by the cold food that wasn't edible without dipping sauce, the inconvenience it caused, the rudeness of the manager that represents your company, being treated like lower class because I used a gift card & the feeling of being purely defeated when all I wanted was to have a delicious meal in the convenience of my own home provided by a restaurant that I used to classify as fine dining & have always enjoyed in the past. I probably will never use the $11.50 coupon Andrew sent me because it's not worth all the trouble it caused. I usually spend at least $100 every time I step foot into your restaurant, which is at least 15 times a year. I understand that is not a fortune you are receiving from me but $1, 500 a year is at least average & a manager treating me like I'm lower class & not even offering to cover the full cost of the item that was not edible through no fault of my own, was a slap in the face. Usually it's my fiance & my 13 year old son & I that dine at your restaurant. I would appreciate a response & at least some form of effort made by reaching out to me & trying to reverse the negative impact my last experience with your restaurant has made. I appreciate your time & I apologize for the complaining but I felt very strongly that someone higher up should be made aware .

Olive Garden please do your research! There are millions of people that were excited about your spiralized squash and zucchini item why would you add pasta it defeats the whole purpose! Very disheartening ! Guess I'll be sticking to grilled vegetables in place of pasta if you add extra squash and zucchini and leave the pasta out you'll get a much better response!

My girlfriend and I just had lunch at the Pleasant Prairie Wisconsin Olive Garden and I ordered a veggie pasta dish that we thought had too much garlic in it. Are waitress didn't come to see how are lunch was but another waiter saw my bowl at the side of the table and stopped to ask what was wrong. Are waitress saw the other waiter taking the food back looked upset with him and proceeded to take the meal back herself. She never said sorry but did ask if I wanted something else. I said no because my friend was almost finished. I was surprised she charged me for my coffee. Sat at table 313 check #39898

We were told a 30 minutes wait while watching 7 plus of party for 2 being seated. Not to mention couple parties of 3's&4's.
We ask why tables cannot be push together and was told because of section capacity. However, throughout the wait they've seated 2 other small parties in that section. We asked again why was those two parties sitting the area that was supposed to be at capacity for the waiter / waitress. The hostess told us that ohh because it wasn't a big party.

Olive Garden advertizes a service online where you can "join the wait" at home. You enter your information and it tells you the current wait time. By entering your information, you are allegedly "signed up", which in turn is supposed to allow you your place in line (even though you are home still). Call ahead seating is what i would call it.
So i did it for our group that was gathering to celebrate a birthday. The wait time was 50 minutes. We get there and tell the hostess we entered our info online at home and asked how much longer we would need to wait. She says "the online thing doesn't matter, so our wait time right now is 1 hour".

So, my question is: Why do you offer a service that actually states you keep your place in line at home? Because clearly the staff greeting us at the door paid no attention to it.
Don't advertise what you don't do. There was no follow up and no one made any attempt to straighten it out. They merely said "our wait is 1 hour whether you put it in online or walked in".

We took our party of 10 and all the money on food and drinks we would've spent... and went somewhere else.

Epic fail Olive Garden! You all need to fix this... and work on your customer service at this location!

My husband & I visited the Moline, IL location for the 1st time on Saturday January 20 with our 2 children. We were told there would be a 30 minute wait. I gave my name & requested a booth & we were given a buzzer. We waited on the bench by the hostess stand for over an hour. My husband went up to ask how much longer & the hostess admitted she forgot to write our name down or turn on our buzzer. There was never less than 6 people standing at the hostess stand at all times. We were finally seated at a table in the middle of the restaurant, not a booth. We immediately ordered a sampler appetizer with stuffed mushrooms, fried zucchini, and calamari. When the appetizer came out the mushrooms were completely RAW with melted cheese on top. We also got ravioli instead of zucchini. Our waitress put in a new order & we placed our meal orders. She came back with the new appetizer. This time we got mozzarella sticks instead of zucchini. She brought out a separate order of zucchini bites at the same time our meals came. My husband ordered the new stuffed cheese gnocchi with chicken. It was a smaller serving than my 3 year old son's meal & it was missing the chicken. The waitress brought a side of 4 pieces of chicken. Finally we'd had enough & our children were getting antsy at having been there so long so we got our check & boxes. I used a $25 gift card that we'd received for our anniversary & paid the rest with my debit card. I'm 8 months pregnant & had 2 kids that needed to get home so I didn't have time to stay & speak with a manager. The waitress also never offered to get the manager after all the errors. My son started to get a little noisy because of how long we'd been there & a server walked by, looked at him, and said ooh you're nasty. We went home & I called the location 2 hours later once I had the kids in for their nap. I was on hold for 20 minutes to speak to a manager. I hung up & waited another 30 minutes & called back. I was able to speak with a manager at that time. He was extremely rude & condescending. He laughed at our plight & insinuated that I was lying since I didn't say anything while we were there. I explained that I had already spent over 3 hours in his restaurant & I had to get my kids home. He said if I would've said something at the restaurant he would've comped our meal. I said that's not what we wanted. We wanted a nice dinner with our family before the new baby gets here. He asked for my receipt number & our total. I provided it to him. He asked for my name & mailing address to send us a $75 gift card to cover the cost of our meal. I agreed. I just received the gift card in the mail today & it's for $40. We will never be going back to the Moline location again, which is a shame because we've waited years to have one in Illinois. I have never had a worse experience while dining out & I truly hope every single one of the people responsible for our terrible experience are either written up or fired!

This is my second time going and service was awful. I went yesterday 1/26/2018 at 11:00. I had the endless soup and salad. I was paid no attention and had to physically get up and get a water pitcher that was left at another table table to refill my own water. I waited about 30 minutes for my check no waitress was no where around by this time it was 12:15 I was late getting back to work I got up and went to find someone so I could pay. This was very upsetting to me cause I lost time at work. Please train your employees more.

My husband and I visited the Olive Garden on January 26, 2018 at 5:00 P.M. We were seated across and just a little back from the front desk. We paid cash and my husband did not get a receipt. I also have forgotten the servers name, which was a blond women, early 50s. I ordered the new Chicken Giardino which was very dry. Also the picture showed broccoli. In my dish there were broccoli hard, unedible stems. When I asked for more of the sauce the server said it would take a long time to get it because it had to be made up special. Now I don't believe this, I could not be the only one in the whole restaurant eating this dish. So needless to say it took at least 8 to 10 minutes for it to come out, by that time my dinner was cold..I am so disappointed, this is the first time I have had a bad experience at Olive Garden. I would like to be compensated in some way for this incident.
Thank you,
Linda Andonian
6191 London Groveport Rd.
Grove City, Ohio 43123
[protected]

on 1/24/18 we had a reservation for my mom's birthday dinner. 8 adults and 6 kids. My first minor complaint was that we were squished into a very crowded table that barely fit us. It would have been kind to add another 2 seat table to just give a bit of room. However, that is just a suggestion for comfort of your customers, not the reason for my complaint.
As I said, we had several little kids and one of them choked and threw up while we were there. It was handled discretely by his parents and the mess was contained to his plate and some napkins. He was fine. We asked the server to bring us a wash rag and something to put the soiled napkins and his plate into. She left to get what we needed and never returned. About 10 minutes passed and the other server came by and we asked again for something we could use to clean up the mess. We were not asking them to clean it up, just asking for something to clean it up with, or a bus bucket to put it in so no one would have to touch it. Then we wait approximately 10 more minutes before a manager comes over. At this point we feel it is a bit ridiculous that no one can bring us something to wipe the table with and put the mess into...even a garbage bag would have sufficed. AND we have 6 kids and 8 adults who have waited a long time for food to arrive, but the manager informs us that they can't bring our food out until the mess is cleaned up. SO...we wait another 5 minutes or so before 2 bus boys finally come over to our table dressed up from head to toe in plastic as if they are the hazmat team coming to clean up hazardous waste. What we tried to do very quickly and discretely turned into an ordeal that I'm sure disrupted tables around us and certainly delayed our already slow dinner service. We all ended up getting our meals and finishing our birthday dinner for my mom, but we did feel that someone should know that this method of "handling the situation" or more accurately what appeared to be avoiding helping us with a quick clean up was unacceptable to us. Surely you have had people choke in your restaurant before, there needs to be a quick response to help your client if this occurs. What we experienced was everyone involved looking at us like we intentionally caused them some sort of trouble and then turning the other way to pass the buck rather than offering to help.

I have a dairy allergy. Last week when I was at the Olive Garden in Mankato Minnesota I ordered a dairy free Entree along with a salad with balsamic vinegar and oil. I told my waitress to eliminate croutons from my salad which was done and to make sure no Dairy of any kind was on my entree. I also requested no butter on my bread sticks which she accommodated me with. When my entree came it had something on top of the grilled chicken which I did not recognize. I was told it was bread crumbs. Since I cannot have croutons I did not feel comfortable with these breadcrumbs. My waitress offered to go check with the cook and came back saying it was only bread crumbs. I still felt uncomfortable so she double-checked again. I was assured again it was only bread crumbs and she asked me if I would like if she reported it to the manager. A third time she came back and said do not eat it because the bread crumbs contained parmesan. My complaint is that the cook could not possibly have checked to see if the bread crumbs contain any dairy but just said they didn't. I feel I am lucky that I did not try eating this but was persistent in checking for sure. The Cook's must realize that allergies are real and I did not want to use my EpiPen!

If you look on the Olive Garden website menu, you are lead to believe the Cucina Mia costs 9.95. Upon receiving your check, you discover there is an extra charge for the meat topping. Nowhere on the menu does it say there is an extra charge for the meat topping.

I knew my bill should have been around 20 bucks plus tax, it was closer to 30. Upon reading the receipt for the additional (unmentioned) charge, I felt taken advantage of.

olive garden (og) 1433 yesterday afternoon. chicken parmesan. large portion meat was hard, no softness, needed steak knife not sharpened butter dish to cut, sauce couldnt be called tomato sauce, no flavor or body

bread sticks absent until soup half eaten, being "in oven" no help to us

service no problem

do not bother responding to this, give me no freebie, og is in past

same as red lobster

After our food was brought to us we couldn't get our servers attention. Even after waving her down. When we finally did instead of getting additional purchases we decided we wanted a box and check. Upon checking out we tried to put in a coupon code that wouldn't scan on the kiosk. Again we waived her down and asked for help. She said she would handle it and then she got a manager. The manager came over (female) and also said they would honor it. After we waited more than five minutes the general manager came out and said that they would not offer it and raised his voice and told me (as the customer) it was my fault I didn't give my coupon in advance and proceeded to ACTUALLY yell at me on front of my guests and the restaurant. Then on top of that we asked for a receipt because the kiosk didn't print and they took 10 more minutes then the waitress had the nerve to yell at us while she handed me the receipt. Calling me rude and saying I was unacceptable. I can't believe I would be treated like that at a restaurant I've always valued.

Had very unhappy visit at the olive garden in liberty missouri. Poor service. Chicken gnocchi soup was watered down not creamy... Chicken tasted like it came out of a can and the hour and a half inside the restaurant was only one bowl of salad and two bowls of soup... For the unlimited. The older woman who bussed tables was leaning over the table to get dishes then tried to get me and lady behind me to scoot up so she could get thru rather than go around the table to take plates she couldnt reach from. Other side... The lettuce was not crunchy and was warm... I hadn't been to this restraint in a couple years and won't be back to this location. Very unhappy with the whole experience and drove about an hour to get there.
Child at the table was served her food 20 min after adults received theirs... Dry waiter and slow. Had to ask for check because we were tired of sutting so long and had to be other places and left still hungry... Then had to ask hostess desk for mints.

Went for a bowl of soup. Server rude right off the start as if I was a bother to her. I got my soup, it was cold. My server disappeared and never came back to check on me. When she cleared my FILLED bowl of soup from the table she didn't say anything about why I didn't finish it. I would have said something but by the time she finally came back to me I had to leave in time for my meeting. I'm extremely disappointed in the service and the soup. I will not be returning.