Olive Garden
Reviews and Complaints

First things first I am a regular at Olive Garden. My family and I got seated and a waitress named Carolina came over and brought us breadsticks. These breadsticks were as hard as rocks and almost impossible to eat. Next we noticed that we didn't get cloth napkins which we are used to getting at Olive Garden for dinner. I am well aware that at lunch time we get paper napkins but I expect at dinner we should get cloth. This wouldn't be such a big deal if that was all. But than we get served salad... the first bowl was so small that two people took salad and the rest of us had no salad until the waitress came over and we asked for more. Normally we would be given bread plates nd salad bowls but this time we were given plates for salad. In what world are we living in where we get a tiny plate to eat salad. Next we order dinner and I ask for the stuffed chicken Marsala without mushrooms on top which I always order but this time the waitress said "oh we can't do that because it's pre made with mushrooms on top". I was irritated and was not about to argue and make a scene so I let it go. I ordered the tour of Italy instead. At this juncture I now receive the tour of Italy nd the chicken parm was so hard I couldn't bite through it. One member in my party ordered the chicken parm and didn't say anything to me until after we left that it was hard and she would not get it again. This was a horrific experience and I am very tempted not to return to the Westbury NY Olive Garden again.

My friend and I went in to eat on November the 7th, 2018. Our meal totaled over $50.00 and then we left a generous tip out of courtesy. Our main course was cold, the soup was cold and we waited for the server to bring us spoons for a few minutes. We asked for 2 to-go-boxes because it was evident we would have to warm up our food at home. Asked if we could get couple of bread sticks packaged separately since we had 2 separate orders. This did not happen either, the server ended up telling us that he was being more assertive with us because his GM told him he needed to work on his assertiveness. Our whole experience was unacceptable and I called in to voice this to a manager by the the name of Therese. She apologized profusely and offered us a gift card for $50.00 to cover most of our meal. We were beyond impressed with her empathy towards the situation and the fact that she offered a gift card. She said to come in and pick it up. We went in on Thursday and the staff were beyond friendly and professional. However, the GM by the name of James Russell was a total jerk. He spoke to me in a condescending voice and I remarked to him that he was being sarcastic. His reply was yep I figured you would say that. He was totally unprofessional in the way he handled this whole ordeal. The manner in which he spoke to me is not something I am accustomed to. I spoke to him in a low voice as to not draw attention to me or the situation. He made sure everyone up front knew exactly what was going on and that he was in charge. He added that if anything were going to be given, it would go through him. There are plenty of other restaurants that I can offer my business to and I will. If, this type of behavior is continued then we will know why the business will close down. We are constantly being told to support our local businesses but I will take my business else where. Furthermore, we often blame the employees for the service however, it starts with management and clearly Mr. James Russell needs to be retrained in customer service. Thank you and I hope this matter is addressed.

I bit on a screw nail (about an inch long) that was in my salad. My mean was comped but no one called me the next day to see if I was ok or to see if u went to the hospital. I'm disappointed with the customer care on this situation. I could have died if I swallows that screw! It was also a rusty screw! I am beyond disgusted in how this situation was taken care of. I was at the Olive Garden in Paramus Nj. I expect some sort of support during a time like this. I was scared about the whole situation and suffered a bad headache that night because I chomped on that nail. I'm seeing a dentist to see if there was any more damage due to biting on the screw nail. I have a picture of the screw and the manager at the time has a report filed.

My boyfriend & I are regulars at the Olive Garden on Rt. 35, Eatontown, NJ. Last night we had unusual poor service from the time we arrived. The girl at the front desk had a line waiting to be seated when there were obviously numerous open tables. She even came back after seating the couple in front of us and said she seated them at the wrong table. Once we were seated, we were first told our server was "Michael" and then told it would be "Love." After about 5 minutes waiting to place our order, Love brought us 2 waters, never asked if we wanted a different beverage, and took our order. After 5-10 minutes, our appetizer arrived by a girl in training, with no plates, and making us eat our stuffed mushrooms from the serving plate. Next, the girl in training brought us our entrees, at which time we asked her for our soup, salad & breadsticks, which we had not yet been served. She apologized & brought us the salad, soup & breadsticks (still with no bread plates), which we now were forced to eat along with our meals so that our entrees didn't get cold. Our server, Love, never once came back to check on us. We had empty water glasses, never asked if we would like more soup or salad & still had no plates for the breadsticks. Love was also the server to a couple next to our table, who we overheard complaining that they also did not get their soup/salad and once Love did bring it to them, they also had to ask her for plates for the salad. Our dirty dishes sat in front of us for the entire time until we asked for our check from the girl in training since she was the only one checking up on us, who now also took away all the dirty plates. We were paying in cash so we could not use the table ziosk. After waiting again 5-10 minutes, Love actually showed up and put our check on the table & walked away. We really wanted to give a tip to the girl in training since she is the only one that made sure she received our meal. She said she wasn't allowed to accept tips, so against our will, we had to leave a 20% tip, which we hoped the girl in training would get a portion, to Love, who did absolutely nothing except bring us water & the bill. We never even got our mints at the end, which is something we look forward to at the end of our meal. Olive Garden is special to us ... we look forward to the endless soup and/or salad, breadsticks and the after dinner mints and of course excellent food and service. Something was definitely out of the ordinary during last night's visit. Needless to say, we were beyond disappointed.

My wife and I went to Olive garden on North Rock road in Wichita KS last night 11/2/18 I ate my dinner and had an awesome waitress. I decided I would step outside and smoke a cigarette while my wife finished her dinner. After my cigarette I tried to return to my table(table 72) and was told I could not re enter the restaurant because they had already locked the doors. ( It was closing time 11p.m. on the dot)) I asked for a manager and explained that I had simply stepped out to smoke a cigarette and that my wife was still sitting at the table and I needed to get my wife and pay my bill. I was told under NO circumstances would I be allowed back inside because it was some kind of a security risk. I repeated that my wife was still sitting at the table and I had not paid my bill yet. I was told I still was not getting back inside. I then told the manager that if I was not allowed to come inside and get my wife at least then I guess I can't pay my bill. The manager said I still need to pay my bill. I said then let me step inside, get my wife, pay my bill and we will leave.I was then told "you are not coming back in and that was final." So I said fine then I will not pay my bill. The manager looked at me and said "Ok fine" and turned around and walked away. So i had to go around the building and knock on a window to get other customers attention to get my wife and get my waitresses attention and let them know that they would not let me in. The waitress then told my wife that she would let me in and I waited at the front door and seen my waitress come around the corner but was stopped by management. They had a conversation and then disappeared towards the back to where I could no longer see them. I gave it a minute and then went back to the window and got my wife's attention again and she came to the door to let me in. I told her I did not want to get into trouble for re entering the building and that it was time for us to leave. She went back to the table and got her purse and came outside where we waited for a minute to see if someone would possibly come and say sorry for the misunderstanding but that never happened. I feel very imbarrssed that I had to walk in the flower bed and knock on Windows to get ahold of my wife (on our date night) and I also feel badly for the waitress because she was one of the best waitresses I have ever had. GET IT TOGETHER OLIVE GARDEN. TERRIBLE MANAGEMENT.

Our soup had no chicken, no sausage, told another server as he dropped of our entrees he did not offer to correct it .my chicken scampi the chicken was raw pink cold, told the server she took the plate offered new plate.. No thank u lost appetite ( your cooks difinitly dont check tempature of raw meat or open up to see if its cooked all the way.. There was no manager to be seen nor come out to our table. The check took forever to get ...as the other servers walking by in a distance looking at us.im sorry i ate raw chicken dicusting

My wife ordered chicken & knocchi and it came as if it were water and nothing thick. My lady did not want the soup and the return. Later she requested that the manager come and she came to explain what was happening with the soup and the only thing she said That is always the case the first day the soup is made and the next days it improves. An inadequate response because when you go to the olive garden always all food must be well prepared. Then he told me that they would not charge me for my wife but she did not eat anything and I return it. You should have competent people especially as a manager that leaves a lot to be desired from your work. This complaint I do because it is the first time that happens to us in all the years that we are followed. I respect that they take into account and improve in everything.

My boyfriend and I recently dined into one of your restaurants. He ordered the alfredo. We already waited a hour or so for the food, then they brought the wrong thing. When he finally got his food it was cold. He was disappointed and just decided to have a wine, which was diluted. I ordered a tour of italy, there was hair in my food and partially cold. The waiter was really rude, she seemed as she had a attitude because we weren't satisfied. Olive Garden is one of my favorite restaurants and I am truly disappointed. We spent $100 and it was not worth it. You guys should work on the customer service and probably should use hair nets. I have never experienced this before, I am not saying I will not return but you guys could've handled things a lot better.

This is concerning the store at 665 Orlando Avenue, Winter Park, FL 32789.
I called in the afternoon of Friday, October 26th to make a reservation. I followed the appropriate prompts and tried to give my information to the woman, but she said they are not busy and I wouldn't need one. I tried to explain it was for 6:00 for 2. She finally said ok, ok and repeated 6:00 for 2 and was ready to hang up when I interrupted her and said don't you want my name and gave it to her anyway. I repeated my request and she said ok, ok and hung up. I was worried because she didn't seem responsible. Sure enough, I get to the restaurant and gave my name and NO name or reservation was on file. They tried to put my name on a list and would be about 15-20 minutes. I explained my conversation, they then questioned whether I had pushed the correct number for call aheads (they informed me they didn't take reservations, which the previous person did NOT), I told them I pushed 2 and they said that was wrong and I should have pushed 1. Luckily, one of the other people at booking, said no, pushing 2 was CORRECT. I asked to see the manager and frankly he acted like he couldn't be bothered. I identified the person that orginally took my call ahead and wanted her talked with because it so happens that one of my friends had the same thing happen to her and this restaurant (I was with her at the time), so that is why I think something should have been done. One of the waitress tried to make things right by asking us if we would like a seat in the bar so we wouldn't have to wait, we were going to a play and time was important. We said ok and proceeded to eat. The manager was useless and made no attempt to rectify the situation or offer any solutions. I will not be going back to this restaurant.

Hi, last night after waiting approximately 35 min for a table ( which was normal) we were seated at a table. We were a party of four adults and a 3 year old. I hadn't been at OG for a few years but pasta sounded good and insisted to my group it would be worth the wait.
The waiter came and gave a couple samples of wine because he said he didn't know anything about wine (that seemed strange to me) but we decided on a bottle of wine and another type of drink too.
We were served breadsticks and waited quite awhile before salad was brought. None of us had silverware so I got up from the table and found our waiter and told him we'd like silverware to eat with. He brought silver then and apologized. I've never had to get up from the table and find a waiter. By then we were getting full from breadsticks and salad.
Finally the food came but the wrong dinner came to my daughter in law. We waited for the waiter to come check on us and she was a able to tell him the problem. He apologized again and went to order the correct meal from the kitchen.
My son and grown grandson both ordered the Braised Beef Tortellini and immediately started saying how the beef didn't taste fresh or real but maybe microwaved.
It did look really dry and not appetizing at all. They each ate about half of it and couldn't bring themselves to eat any more. Both are 6'3" and weigh about 210 and should have been able to eat all of it.
I ordered Chicken Giardino and I'm sorry to say that I was disappointed in it. I usually would love the idea of this meal but it had way too many peas in it and they took over. It didn't have much flavor either and I didn't want to add salt as I'm supposed to cut back. I was silently disappointed.
I'm 67 yrs old and my husband and I eat dinner out often plus he is an excellent cook. He is out of town which is why I chose OG. He wouldn't want to eat there after being there a few years ago but I thought my 6'3" grandson would like it.
Obviously many people enjoy it there and maybe it was a bad night for the chefs.
Anyway, I'm not writing this to get reimbursed but to give insight to what's going on at one of your OG's.
Teaching waiters/waitresses about wines, double checking table to see that silverware is there, teaching them to come to check on table more often ( maybe they were short staffed), and even having tasteings of all foods with staff occasionally to get opinions.
They did subtract the food that Was given to my daughter-in-law which was nice.
I did leave a tip for David M is I felt he was overwhelmed.
Thank you
Jodie
[protected]

First off one of my fav places to eat. Went during a non busy time of day. Not alot of customers cause I dont like big crowds. The only good thing about that experience was the girl that took us to our table finally after everyone was done talking and laughing. It took 12 minutes to get our drink order taken and to order an appitizer and another 15 to finally get our drinks to the table. The waiter was so rude and could tell he was not having a good day. Finally he took our order after he asked if we thought we were ready to order yet or not. After ordering our meal it took almost 35 minutes to get the food. Mind you there were like 10 customers in the whole restaurant. Then didnt even bother asking if we wanted dessert he just brought our ticket and left on table and didn't say thank you or anything. I usually have wonderful service here but this was uncalled for. I feel like I should be comped 2 adult meals and appitizer. This is my fab Italian place to eat at.

The menu clearly stated bread sticks and salad on us with the entry. Just below this statement was listed soup and four other entries for $6.99! We ordered the soup and salad and the bill was $12.99 each for us. Went to see the manager and she was absolutely no help, but said the waitress should not have charged $12.99 each, but should have been $8.99, where did she come up with that price?. We could not believe the manager came up with that price which was nowhere on the menu. Instead of trying to pursue the matter any more we just paid the bill and left very dissatisfied. You need to take a closer look at the menu to ensure that other patrons are not mislead by the unforeseen tactics of the menu.

On September 22, 2018, we were at the Lake Charles, La. Olive Garden restaurant. I ordered the chicken scampi with an extra cup of sauce. When I received my food, there was not any extra sauce. The waiter said that he had put that order in and would go back and check on it. He came back saying the cook would have to make more because there was not any more sauce. The others in my group were almost finished eating when my cup of sauce arrived. I poured it out onto my pasta, and 2 large white pills were in the sauce. I don't know what else was in the sauce that I could not see. A manager was called to our table. He said the pills probably fell off of a shelf. He left our table and never returned to tell us anything else. After paying, I filled out the survey telling what happened with the pills. Later, the inspector for Louisiana Health Department told me, that someone had changed my statements on the survey.

Three of us went to the Olive Garden At Triadelphia, WV on Monday 10/22, before going to the movies. We ordered the unlimited soup and salad. When we ordered or second bowl of soup ( 2 of us had the same soup) the waitress came back and said they were just filling up the pot, and no soup was available. I find that odd, especially because it was two different soups. We were not offer the other soups. This was around 6:30 at night. I would have thought you wouldn't be out of soup that early. Surprised and Disappointed

My wife, son and I went to Olive Garden a few weeks ago. My son dropped one of his retainers out of his case, but he did not realize it. Once we got the realized what had
happened. My wife called the manager to ask if anyone had found the retainer. The manager rudely told her that OUR POLICY is to throw out retainers immediately ! We would never save anything like that for anytime.

The retainer cost $250 dollars to replace, and so between the cost and abruptness of your manager this was doubly painful. We shall never be eating at Olive Garden again.
We shall inform our friends of what happened. An apology should be a minimum course of action.

Last night me and my family chose to eat at the local Olive Garden.The service was some of the best we have ever had there, yet when my mother first received her soup there was a hair in it. When they brought her out a replacement soup they claimed that it was supposed to be fresh and hot, yet when it arrived at the table it was cold. She requested broccoli to make up for the soup and there was no seasoning in it at all. She also obtained diarrhea from the food which is making it difficult for her to work. As for me my spaghetti tasted nothing like it usually does instead of its normal savory taste. It had a old bland taste despite the meat sauce on it. We brought my grandmother home some food since she was unable to eat out with us and it made her nauseous.

After working for Olive Garde for two years, I was terminated as a server on October 15th. The reason is ridiculous but the part that makes me upset is how it was handled. This is what occurred:

Two hours into my shift, one of my customers was my brother and sister-in-law. Everything was going great but as they were checking out I noticed she had hardly touched her drink, our new special Spiked Strawberry Leomonade. When I asked her if something was wrong with it, she said it didn't taste right. I offered to get it removed or another drink but she said she was fine. She asked if I had tasted one yet and I told her I hadn't . She asked me to take a sip and tell her what I thought. I told her I couldn't in front of guests but would when I returned to the bar. When I returned the drink I took a sip to taste it. Our GM Tony Brown was standing right there. He asked me what I was doing and I explained the situation. He was livid that I had the sip, in fact later told me I should have asked him if I could. I told him I wasn't aware I needed to. But the big part was when I went into the kitchen and he yelled in front of everyone that he had to let me go for drinking on the job and another server would take over my table. In front of everyone . After working in the professional field for thirty years even I'm aware he should have asked me to step into his office to tell me this. It was very unprofessional! I explained again I did as requested, not to have a drink. He had me fill out a sheet explaining what happened. I loved working with the customers and co-workers, and respected the management. Not so much anymore. I feel he needs some further training himself from Human Resources.

With all the volunteering I do with community services and various clubs I'm involved in since retiring, many people will hear about this incident. All though so far many have laughed with my "drinking on the job", knowing I'm not much of a drinker.

On October 18, 2018, my family visited the Olive Garden Store #1021 which was a bad experience. First, we had to wait about 20 minutes for bread sticks although we were told 3 minutes (as we watched others nearby receive fresh bread sticks). Next, we placed our orders and two children meals were ordered and the waitress Jiordan asked if we wanted the children drinks in kids or regular cups. One was kids and the other regular. We ordered 3 soup, salad, and bread sticks and an order of alfredo dipping sauce We received our salad and still no bread sticks. We finally got our first bowls of soup and all were cold! We sent back for a different kind Tuscana and it was watered down more so that it was running over the sides of the bowl. It had no flavor and it was cold. We only received one round of bread sticks the entire night for 5 people. It took a long time to receive a second refill of salad. Our waitress would come out to check on the surrounding tables and walk by our table and never would acknowledge us there. Since it seems that we never was going to receive any salad, breadsticks, nor hot soup we asked for our tickets so that we could leave. We were surprised at our prices because we never saw the price on the menu for the soup, salad, and bread sticks. The Manager (Her name was Sherita, not sure) could not even tell us the cost of the soup, salad, and bread sticks either. We were charged $10.99 and had we known that was the price, then we would have ordered an entree instead. . We were charged for a soft drink instead of as a child size. The waitress had suggested this, therefore I don't know why she still charged a child for a large drink. I was overcharged for the alfredo sauce and when I brought it to the waitress attention, she just stated, "Oh that is how it rung up and walked off. I was charged $7.49 and the menu stated $5.49. I finally caught her and asked for a manager. The waitress corrected the soft drink and when the manager came over she corrected the overcharge amount of the alfredo sauce. It was hard to tell if she corrected it because the ticket the Manager brought back was hard to see because the ink was running out. I was very disappointed because this was a reward special night for my children.

I ordered takeout at the springfield oh location and was never offered the daily special I didnt know about it till the same person took another to go order and offered it to them gave them extra discount for waiting so long they even got their food before me. When I got my food she said there is freash bread it didn't have the seasoning on it and my lasagna was very small it wouldn't full up a young child. The salad was good but for i also got ziti pasta and it was cold for us to spend 30.00 dollars it was a horrible experience.

My family and I visited the Greenville location on Sunday. The food was not good at all. There was no flavor at all, the shrimp were hard and there was little to no sauce on the noodles. I took the pasta home and had my mom add seasoning to make the meal bearable to eat. My son did not eat the pizza and my mom did not eat her chicken pasta. Our waitress was great.