Olive Garden
Reviews and Complaints

I went into the Longview, Tx Olive Garden to discuss having a birthday party for my 11yr old daughter and was told they don't take reservations. So I asked if I could show up about 30 minutes early to ensure I got a table for 20 people and was denied. Now I know they have other customers, but I can't believe how rude they were about the whole situation. It is my daughters favorite restaurant, so I was passed to say the least.
To have 20 pre teen girls waiting around in the lobby was going to be a night mare.
I have no desire to ever step foot in another Olive Garden.
And as far as our weekly company lunch, we can find other places.
Don't understand how a company can run a business with such poor service.

We went to dinner on US41 in Bradenton, Fl. Our server Matt W took more than 5 minutes to get to our table as well as took an9ther 15 minutes to even bring our drinks back. My husband got the all you can eat pasta and we had to practically beg for a 2nd bowl. My dinner was good (stk, zucchini and Alfredo) the pasta however was very dry and sticky. My son ordered soup and salad and that went well. At the end of service, as he could tell I was getting annoyed when after 30 minutes I asked him whe re my husband's pasta was. At check time he explained that everyone had left and he took all their tables. Even after I paid at the table he still took another 20 minutes to get my son's to go drink...the restaurant was pretty much empty. I have no clue what he was doing but it was a very dissapointing experience.

I recently visited Olive Garden by Oakridge Mall in CA. I usually don't have an issue with service and pretty patient as I am a server myself. However, I have never gotten worse service than what I got last night. We got seated down and it took the server 20 mins to ask us what we wanted to drink. She kept walking by us but never asked what we wanted. In addition, we asked if we could order appetizers and she brushed it off and told us we could order it through the kiosk on the table. 15 mins had passed and we STILL didn't have our drinks. We then waited an addition 10 mins before she came and asked if we were ready to order, (we still didnt have our drinks). We ordered our food, and then she came out with the drinks, salad, soup and appetizer all at the same time (yet I STILL did not have my drink from the bar). After all this time, she comes back to the table with a menu on her hand and asks me what was the drink I had ordered!. After this whole ordeal, we finally get our food, but it was a completely different server that brought our food out. Finally she brings my drink and I can finally start enjoying my meal. Not once did she come back and ask if we needed anything or check up on us. We ordered a dessert from the kiosk, but that took an additional 15 mins for her to even come and ask us if we were doing okay. She wasn't even aware that we had ordered a dessert through the kiosk, she comes back 5 mins later and tells us that they are out of stock on the dessert we wanted, then we pick another one and that one is out of stock too. We end up just getting whatever they had since it was my birthday and I wanted to end the night with a dessert at least. To make matters worse, we asked for boxes to take out leftover food, and as that was happening I was watching another server boxing up another tables food, our server just came and dropped the boxes off and then never came back to our table. I am not one to usually complain about service because I understand that sometimes restaurants are short handed and can get very busy, but it was a very slow night. As the night had progressed, I was paying attention on how she was treating other customers and it was night a day to how we were being served. They got their drinks within 5 mins of being there and did not really have to wait. I even heard a table ask if they could order appetizers and she put in the order for them on the kiosk, when she had told us we could do it ourselves.

I got a pasta pass sent to me last week in which it was returned to sender since they do not deliver to P.o boxes but I was never told I could not receive it to a p.o box. They did not give me a chance to pick it up at a ups location. I am pretty upset since the never ending pasta started this week. I emailed but never heard back which is not right. I paid the money for it so I want my pass.

Today our party received the worst service ever. Olive Garden 1181 on 11882 E Colonial Dr is one of our favorite restaurant we go to. But today, everything went wrong. We had to repeat our order at least twice. When the past and soup came the server did not have sprinkle cheese and never/forgot to bring it. Crouton on the salad was stale as if it was sitting on top of the salad for a while. My pasta came first which was wrong. I asked for rigatoni pasta and meatball on the side...well meatball came on top of the pasta. Sent it back. My mom's mini fettuccine Alfredo pasta was fine. 5-7 minutes later my husbands pasta came which was fine also. Server said she was going to bring more breadstick (which we never got it). 10 minutes later I got my pasta and it was wrong again. They put rotini instead of rigatoni. Since all my party was done eating I did not sent it back. I ate 2 bites and asked for a box to go. So far no apologies from management or server. When the server finally came back I told her the pasta was wrong. 5 min later I asked for the manager (which he never came to the table). Server told me she told her manager and he took my pasta off the bill. She finally apologized for the error.

I was never so disappointed at Olive Garden as I was today. This is not the first time they have messed up my order but today I had to say something.

Thank you,

Virginia Torres
[protected]
13606 Glasser Ave
Orlando FL 32826

To whom this may concern, We recently visited your Sandusky, Oh restaurant as we usually do every week, only this time we were celebrating our anniversary. We were extremely disappointed! We waited 25 minutes for our appetizers before I decided to go find a manager. He was very apologetic, which I appreciated! By this time we were tired of waiting and requested our entrees be made to go. The manager stated our appetizers still were not ready. He offered to take care of our bill so that to me made things right. Or so I thought! As we were walking out, our waiter came up to us with our appetizers. We opened our appetizers when we got in the car and it was awful! I honestly can't believe they were ok with giving us these appetizers. They were dried out so bad like they had been conned and set out for quite some time. Needless to say, we didn't even touch them! I thought that's ok we didn't have to pay and we still have our dinners, until we got home. As I opened our dinners I was in complete shock! My chicken was so black it didn't even look like chicken! My husband's was noodles and shrimp with no sauce and hardly any shrimp! I couldn't even eat my dinner because the first bite I tried to take was so burnt I had to spit it out. This was so disappointing. I even took pictures of my dinner and I will try to send as well so you, yourself can see the awful dinner Olive Garden presented us with! I believe it will be awhile before we go back to our favorite restaurant due to this unfortunate experience.

Olive Garden restaurant located at 533 Jefferson Rd., Rochester, NY 14623, manager Matthew Gross gave us the worst service imaginable! We started off with a waitress that he assigned to another table during our visit because he told us that a party of 25 guest had come in. We felt unimportant! He then brought us our meals but left out the side item that we ordered which was sausages. Interestingly enough he still charged us for this! Then upon receiving the bill I had presented a coupon that was emailed to me from my birthday and his comment to me was that this could be spam or from retail me not and would not be excepted. He never even looked at the email to verify where it was coming from he just assumed and made this offense comment instead! I have taken quite a bit of time since the visit to sit in reflection of my experience at Olive Garden and still feeling awful about the treatment, I decided to write this formal complaint! The information from my receipt shows August 27, 2017 at 8:57 PM. Table 44. Please contact me back directly. I can be reached at [protected].

T.

Hello,

My finance, my mother-in-law and myself dined in your Dickson City, Pennsylvania location last evening. We were greeted by John who offered us a choice of wine, we then ordered our drinks. My mother-in-law wasn't there at the time, so we ordered her a drink she has all of the time. The waiter, John, came back to question her drink choice. She did in fact order the same drink that we had ordered for her. We then waited another few minutes for him to bring the drink back. Then after waiting 17 minutes, John finally appeared again to take our order. He took our order and we waited another 10 minutes for bread-sticks and another 10 for our salads and soup. As I was eating the salad, I discovered a hair in the salad. When John was called back to the table, he said "Oh, Damn", took the salad and left. He didn't offer me more salad, just walked away with the 1st one. Then about 5 minutes later a manager came over and apologized for the hair and asked if we were offered more salad, we stated no. Our meals came and they were good. We asked for additional drinks, which took quite a while and were given dessert and coffee on the house. I guess the reason for this complaint is that we should of been asked or given more salad. I had only taken 2 bites out of my salad, before the hair was noticed. The "Oh, Damn" response by John seemed as though, they'd been caught and this happens a lot. To me he should of been much more apologetic and asked what they could do to make it right. Therefore, we left the restaurant at 7:20 after checking in at our table at 5:50. We had a bad experience, the worst I'd ever had there and honestly not sure when we'll be back.

To whom it may concern,
My wife and I was in your Restaurant located at, 15770 North Freeway in Houston, Texas 77090 for lunch on Sunday afternoon September 24, 2017. Upon receiving the check from the waiter, I took my wallet out to pay the check and leave a tip for the waiter and laid my wallet on the table as I placed the carry out containers in the bag. I gave the waiter the check-holder and he asked if we needed change, I responded no and my wife and I got up from the table and exited. The waiter and the bus guy was both standing at the table when we got up to leave. Upon getting in my car I realized that I had left my wallet on the table, I immediately called inside as I was existing my car and was told that the wallet was not left at the table (I must inform you that, I was never asked what table and I never indicated what table). Upon making my way into the restaurant I asked the waiter about my wallet and he said it was not left and the busboy said no wallet was left. I asked to speak with the manager and when she came out she came out immediately on the offense and with a don’t care attitude, saying that anyone could have picked up the wallet including another customer. This was impossible because they would have had to ask the bus guy to excuse them while they picked up the wallet, because they were already there when we left, both he and the waiter. Because I knew where I left the wallet as well as who was there when I left leaving no doubt that it was one of Olive Gardens employees, namely the waiter or the busboy, I summoned the Harris County Constable, Precinct 4 to the location and of course their investigation was limited since there were no witnesses and that neither would admit taking the wallet or knowing who took my wallet. I feel totally violated in a “DEN OF THIEVES”. Because I decided to patronize Olive Garden, I am now having to cancel and report stolen all of my credit and bank cards, and driver’s license. I am the Pastor of one of the local churches and have many members to frequent this location in groups on Sunday afternoon, needless to say I will on Tuesday night and Sunday morning warn them of the fact that this location is not safe and going there would certainly be taking a chance of them also being robbed by employees with management apparently condoning theft from customers as she also hindered the law enforcement officers from looking in the trash or areas of the restaurant where my wallet could have been stashed. I have absolutely no doubt or reservation as to the fact that an employee of Olive Garden stole my wallet. I will take my wife’s recommendation from here on to just drive a few exits on Sunday and go to, “Cheddars” and hopefully I can convince as many of our parishioners to do the same. Unfortunately, during my research, I discovered that Cheddars are also owned by The Darden Restaurant, Inc. I am so very disappointed and disgusted with the episodes of today while just trying to have a meal before going in to rest after a long day.
The wallet was a black zip wallet with a clear slot on the front displaying my driver’s license with the following contents:
• $220.00 Cash
• Bank of America Credit Card
• Wells Fargo Business Credit Card
• Wells Fargo Personal Debit Card
• Wells Fargo Business Debit Card
• Chase Personal Debit Card
• Several Club Cards
• Texas Driver’s License
• Texas Concealed Handgun License

My fiance who is a server no longer feels safe going into work and is now arming herself with brass knuckles because of the old man Dwayne who makes the salads and breadsticks continues to make very disgusting remarks to her like telling her to "suck that finger" when she licked sauce off her finger and that "he will get her off over here" when she stated she was off for the day. He's only the tip of the iceberg. No fiance is scared to report it because the manager Jimmy often fires employees or makes them look very bad of they try to report anything. According to his previous location he worked at he ran that restaurant chain into the ground before up and quitting them. I Will make one last warning before more drastic measures are made to protect my fiance at her place of work

Hello Sir /Maam

My family & I visited with Columbus Ga Olive Gardens today 09/22/2017 for my bd dinner, all to be treated as if my family wasn't welcome after being seated the young lady that waited on our table was impatient to take our drink order, after decided to just have water she wished away, she comes back about 8 min later with water I felt rushed wen placing my food order all to get a salad with no bread until after the salad was gone I stopped & ask for bread, once my order arrived my pasta was cold, I had to ask for graded cheese, she then replied she dint know that my pasta was sitting back in the back, my husband & I was very disappointed, I ask the young lady to take the food back, I paid for wat my husband & granddaughter ate, never again will I feel bad about my patronizing a place in nu wanted at, Olive Garden has been around for some time now, I have choices other than Olive Garden where I could have eaten.

A few of your employees at the Olive Garden 1416 have been posting pictures and videos on their public snap chat stories and it's really lovely to see how disgusting it is in there. Will not return ever and will be letting all of my friends and family know. In the video they show themselves cleaning and it's absolutely disgusting. They showed pulling out some sort of table and there was tons of mold on the walls behind it along with old breadsticks. I'd love to send you these videos but I cannot since other people snapchats cannot be saved and go away after 24 hours. I really hope the employee that posted this gets fired for outing the company and that the company its self learns how to clean!

Im from california currently in Houston Texas .. Went out for a nice quiet dinner with my husband and right when we get our food we hear screaming cursing and glass break. 3 female staff broke out into a brwal in the dining room kitchen area..they werw fist fighting and throwing glass ..
In a panic i ask for my bill to leave but now i know inshouldnt have paid for my meal my table was very shooken up ..ive never been to an elegant olive garden resturaunt and had have this done ... I want my money back it was a waist of dinner my nerves were shot and it shouldnt have happend ..

I went to pick up my today order today at the Olive Garden in Niagara Falls, NY 14304, while I was waiting 2 ladies came in to dine and asked for a window seat. The manager Sam was extremely rude to them, told them to sit down and wait because there wasn't any available, as she nagged and complained about them to other employees standing there. The restaurant was empty, plenty of seating. I did tell Sam that was very rude. This isn't the first I witnessed behavior like this, I don't eat in the restaurant anymore, I'm considering not ordering to go anymore either. Seems like some of the staff needs addition training on customer service

When arriving I noticed fruit flies, but we continued to order. The first bunch of breadsticks were fine but the second set were hard as a rock. When I received my meal, I started eating the mashed potatoes. They were not only cold, but fake. My wife also accidentally ate one of the fruit flies. When we complained to the manager she was quick to dismiss everything and only comped the meal. I feel as though we were undervalued as a customer and our concerns were not addressed.

I went to Olive Garden I-55 in Jackson, MS with some friends on Sunday afternoon because we were wanting a decent lunch. Our first problem was our waitress was constantly starting major conversations and talking about her personal life. We tried to ask politely to be left alone, and she didn't. She repeatedly messed up our orders and forgot our food and things we asked for. The food itself was good other than my friends lasagna fritta was overcooked, but most of it was cold due to being forgotten. Overall, I expected a better experience due to loving Olive Garden and barely having a bad experience here ever.

Took my daughter to olive garden last week for her birthday and did not have a good time.. She got lazagna and it taste freezer burn or something was off.. So I have them take it back and just get her alfredo.. Welll I didnt notice until we left that they charged me for both meals the one I sent back and the new meal. We didnt get our salad until when our food was brought out cause I think she forgot because it was busy. Oh and I ordered a coke and got a sprite... I understands it gets busy but no reason for so many misteaks. My daughter was upset that dinner was ruined. Cant blame her. I am also a server and service is important and what we got was cold nasty food and [censor] service. And never seen a manager.

I was just at your Leesburg FL location. I was there with my two small children, took them to the bathroom and came back to our table being cleared, we only had drinks. I ordered Alfredo shopping sauce, never got it, asked for two miks for my kids, they asked with or without ice, I said no ice twice, the kids got ice. Salad came out with no dressing, got our food and it was lunch portions, asked for dessert to go and boxes. The Alfredo was still on my bill. When brought to the server's attention, someone must of taken it. After getting that taken care of, I paid and asked for boxes again. After asking a total of 4 people for boxes I finally got one with the manager got the server instead of the boxes. I was there for an hour and a half which is crazy for 2 kid cheese pizzas and a shrimp Alfredo. The table next to me was also having issues. The kids and I never got refills on our drinks either. Very disappointing and I try and look past everything being back to normal after the hurricane but this was too much.

Wife and I have been regular customers at Olive Garden on Beach Blvd., in Huntington Beach for years. Today, ordered usual spegetti with meat sauce from special menu 2 for 1. I understood meatballs do not come with the special menu and I also ordered a side of meatballs from the regular menu which indicated (3) meatballs. Food came with no meatball. Asked the waiter about the side of meatballs and he said he would go back to the kitchen to see about it. He returned to my table about 10 minutes with one single small meatball on a small plate. I told him this was not what I ordered as I had ordered from the "Sides" menu and it stated (3) meatballs for $3.50. The waiter said that I can't order from the side menu when I ordered from the special menu. He said meatballs are not included in the special price. I could not make him understand that my order from the main menu for the side of meatballs was separate from my special order..could not make him understand and he said he would go talk to the manager. He came back 10 minutes later and said the manager told him I couldn't order from the main menu side dishes but I could order single meatballs one at a time. Food was getting cold, told waiter to forget it I was no longer interested in the side order of meatballs and he left. About 10 minutes later this lady came to our table said she was the manager and was there to answer any questions I had. I told her I had no questions, I had merely tried to order the side order of (3) meatballs but the waiter said I couldn't do it. The manager said he was right, the side orders are for the main menu and I had ordered my dinner from the two for 1 special and therefore could not order side dishes from main menu. I explained to her that Ihave been ordering the same thing over the many year I have been coming there to no avail...the manager stated it is Olive Garden policy and I couldn't order outside the special menu. I asked her what if I had decided to order an appitizer from the appitazier menu at the time I ordered from the special menu.. the manager did not have an answer for that question but continued to state that the pricing for my special 2for1 order does not include meat balls. By now I had gotten nowhere with this manager and my food was getting very cold while she stood around and argued over 2 meatballs that I was willing to pay for but they would not allow me to order. I advised her I didn't wish to discuss the matter any further with her as we were not making any progress toward a resolution. The fix would have been very simple...bring out two more meat balls and charge me the $3.50 charge shown on the main menu. I would have been happy and a lot of time could have been saved. Unfortunately, this manager did not have a name tag and by then I was very frustrated with the whole situation. Over the past years my wife and I have enjoyed eating at this Olive Garden quite often but we have never had such a negative experience over two meat balls. When the bill came, I noted I was charged $1.49 for the single meatball I did receive. It will be a while before we decide to return...if we do return. The biggest irritation that I had was after the waiter and I had discontinued our conversation over this matter, the manager decides to come out and discuss it further. At first I thought she came out to help remedy the situation but the only thing she wanted to do was argue with me about the meatballs from the main menu not being available as a side order to the special menu. Olive Garden your quality of service has changed not for the better. This occurred about 2:30 - 3:00 pm on 9-15-17. The manager you had working has no people skills and doesn't understand that she must listen to a customer's problem if she expects to fix it. Thank you for your time and consideration.

09/13/17 - Roanoke Valley View Olive Garden, Virginia.

I am a vegetarian and I ordered Grilled Vegetable & Cheese Piadina today. Few others in my group also order Piadina but they had ordered chicken.
I started eating mine since I got my order earlier than the others. There were two waitresses serving us and they mixed up the order and I got chicken Piadina. Later they found out that and replaced mine with a Veggie Piadina but there was not even a single word of apology. Religiously I don't take meat and it was really disgusting to know that what I had was chicken. It was my office team lunch and I couldn't really react to it on the spot. But this is really making me mad and upset. This is not what I expected from Olive Garden.