Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Alaska

Where to begin? I don't expect exceptional service or food when I go to Olive Garden, but I do expect an enjoyable experience. From start to end, our experience was subpar. The hostess wasn't entirely welcoming when we got there, only asked for our name and number and told us to wait. Once seated, we waited well over twenty minutes for anyone to actually acknowledge us. In that time, several servers had passed us, none even glancing our way. Finally, the waitress who seemed busiest on this night, started waiting on us. We gave our order and waited. Our round of sodas came and mine was clearly watered down (it was replaced upon asking, though it took a while). Another customer arrived after we had ordered and was served within five minutes. After waiting for our soups, our waitress came over and told us that the gnocchi soup would be unavailable for the rest of the night as well as the minestrone since the cooks didn't want to put another batch on (they were still open for three more hours). So, again, we waited. The other customer got her salad before we got our soup and salad. Our appetizers came, and my husband's soup (the potato and chorizo one, forgot the name) was lukewarm. The salad and breadsticks were good. Finally, our dinners arrived. His was pretty good but mine was surprisingly bland (it was chicken alfredo - usually pretty decent, never that bland). We also got the pumpkin cheesecake for dessert - and get this! It was still frozen. I could barely get my fork through it. We took it home so we could have it when it was thawed (I have no problem that it is a frozen product, but they should be making sure that the food coming out is at least thawed...). When we left, the hostess was chatting with another server, and neither acknowledged us as we left. We did not bother asking for a manager since we did not want to wait any longer for anything. Overall an hour and a half experience that usually takes forty to fifty minutes. Despite all this, our waitress was very kind and apologetic and was the only "highlight" of the night (seriously, she was running around all night while many servers seemed to be more...relaxed). Do better...

I wish I could write separate reviews for the service and the food. The food was basically what you'd expect from a national chain of Americanized Italian restaurants. The soup was tasty and filling, the salad was fresh, and the entrees were at least cooked correctly. The service, on the other hand, was terrible. Multiple times our requests were ignored or forgotten ( drink refills ) or the waitress simply didn't do what she said she would, like bring my fiance the salad bowl that was supposed to come with her salad. We never got that salad bowl and simply ate the salad off of bread plates. The fact that the waitress made excuses for the poor service ( "I've got this really big group at the table over there" ) only made matters worse. After we finished our food, we waited about 15 minutes for the waitress to check on our table so we could ask for our check, but she never did. We ended up having to ask a different table's waiter to bring our check and a to-go box. We then waited another nearly 10 minutes for our check to finally arrive, not from our original waitress, but from the waiter we had to stop and ask for it. Mind you, this was at 9PM on a Sunday, so they weren't exactly swamped with customers. In total, I think our waitress actually stopped by our table maybe 6 times throughout the course of the entire meal, and that includes taking drink orders, food orders, bringing our starter items and then our entrees. For the first time in my life I left zero tip when I paid the bill, and I'd be lying if I said I felt bad about it. Mediocre food for the price. Terrible service. Go somewhere else if you want to enjoy...

The experience I recently had at Olive Garden was probably the best Olive Garden visit I have ever had. In the past, I have never been a huge fan of the chain but tonight changed that a little.

We had good food, great service and overall a good time. Of course there is room for improvement, however it was a nice visit overall.

SERVICE - Shoutout to Zachary B for being a SUPERB server. Nice experience, attentiveness and prediction of what the customer wanted before they wanted it. We tipped well and we are happy with the evening.

MEAL - The food was fantastic this time around. Went with the Beef/Mushroom Pasta (image with review) for this time around. It had very good tasting marinate and huge mushrooms. Overall, fantastic meal there. The salad could of been improved to me. The veggies were not as fresh as before, but still good. Breadsticks still spot on. We also tried the Zuppa Toscana and that soup was very good. Just spicy enough, but I also added pepper. Further, our awesome server had the chef's separate the pasta dish to split between two people. It was an added convenience that added to the experience.

DRINKS - Well prepared and good. I would prefer with the iced teas if they were served with a lemon, had to ask this time. The raspberry iced tea needs the lemon flavor. Limonita was delicious as well.

BOTTOM LINE - We had a great experience overall. There were a few shortcomings, however they were not distracting to the overall experience. Very nice, however be prepared to be FULL when leaving Olive Garden.

Will update...