Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Athens-Clarke County Unified Government

First experience here a few nights ago. My husband & I decided to try it out for date night. It took a while for our server to actually wait our table but we were understanding. Problems started shortly after I was told that I was not able to purchase any cocktails or sangrias due to the bartender “having an attitude & being in a bad mood”. Secondly, I had politely asked to have my drink switched out due to me being a TYPE 1 DIABETIC & the drink being entirely too sweet. Even my husband agreed that the drink was extremely sweet. My server decided to bring me the exact same drink back, watered down, despite my concernment. I had even stated that I would be fine with a water to not be complicated because eating out as a new diabetic at only 22 years old is highly difficult & stressful. I was told & I quote “I’ll make sure to bring you anything that’s not water”. In utter confusion & disbelief, I had already decided that this will be the first & last time I dine here. Lastly, but most importantly, my husband had ordered his steak medium well & it was served bleeding all over the plate. My husband has 16 years of culinary knowledge & knew as soon as he saw his meal that it was not cooked thoroughly or properly. It was a very disappointing experience & with us both having experience managing & operating restaurants, we are very patient & understanding but this is very poor service. We couldn’t even eat our leftovers. Hopefully things will get better in the future but we will not spend our hard earned money...

Apparently Olive Garden does not need the money or the customers. Called to talk to someone about a pick up catering order. I was immediately put on hold the first time as soon as they picked up...no greeting, hello, nothing. Phone picked up and put on hold. I was on hold for 15 minutes! Hung up and called back a few minutes later. Finally had a real person pick up, and they went to get the person that I needed to talk to. On hold for 15-20 minutes waiting! So I hung up and didn't press the number for catering...just wanted someone to tell me WHEN it would be a good time to call and talk to someone as clearly they were busy. Person picked up and put me on hold AGAIN, no greeting...NOTHING. After about 15 MORE minutes, a lady comes back on and asks me if I would hold on as she was very busy and....AGAIN no hello, no greeting, nothing...just will you hold on as I am very busy? I told her, 'Never mind, I have already been on hold 45+ minutes and STILL asked to hold on even more...no thanks. I worked food service for 10+ years and I have been busier than many could imagine. A 10 hr day without a break on too many occasions to count. But I never mistreated or ignored a CUSTOMER because you never know how many $$$ it could cost you or the restaurant. Every customer has to wait...but you do not ignore and have someone on hold for 45+ minutes and still ignored. And apparently Olive Garden just doesn't need to...

What an absolutely horrible in abysmal night....who gave the option for our 10-year-old daughter to go anywhere she wanted to go and she absolutely loves Olive garden and most of all the experiences have been great up until this point. Due to covid they do have limited seating or so it seemed or spaced out seating, however the waitress that we got apparently was either new or incompetent or maybe both.

Upon serving us we had to ask for drinks several times for refills and upon getting unlimited soup and unlimited breadsticks and salad we got one serving of each as the waitress had one other table that was an eight top and seem to be overwhelmed by that even with two other servers being runners and backups for her.

Finally at the end they did serve a free dessert as part of the birthday celebration however there was no upsell for us there was not even a question or hint of anything that we wanted at that point. I was done with the meal, done with the server, and I doubt we'll go back anytime soon!!!

I understand things are different now due to covid and other various outcomes, environmental or otherwise however there's no excuse for you not to do your job and provide at least somewhat excellent customer service and there are the ABCs of being a waitress and being in the hospitality industry, I halfway blame her but I fully blame the leadership and the management and the...