Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Austin

This review is for people looking to order curbside pick up during the restriction period we are under. I hope to help anyone avoid the same situation we dealt with tonight. I called Olive Garden at 8:15 to put in a pick up order. They let me know that the order would be completed at 9pm. Great. We got groceries and headed to Olive Garden. They had 45 minutes as our quote time but we get there and the food does not seem to be ready. After the guy asked us our name and went inside we waited a good 20 minutes with radio silence about our order. We didn’t want to just leave in case someone was working on it. So we called and asked to add a thing of sauce just to kind of remind them we’re here. No one can find the order. Even after telling them what we got they couldn’t find it. The guy on the phone sends out the manager and as we express our confusion, explaining I know I called the right location he literally cuts me off mid sentence and says he just wants to get the order taken care of quickly. Basically letting us know it was never put it in. I’m livid at this point because of how rude and abrupt he was when were explaining an issue we have. As a manger you’re supposed to make the situation better, him talking to us made it much worse and we were more upset than we were before just because of his tone and demeanor. He also stood far off over by the sidewalk constantly cutting us off to say he can’t hear us. Well obviously...this is how you set your to go system up for your employees, what do you think they do? All of his team members were close enough to cars to take and give orders but I guess since he’s the manager he can’t be bothered to do the same thing his employees have to do. He goes off and we get our order at 9:58. At this point we’re annoyed because not once, not over the phone or in person we’re we given a total. We only see the total on the receipt of the bag. When the host takes our card she ask if we want to tip which I totally get that they deserve one but this was definitely not the time to ask us for anything after we placed an order at 8 and y’all are closing down here at 10 o clock and just now handing us our food. It wasn’t the young lady’s fault because the guy who took our order was a male, the guy who asked our name and never came back was another male, the people looking for our order and not updating us, the manager, etc. Were all the issue. The thing that gets me is the manager tells us to basically get over it because they’ve been “having problems all day”. What does that have to do with me? What did I do to directly impact you or your staff’s ability to keep up with the orders that are placed? The guy next to us waited about 20 minutes for his order and as we had our windows down to ask the server for a receipt we overhear the guy saying he has had issues with food from here for take out and was having another one. So if you’re looking to place a to go order I advise you to just use online ordering & pay in person using cash so the to go runners can get a tip and you can also avoid pre paying for food you likely won’t be getting until long...

Lets just say I was on edge to give this place a zero star, however turns out our server GLORIA was absolutely amazing, friendly and kind who also recommended the Tropical Martine (lets just say this it was delicious)

I understand, my wife and I could have gone anywhere we wanted too, however it had been a long time since we had been to OG, and we normally would have gone to the one up North off Burnet Rd. When arrived to the South Lamar Location we walked in, (I) was told give me a moment by a male (dont know who this was) he looked as if he was important who knows.

About 1 minute later two young woman show up to the host desk, a couple and a few more were asked "how many, and name?" I looked at my wife and was like "Well the male that was just here did not ask me that" we waited patiently; one of the host look up, and asked us had we been help?, I stated that a male was up here and told me and my wife, he'd be right back he was going to go look and see what was available, but he hasn't returned. The girl said okay, as the other young girl returned my wife stepped up, and asked "Were we supposed to sign in, because the male that was just here did not ask my wife anything? Just told her, let him go see what he had available. Both young women looked at one another, apologized, asked for our name and how many. We did tell them.

I was ready to really leave because not only had this man go MIA, but people who had arrived after us had been getting seated, and we where still waiting. (I know we could have left, but my wife really wanted to stay for the soup) So I decided we will wait and see how our services was. I can honestly say, I felt this male did not feel comfortable because we are two woman and did not want to see this, and hid from our eyes.

Lets just say Gloria, she was a great spirited individual, very kind spoke very nicely and even made recommendation for me. Gloria's attentiveness was absolutely amazing. Its because of servers like her, Id be returning. Thank you for turning my experience around...

I went here with my nieces this evening. I was prepared and knew what we were going to order when we sat down, which really helps when you have little ones with you and you are the only adult. The server was friendly, attentive, and not overly pushy trying to sell specials etc. Food came out super quick, although what we ordered was simple, pasta for the kids and soup and salad for me. I did find it interesting that they have touch screen computers on the tables. What I did NOT like about this is there are games for kids. These games are 1. not good for young kids minds and 2. cost money. Kids of course want to play them potentially causing an argument if you can't afford them and truly if you can't entertain your kids for an hour while you eat, don't bring them. There is so much research confirming that screen time for kids is bad for development and causes anxiety and dependency issues. I'll quit my rant, but it was disappointing to see a restaurant capitalizing on lazy parents and digitally crazed kids. What happened to family time around the table? What was neat about them was that you could pay for your ticket. It had a credit card swipe option and allowed you to enter the tip digitally. You can also choose to receive an emailed receipt, which is really convenient and saves paper. It was nice not to have to wait for the server to come get our card, run it, then bring it back. I also let my niece calculate the tip using their software so it was a learning opportunity. Gold star for that one,...