Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Bangor

My family and I went in to Olive Garden in Bangor tonight at 4:00 for dinner. The waitress showed up after about 10 minutes, and took our order. About 10 minutes later brought our beverages and then some appetizers, bread sticks and salad. She brought my daughter in law and granddaughter their soup at this time. About 20 minutes later the waitress came back and said she would bring back more salad if we wanted some. We said yes. About 10 minutes later we got another bowl of salad. Sporadic visit from the waitress. At 5:00 the waitress said she was going to get our entrees. We had already been there an hour at this point. At 5:15 she showed up again and said she would go get our entrees. (Just said that 15 minutes ago). I reminded her that we had been there 1:15 minutes already. She said she was sorry but would go get them. We looked around and saw many staff standing around and when we arrived, the restaurant was not busy but now it was starting to get busy. The waitress left and then brought my daughters and my meals (seafood Alfredo). The Alfredo was dry and rubbery. The sauce had a glaze over it ( and not from being in the oven) The seafood looked dry like it had been setting for a long time. This was not even close to what I had grown to expect and had ever experienced from police garden. I asked the waitress to bring another as I couldn't eat that one and my daughter said the same thingl. She said that they were busy and she could get me new ones "to go". I requested, "To go?". I told her we wanted to eat it there. She said that they were busy and it would be a while. I removed her that we had already been there 1:15. She walked away to talk to the manager and left the plates on the table. (See picture below). She came back and said that they were discounting our bill. I told her I wanted New entrees. She said that it wouldn't be quick. I asked her if she would eat that food she just served us. She wouldn't answer my question. I asked her if the manager was in and she said she was. I asked to talk to the manager. My daughter in law heard the waitress go to the manager and say, "he's being difficult". Ok, but difficult?... I just wanted a meal that hasn't been sitting under a heat lamp for 45 minutes. The manager comes over and I told her that we had been there for 1:15 and that when our meals arrived that they were cold, and dried out. We would like new ones. She said that there was an area without power and they were slammed. (They weren't 1:15 minutes ago). She said, I'm not making excuses but my staff hasn't even had a break they are right out straight. Meanwhile, All around us there were many staff members standing, talking and chatting. Not just hosts, but servers! Nothing wrong with that but don't tell me that the reason you can't give me a hot meal is because everyone is too busy?? She said that the new meals won't be out quickly as it takes 10 minutes to make the seafood Alfredo start to finish. I told her that was fine. About six minutes later she showed up with the two meals. They looked thrown together. They were barely warm. I didn't take a picture of those ones, but it's not the quality that I've ever got from Olive garden before. This was an extremely poor experience. The waitress didn't care and neither did the so-called "manager". But as the "manager" walked away she told the waitress, "come with me". My adult son had mentioned to me that he wanted another soda but the waitress hadn't been back in so long. I asked the manager if she could get another soda for my son. She said ok and then a couple of minutes later someone else came with his beverage. I ate my entree , my daughter said hers was barely warm, took a couple of bites and pushed it away. We were going to order dessert, but now we were getting no service at all. No one came back. We paid the discounted bill and left. This was the worst restaurant experience that we have EVER had. (See dried out entree...

We eat out 3-4 nights a week so have many experiences to draw upon when rating our overall visit to Olive Garden. I was very much disappointed in food, service and presentation of the food. The most important component of eating out, in my opinion, is the wait staff. We had two at our table with the male being the primary server. He was snappy and curt which presented itself right off when taking our drink order. As I was waiting to order my meal with him, the other staff person came along asking if she could take my menu. I had not had a chance to order so hesitated and she said "have you ordered?". When I said no she said oh, okay, you can keep it. We started off with an appetizer, spinach dip. We had always liked their spinach dip. The menu indicated it was a new recipe. The spinach tasted like undrained canned spinach giving the entire dish a watered down taste. Then the meals started to arrive. One person ordered the steak requesting the steak be medium well. The first time it came out medium rare and the second time came out medium. We requested it not go back a third stating we did not want meat that had to be cooked three times. They insisted. I asked they please not bring back a steak that had to be recooked again. The steak returned and it was the same piece that had already been cooked twice. Two people ordered chicken alfredo. The chicken in each dish was cooked different. One dish was fine. The other dish's chicken had what appeared to be grilled crust on the outside of it. Fine, however the odd part is the charred grilled part was soggy. It wasn't crisp, just the exact opposite, wet and soggy. We had one child. All others adults. Six meals came out first and then we had to wait for the seventh meal. The meal we waited for was the child's meal, off the children's menu so cook staff would have known it is for a child. Even the female server commented it not being there and should be out shortly. One of the simpler dishes, pasta with marinara sauce, had an appearance like someone had picked at it before bringing it to the table. Generally when I order this the sauce is poured over top of spaghetti. The one served last evening had one side of the dish stirred lacking presentation and me wondering who had taken a fork to my plate before arriving at the table. Now I can understand some challenges when a restaurant is busy however we went between lunch and dinner. The place was not busy at all. The steak meal was deducted from our bill so that was important to note. The entire experience was such a disappointment. I don't see us going back there in the...

I have been to the Olive Garden quite a few times over the years with nothing particularly memorable happening, however, THIS last visit changed everything.

Plenty of handicapped parking when we arrived. A friendly woman at the door greeted everyone and we were seated right away. I will say I thought it was a bit overkill that we got a table for 7 or 8 people when there were only three (3) of us getting dinner.

Server immediately greeted us with menu's, we weren't ready by a long shot, so she went to get us waters. We ordered our drinks and meals, and my drink was a combination of two drinks on the menu but they made it happen and it was SOO delicious so I had a second! It was a strawberry-peach blended daiquiri.

My mother had ordered lasagna and they came to our table and told us they had just put one in the oven so there was going to be a little bit of a wait. There were two members of the management team that were very apologetic and genuinely wanted to know how they could make this situation better. We were fine, I was partially buzzed so it definitely made no difference to me! They offered us all kinds of things (another drink for free for me was not an option, eh, but I tried), and they finally settled on giving each of us a FREE dessert to bring home! That's like $30 of free food for the minor "inconvenience" of having to cook our food. The customer service really was well above par and they made us feel like we were the only party in there!

The meal was absolutely the best thing I've eaten in many maaany months! It was Tortellini Alfredo with Grilled Chicken: asiago filled tortellini with a blend of cheeses and breadcrumbs. Thank goodness the portion size was huge so I was able to relive that deliciousness. I chose the Strawberry Cheesecake as my free dessert, but I had to throw the strawberries & sauce away because it had a twangy taste that I could only say NO to. Not even sure if it was an intentional tweak with the flavor or not...the cheesecake alone was really...