Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Barnstable

We will not be dining at this location again. Be aware that if you order “unlimited” soup and salad but anyone shares any bit of these starters within your group, they’ll try to charge everyone for an entire extra salad. Not sure if this is a policy thing, management thing, or waiter thing, but we were told it was the manager’s fault.

When we were seated, we were automatically served breadsticks and salad for our table. Our party of 9 ordered an entree each, 5 of us ordered unlimited soups, and 4 ordered unlimited salad. In the middle of the meal, the waiter came by and took our kiosk from us (we didn’t think anything of it, but this became relevant later on). The bill at the end had two extra salads added, which we asked the waiter about. When we asked to talk to a manager, the waiter threatened that the manager would charge us for even more salads.

We then asked for the kiosk back, one member of our party ended up paying for the two extra salads originally added to the bill. However, our waiter ended up adding at least THREE salads onto three different checks without telling us and did not allow us to view the itemized check, per person at the time of payment. We can only assume that he had originally taken the kiosk away from us so he could take one card from the table and process the payment on his own without us asking questions about each charge. He tried to leave after we paid, but the only reason why we were able to dispute at the location was because we asked for itemized receipts per person after some guests in our party noticed they paid upwards of $50 for what should’ve been a $30 bill at most (we believe this member of the party was charged for two extra salads, while the other two who were overcharged were only charged for one). The waiter ended up returning with refunds for the three extra salads. We can only assume that he would’ve left with us paying for 5 extra salads total if we didn’t flag it.

Aside from this egregious, scammy behavior, service throughout the meal was poor. We weren’t offered any cheese on top of our salads or pasta, we were never asked if we wanted refills (on bottomless non-alcoholic drinks, salads, and soups), and we had to flag our waiter down ourselves for most of the night. The restaurant was not very busy at all...

This was on August 3, 2022. We made a 7pm Surprise Birthday Dinner reservation for my daughter's Sweet 16. The guests arrived and they were told there was no reservation made. Our guests had to wait for 45 minutes before a table was available for them. I was due to arrive at 7:30 with the birthday girl. What was most disappointing is the fact that my oldest daughter did a walk-through earlier while waiting to be seated. The table that we sat at was available the entire time. I had to delay my daughter's arrival due to this mishap. Other than that, once the birthday girl arrived everything was ok. Unfortunately, the server disappeared from time to time and it left our guests sitting around waiting for her to come back with certain food items, dishware etc. The food was a bit disappointing, we ordered (2) five cheese ziti Al forno plates and the Tour of Italy and it wasn't as fresh as one would expect. The pasta was dry and hard! All 3 dishes were packaged up in boxes and taking home which was given to our dogs! When it was time for the birthday cake they just brought it out without informing me (mother). The table was covered with all of the dirty dishes and was not cleared away prior to the birthday cake coming out. They came out singing happy birthday and my daughter and I started pushing all the dishes to one end of the table so it wouldn't show up in the video and pictures. We felt that it was just common sense to have a clean table before bringing out the cake. Regardless, my daughter had a great time and that was all I wanted for her special day. They really need to improve with the communication with this company because I was very embarrassed with my guests having to wait around for 45 minutes! And then inconveniencing the birthday girl with arriving late. As much money as I spent that evening, the food was...

Avoid this location AT ALL COSTS. Came here with a group of 9 and had the most terrible experience. Four of us ordered salads to start, while 5 of us ordered soups to start, and some of us shared appetizers. However, we only received 3 salads total, and were upchaged SIX SALADS (over $60 in salad price). The waiter blamed it on the manager for being strict and saying anyone who didn't order salad and ate it was charged for an extra salad (Over $9 each salad, even when some of us only had a few pieces of lettuce). This makes NO sense, since even though we shared, we ordered 4 salads total and only received 3. They also tried to HIDE this fact from us; the waiter took the kiosk at our table in the middle of our meal to prevent us from paying ourselves, and then didn't show us itemized receipts when we asked for the kiosk back to split the bill ourselves. After we asked for an itemized receipt, the waiter got nervous and refunded some of the salad prices (again blaming the manager for being strict). We asked to speak to the manager and he threatened that if we talked to her, we might be upcharged MORE. Additionally, service was so poor; we received no cheese (even though the same waiter served cheese to the tables around us), never received refills unless we asked, didn't receive mints at the end, and never had our waters refilled. Overall, we were are extremely disappointed that we were almost scammed over $60, just because some of us ate some of each other's salads??? And they would have gotten away with it if we didn't ask for the kiosk back or for our itemized receipts. This was the first time some of my friends visited Olive Garden and they will never come back because of...