Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Bend

I don't like leaving bad reviews, and I happen to love Olive Garden. However, my particular experience at this location does not meet the standards I have been presented with at every other of their restaurants.

When we were seated and gave our drink orders, we were not asked if we were ready to order our meals until quite some time had passed. Our waitress was especially pushy on the appetizers and mentioned them repeatedly even after we told her no. Even still, she kept saying that if by any chance we change our mind, we can order it on the tablet, then proceeded to show us her favorite. After we eventually ordered our meals, we waited for about 15 minutes until she came to our table and told us it was extremely busy and that our dinner would take 50 minutes to be complete. This on it's own should not happen, but she just apologized and left, offering nothing but once again pushing the appetizers, telling us they we're coming out at a normal rate. Not giving a free appetizer, just pushing them so we would pay for them. All in all, we were at the restaurant for about an hour (total, including before we ordered) until we told her we had to go somewhere else and left without getting a meal. We asked what we owed for the drinks and salad but she ignored us, continuing to apologize. We got up and left wishing we had gone to the Black Bear Diner as we had originally planned.

Here I will offer a few ways they could have improved this experience.

1. Giving us free appetizers. I have received a free appetizer after small, unimportant inconveniences at restaurants, inconveniences I wouldn't have even noticed. This especially considering how pushy she was about them.
2. Having the manager talk to us. This happened to me with small minor inconvenience, so when it was something on a larger scale, this would make complete sense to have the manager come and apologize.
3. Giving us the entire meal free. This wouldn't be necessary, but 50 minutes is a long time. It was already about 7:30 and we like to eat dinner at 6:00-6:30. Not necessary, but it would have helped.

Another small side note: Our waitress was hard to understand because she mumbled and spoke only at one person, not the entire group. I did not even realize what had happened until she came around again and luckily the person she was speaking to heard this time around.

As I said, I hate leaving bad reviews, so I'm hoping that this is just a turn of bad luck, but I will not be eating at this location when I next come in the area. We ate here on August 25th, 2018. If the managers/owners see this review, I would like to know what was going on that weekend that made it be a 50 minute wait. The following morning we went to IHOP and they told it would be 45 minutes so we left before we sat down. They told us the moment we came into the building, which allowed us to make a decision...

We came in with our exchange student from Spain. We were seated promptly. After we were seated we waited for a good 15 minutes before anyone acknowledged us. When we were greeted by Emily, she said that she was sorry that we were not greeted and that this was not her table tonight. She took our drink order, when she arrived back with our drinks she mentioned the young man that was our server. I forget his name, and that's a shame on my behalf.

As I watched him serve a near by table of 6 he was very polite and attentive to them. Again Emily came back by and took our order after being there in total for about 40 to 50 mins. She was nice and apologetic, she even comped us an appetizer on the house. As we waited for the food to arrive our waiter refilled our drinks and tried to be friendly and apologized for taking so long. As I mentioned above he was so focused on the 6 top table. I remember being a server and how hard it can be, however, it is always in your best interest to acknowledge your tables and to acknowledge you are in need of help.

As we ate our food, I continued to watch our waiter have casual conversation with the 6 top and when he came over to us he had little to say with no interest and no emotion (our exchange student pointed that out).

Now for the blunt; I don't dine at Olive Garden often because I have not had the best of luck with their food in the past. Generally the noodles are over done or the soup is cold, ect. However, the service generally makes up for it. For me this time it was the other way around. I know that good people are hard to find this day and age. But if you are on the fence with hiring someone or looking to just fill the void, remember this, that person is the face of your establishment and they represent what choices people make in the future. I say all this with passion and hope that this finds it's way to others who feel...

I can't speak for how the food is, but what I can say as an Uber driver is that I had a horrible experience. My first time there did not know they had marked parking, so parked in an unmarked spot. The staff ppl I talked to were not kind. I waited 10 min and they called me and said they couldn't find me. I tried to explain where I was, but they asked me to move, so I did, moved to a numbered spot and put in the app. Five minutes later, they called again and said they couldn't find me and asked about what type of car I had. I told them, and then I said I hadn't seen anyone come out, I had a perfect view of the door. (Nobody came out with my food). I did see other staff goin to other spots, tho. So the manager Cassandra came out, and she refused to hand me the bag until I confirmed twice who the order was for. She said she was going to report me for being rude to her and the staff... I said that was fine. I did not appreciate being threatened when all I did was question the staff who called me. This could be confirmed by listening to the calls. Anyway, I told her I did not appreciate the public humiliation or her making me feel like a thief. I didn't appreciate being judged by appearance. Uber is not my job. I am a caretaker. I do Uber for extra cash so she can go ahead and report me.

Im not sure why she took drastic measures. I did not cuss or say anything horrible. I just questioned why they couldn't find my car as I put all the requested info in the app. Am reporting to store manager and cooperate. Very horrible first pick-up with them. I'm pretty sure it's my last, too, and that's ok. I did not deserve to be treated that way. They had no respect for my time or the order I needed to...