Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Benton

Good afternoon, all y'all. After a hiatus, I'm back with my Wife, posting about places we go, what we eat and the people we meet!! So, let's get to gettin'.

We decided to try out the brand spanking new OLIVE GARDEN in Benton, AR. (Benton, BTW, is a really great place to live, raise your kids and call home. That's why we love it so.) We went around 130ish on Monday, 12 September. Rumor has it that was their opening day. We absolutely NEVER go to an opening day, or month, of a restaurant. Gotta work out the bugs before we go, you know?

But not that day. We thought we'd hit it up. All-in-all, very good. I'd have to give a 4.4/5 ⭐️.

Here's the skinny... Food - very, very good. Beautiful presentation, extremely fresh ingredients, and prepared spot on. Atmosphere - we were immediately impressed because the inside didn't look like the typical Olive Garden, or, the "OG". Besides the obvious that it's literally brand new, everything looked modern but with an old-world charm. *Let's just hope it stays that way. Staff - all the staff my wonderful and amazing Wife and I encountered had impeccable manners, and a very team-oriented attitude. We were very happy with this. *We believe that a staff with a s#!^^y attitude can absolutely ruin the best of meals. But, not at the Benton OG!! They all seemed to be focused on the task at hand while working toward the next. Value - we went at lunchtime, and since we are being good about our food choices, we both got a lunch-sized entrée. The Wife had the Five Cheese Ziti al Forno, and added a meatball. I was impressed with the ziti, and that's hard to do with me. I love me some ziti!! I had their Shrimp Scampi. I enjoyed it, and beside the flavors, the presentation was great. It had all the good "food colors". The Wife would've enjoyed the flavoring, but alas, she and shrimp don't play well together. So I get all the shrimps!

A new aspect I'm adding to our reviews is the "Hero of the Day"!! (Have to sing it in my fave Metallica voice, right Buz!?!?) So, our "Hero of the Day" was our server, Nichole. She took care of the Wife and I like she's been serving forever. HOWEVER, it literally was her very first day of serving. No lie. She was attentive, actually delivered what she said she was going to deliver (and it didn't take all day to get water), and she had a smile and a great attitude. So, the Wife and I want to thank the Benton OG for hiring Nichole. Y'all have a winner there.

Okay, the rest of the rest... Military discount - they don't offer one on the regular, but do a couple days of the year. Sad face 😞 Grand total for our inaugural meal at the Benton OG......$22 and some change. 👍

Great time with The Wife (as always!!) and very good food! Have a great weekend, and remember to show your servers how much you appreciate...

I usually don’t give 1 star reviews, but given the situation I feel like it’s deserved. The restaurant has been open about a month now, I understand it’s fairly new but if the waitress can’t seem to figure out how to run a card without charging it more than once or adding random meals on to a ticket that wasn’t ordered, you should probably pull her from the floor.

I wouldn’t know any of that had the waitress not told everyone at my table. First she was extremely annoying, constantly asking personal questions, told my friend her husband stood her up, almost like she was trying really hard and it was obvious. We looked passed that. Whatever. Then once it came time to pay she brought our tickets out, she charged us for an extra $20 meal, that nobody at our table ordered. She charged our friends for a second beer that was not ordered.

She grabbed the manager, the manager extremely professional. She apologized and gave us the option between a refund or a gift card. We chose the gift card. We sat there waiting for the waitress to bring a to go box and when she came back she asked us how much we got a gift card for and told us that had been happening all night. That people kept getting charged for other meals and things they didn’t order and laughed it off. She said it was the computer doing it and that she wasn’t gonna take the blame, which could have been true but also it’s your job to double check, as should we have. Fast forward to the next day…… the people who were with us called us and told us to check our bank account to see what we were charged. We checked and nothing was out of the ordinary. They told us they had been charged almost $90.

My friend went to the restaurant and demanded to know what happened. The manager told her it looked like on the first ticket the waitress had charged the card for a $19 tip. And then ran the card again for $0.00 and added a $35 tip!

I won’t be going back for a few months and hopefully they will have figured out who needs to work there and who doesn’t. 🙄

Edit: After this review I got the urge to check my account looks like we were charged an addition $15 for that night bringing our total to $72 for 2 people. After speaking to the manger is sounds like the waitress gave her self a $15 tip from our ticket as well as a $35 tip from our friends. I spoke to the manager Justin I believe was his name and he took care of everything. So I changed my rating to 3 stars. Overall the food was good and the management is great, but our...

We stopped by for a late lunch today. Unfortunately the Hostess sat us in an area where the staff was congregated to fold napkins and gossip. We were the only customers in this area.

We could hear who we think may be a supervisor ask someone to get our drinks. We could hear the waitress refuse because we were not sitting at one of her tables. Eventually they did get our waitress. (On a positive note - once our waitress knew we were there- she was amazing) The food was also amazing. It was hard to enjoy it though as the situation was not idea. We ended up bringing most of our meal home with us.

We could hear staff complain about the military getting free meals on Veterans day. I am a proud Army Brat. My dad was an amazing person. Served 20 years. Fought the Agent Orange fight and unfortunately lost that fight. To hear anyone talk negative about the military was hurtful. Sadly our veterans who served in Vietnam know all too well what that feels like. I am thankful no Vet was sitting in this area during that conversation.

We also got to hear the complaints about customers (adults) who order off the kids menu and how this waitress would refuse those orders.

We heard about staff who didn't get their tables cleared quick enough but got mad at waitresses who did and thus had more customers seated in their area.

There was so much more. (over an hours worth more)

Here's the thing. First, noone wants to sit where there's only negativity being shared. Your customers come for a relaxing meal - not for a visit filled with gossip. Secondly - if your staff doesn't learn how to work as a team your business is being set up to fail. That would be sad.

While I know your business just recently opened, common sense would tell you this seating arrangement was not...