Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Bloomington

We arrived at 10:25pm on a Friday (restaurant closes at 11:00pm), we didn’t want to be “those people” and informed that since it was so close to closing, we would just order to go. Hostess stated “absolutely no problem, we can seat you, stay and eat.”

We are seated immediately, and waiter comes and takes our drink order (waters) and we order an appetizer at the same time. He also informs us that they are currently out of breadsticks, but if any come up, he will bring them out.

He comes back with the waters and we placed our meal order and a dessert to go (to be a little faster).

He brings the salad and I inquire about my soup and he says that they are out of it, would I prefer a different one. Ordered the other one available.

He bring our food. Great! It’s 10:40, we begin to eat.

He comes back to the table at 10:50 and asks if we would like to go boxes. We said yes, sure. He brings them.

He comes back at 10:55 and asks how we will be paying. We inform 1 check and with card. He grabs the ziosk takes it to the pay screen and turns it to me and says “here you go.” I thank him and continue eating (almost finished).

My wife begins to box her dinner because she said she doesn’t feel comfortable with him constantly coming back over and over and rushing (even though we were told it was ok to dine in).

Waiter comes back over 11:03pm and begins taking plates and our partial water glasses.

I get out my phone to pay. I pay and naturally the “survey comes up”.

It’s now 11:05 and I am entering the survey info and a lady comes up and asks if I am having trouble paying. I inform her no, I am completing the survey. She says ok and stands over the table, server then comes up and also stands there while I am entering the info.

My final words on the surgery were “Dear Lord, your staff is literally standing over me as I write this.” And hit submit.

As we are walking out, a manager asked if all was good, my wife said it was fine, would loved to have had breadsticks though. She said “they only take 5 mins, I can pop them in the oven now if you like”.

Nice gesture, but waiter had 40 mins to do so or request them and didn’t. Also, with the way your staff is hovering, we don’t feel welcome here. We shouldn’t have listened to the hostess (oh wait, ha, the hostess that sat us was the manager), we should have ordered to go and they would have provided the breadsticks.

I get it, the server was obviously a younger college age student, it’s a Friday night, probably wanted to go out, but geez people. Restaurants complain about a lack of business, poor tipping, and rude customers.

What about customers that aren’t rude, tip well, and are courteous? Treatment like this is why customers are also revolting at the service. It...

Went for a birthday lunch, had one of what appeared to be three either very new, or very scatter brained servers. Our server said he "spaced out" our order for an appetizer and he said sorry. Didn't offer to go have it made until we were nearly done. We thought he was putting in the order when we reminded him. My friend got up and went and talked to him about there being a birthday at our table, and asked if they still did the piece of cake and singing for birthdays. He said he would bring whatever cake we wanted a piece of, but he doesn't sing. Turns out, he assumed the birthday was a child with us, but it was one of the several adults at the table. He came back with the cake and just put it in the middle of the table and never said a word. Once we were all done, one of the orders on the kids menu was ravioli with Alfredo sauce on the side. When the lunch arrived, not only did the guy "space out" having the side of sauce put on the side, he charged extra for the sauce. $2.49 I believe. He said he had to enter it that way since it wasn't marinara sauce. Well, for one thing, it was a kids menu item and it comes with a choice of three sauces. He neglected to charge for the actual order or ravioli, but charged for the sauce. He fixed that, and we paid as expected, the price of the kids meal. The check was incorrect anyway. They charged us for playing some game on that payment box that sits at the table, and we never touched that thing until the end when it was time to pay. Then the machine wouldn't work and I felt a need to see the receipt because I wanted to make sure we got charged properly. The receipt was screwed up with a couple charges that shouldn't have been on our ticket at all. The other thing about the food, the bread sticks were hard as a rock on one end, and much more browned than normal. We didn't ever get asked if our food was OK, and I think we only saw the server MAYBE three times. We weren't the only ones having problems (ours was resolved to our satisfaction), but at the table to one side of us, I overheard a server tell them that the manager had taken their two entrées off their ticket.

Needless to say but I will anyway, Olive Garden in Bloomington, Indiana could use some help most certainly. Quality of the food was like normal for them, service on the other hand could use a boost. I understand the pandemic could have something to do with servers not being employed for very long, but this visit didn't leave a great impression on any of us.

I hope they can make a comeback, but having one server that's scatter brained is one thing, but there were at least three...

I'm rating this a 4 only because I know everyone has a bad day and we all have to start somewhere. We weren't in a huge hurry which ended up being a good thing. Seated almost right away which we thought was a good sign. We were wrong. 5 minutes later we were greeted by ? (Mumbled her name and I never caught the nametag)name tag) and we gave our beverage order. Another lengthy wait and we got our beverages and breadsticks. No salad for the table. One of the things we like about Olive Garden is the salad. When she came back (another wait) we ordered our food and an appetizer. My wife ordered soup and I had been anticipating the "Never ending Pasta". No salad. When we asked about the salad her response was "well they have to make it". Huh! I had not thought of that! We got our appetizer. No salad. Really? I am diabetic so the breadsticks were just temptation and I knew I was already having pasta (or so I thought). FINALLY salad. There was 1 tomato slice, no peppers and 1 black olive....but it was salad. When I got my pasta not long after the salad it was warm, not hot. When I mentioned this my wife said her soup was also not hot and the coffee my daughter ordered came out Luke warm. My angel hair pasta with Alfredo was good though and then I waited. When she finally came back I ordered a 2nd "Never ending" pasta and waited. Everyone else was done eating. We decided it wasn't "Never ending", it was "All you can wait for". When it did come I took a couple of bites and since it was warm and had little sauce I would just take it home and add some Alfredo to it and eat it then. The manager came by and gruffly asked if we had asked to see the manager and we honestly said "No, it was the table next to us that had just left; but while you are here..." After hearing our story he did try to make it right on the bill, so our bad meal didn't cost us as much, but I would have rather paid full price for a great experience and food. AND to be fair the large party of 12 that was finishing up with another waitress were singing praises to her, the restaurant and the food! So, our experience may have been an isolated case. Hence the 4 stars. Would I go back? Yes. Would I relate thus experience to my new...