Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Bolingbrook

The worst experience we've ever had at an Olive Garden. It started with the online "wait list". The website said that the current, wait time was 20-25 minutes, and that they'd hold a table for 10 minutes. Perfect. We'd be there in 25-35 minutes. I entered my info on the list. Immediately, I received a text that there was no wait. But we were 25-35 minutes away.

Got there 33 minutes later. While I parked, my wife went to check in. When I walked in, she said she'd been told that we had a 5 minute wait. We sat on a bench right next to the hostess.

5 minutes. 10 minutes. 15 minutes. My wife went up to ask. The hostess said, "Oh, I sent you a text. Your table is ready."

A text?! Really?! We were sitting right next to you!

She took us to our table, and tossed two, paper menus on the table. We were shocked at the VERY limited menu. And the table was not "ready." No utensils wrapped in a napkin. After the wait, we almost got up to leave.

Seven minutes later, our server arrived. She apologized for the wait, saying that she had been busy at another table. Really? Not anywhere near OUR table.

By then, we were ready to order. She took our soft drink orders and our food orders.

Shortly, she brought our soft drinks with no straws, said that fresh breadsticks were being made, and rushed off.

When she brought the breadsticks, she brought no plates, but we were focused on the absence of straws. We asked. She reached to her apron, realized she had none, and rushed off.

We realized that we, also, had no napkins. As we nibbled on breadsticks, we wiped our buttery fingers on the paper napkin wrapped around the breadsticks. When our server returned, we asked for napkins. She rushed off and came back with 2 paper napkins.

Ah, we thought, they must not be wrapping utensils in cloth napkins due to the pandemic.

Shortly, she brought our salad bowl, shredded cheese for us, and left. We had no knives or forks.

A couple minutes later, she came back to say that our entrees were being made. We asked for utensils. She said she'd have to go to the hostess station to get them. Figures.

She came back with utensils wrapped in . . . cloth napkins. Seriously? You couldn't figure out to bring these when we asked for napkins?!

The best server was the kid who actually delivered the entrees to the table. He was pleasant, polite, and efficient.

As we neared the end of the meal, we started perusing the electronic tablet's listing of desserts. Our server showed up. "Oh, do you know how to pay your bill that way?"

We explained that we were looking at desserts. She said she'd be right back to take our orders.

We gave her our orders. She returned, a couple minutes later, with only one of the desserts. She said that they'd have to make more of the other one. She offered, however, that she would take the missing dessert of the bill.

The final snafu was paying the bill on the electronic tablet. It did not print the receipt. When I saw our server, I told her about it. She rushed off to print one for us . . . and came back with the wrong receipt.

I don't know whether the store or corporate is responsible for the wait list problem, but the server problem is all on the manager. Neither the hostess nor the server was properly trained. A terrible experience. Ruined our anniversary dinner.

I don't know if it's the stores fault or corporates fault for the wait list problem. But the server prasked for napkins.drink...

I have always been a fan of this restaurant chain. Their food taste and quality has always been consistent, it is not the greatest, however, it is not the worst. Their service; however, is lacking in customer interaction. I wanted to sit in a booth in the bar area. I noticed that 1 server passed by me to check on her tables, it was around 11am with 3 booths occupied, myself included, without any acknowledgement. And it is a small bar area. A simple hello or good morning would have sufficed. I also noticed 3 other employees, within 5 feet, huddled in a group, conversing in a private conversation. Still, leaving me unattended. After about 5 minutes, my waiter arrived and wanted to know if we were ready to order( i was with my date at the time). I politely asked for some menus, to which he replied, "oh, you dont have them?" and his tone implied that somehow i was responsible for making sure i had them already before he showed up. He then said, ill be right back. I stopped him because we already knew that we at least wanted to put in our drink order before he left, to what i assumed was get some menus for us. We were, after all, sitting in the bar area, and he didn't specify why he was leaving. He wrote down our drink order, after checking my id. Then two minutes later, he came back to check my dates id. We are both ten years over the legal age, however it does not show. After that, and getting our drinks, the meal was ok. However, what did irritate me was how quickly the staff was trying to get us out. My date ordered a soup. She doesnt like heavy meals at mid morning, and I was still enjoying my meal. I ordered the shrimp scampi. One of the staff came over, grabbed the inner part of our salad bowl, and before they could take it away, i politely said I'm still going to finish that salad. They just said ok. There wasnt an interaction to say hey can i grab this. My date was done with her soup. So they took her bowl, without asking would you like another bowl? When our waiter came back, his question was, "would you like anything else, dessert possibly?" we both politely declined. He gave us our bill and started to walk away. I again had to stop him, and handed him my card. At this point, we didnt want to wait nor be in this establishment any longer. His facial expression implied that normally someone like me would review their order, or was shocked, as this maybe might not happen? Or im not sure. I know what i ordered. The bill isnt a surprise. My date ended up tipping our waiter 25% cash, because i did zero. Nothing about how our experience went, would justify that percentage. She did point out the fact that the restaurant failed as a whole, and servers do live off of tips. So I agreed to that 25%. We will not be returning to this location, it is completely based off customer service. I really do feel bad for rating it a 1, because I still really do...

My family went to this Olive Garden for Easter. It was the WORST experience!!!!!!!! When we got to there they told us there was a wait. We sat at the bar and the service was decent and we ordered some appetizers. When our name was called i was brought to our table where there were dirty dishes piled on it and the hostess looking embarrassed asked for a bus boy to quickly get rid of the dishes and insisted the table was cleaned. I took it for face value and then when i sat at the table found that the table was noticably dirty. I ordered the unlimited soup salad and breadsticks dinner ( the reason I asked for us to go to Olive Garden in the first place) three of us shared the salad bc two ppl got salad with their dinner. I never was given another salad, the waitress never offered and I couldn’t ask bc I didn’t see her again till we were told how to pay and offered dessert. At this point I had filled up on breadsticks but I asked the waitress for another soup instead of dessert bc I only got one soup which was cold, tasted bad, and I wanted to try a different one. She offered me it to go and I told her that was fine bc we were clearly being rushed out the door. The dessert comes out and the waitress asked me again what soup I wanted bc she forgot and said “ she didn’t wanna bring me just anything” I told her I appreciated that and renamed the soup she came back with the Togo container and then never checked on us again we left the cash on the table and left! We never got the chocolate mints that are known to give with the check which is another one of my favorites! I go to eat my soup when I get home and it is the same old nasty soup that I got the first time not the one I ordered and even confirmed a second time with her! Yesterday I woke up with food poisoning like symptoms and was sick all day. I tried to privately bring this to managements attention however when I called and asked to speak to a manager I was put on hold and then hung up on. At no point was I even mad about any of this, just disappointed, until they hung up on me!!! This place is discusting! The only thing I could have gotten sick from was that soup! Pick another Olive Garden Id give...