Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Branson

Personally I love Olive Garden, but I’m totally disappointed. My fiancé, my 2 good friends, and I decided to go to Olive Garden Labor Day for dinner. I checked the hours before hand to make sure they were not closing soon just in respect of the workers and we even called to make sure they were not totally slammed before walking in.

Once we got there the host was very kind and sat us almost immediately, but it was our waiter that was the issue. I believe his name was Parker. My friend and I both work in another restaurant, so we understand the trouble that servers deal with and thought maybe he was having a bad day, but it just kept getting worse.

First, when he first walked to the table the first thing he asked us was “do y’all know what you want to drink or no?” We all did so we haves our orders and he walked away. He then returned to the table to ask my friend what liquor she wanted in her drink. She asked him to repeat himself because he spoke really fast and he proceeded to list the liquors again and stated “was that simple enough for you or do you want me to just pick for you?”. After he brought us drinks my fiancé asked if we could get a few straws, he then proceeded to walk to the stand grab straws and quite literally threw them on the table and walked away. I was in absolute shock and had to ask my friends if this was really happening.

He walked back to our table a few moments later and says “y’all know what you want to eat or no?” We all looked at one another for a moment to see if everyone was ready and he proceeded to say “ready to eat?” He then looked at my friend and said “since you are the only one who knows how to talk to me are you ready” she said yes and he took our orders. He then said “do you want bread and salad, if you don’t want salad and aren’t going to eat it then I am not going to waist my time making it” we said yes and he walked away

When he came back with our salad he says “you better eat all this” and we all just kinda laugh it off to try and make it less tense. Then he finally came with our food while my 2 friends were in the restroom. He handed us our plates and sat down the other 2 then said “this isn’t right I put in someone else order” he got one of our friends plates wrong and instead of fixing it or offering to fix it he just walked away. My friend waved him down to ask for the steamed broccoli that was supposed to be in her Alfredo and he says “oh did I get something wrong” as if he didn’t already know and mention it to us that it was wrong. He walked away and the food was amazing, but he then came back with the host a few minutes later and point to my friend and fiancé who ordered drinks and says “do they look 21” the host replied “do you what my honest opinion or do you want me to lie” our server then says “honest” the host says no and our serve said “yeah and I carded them and they both check out but there’s no way they are 21”

I can’t complain about the food at all it was amazing, but our server made the experience completely...

My boyfriend and I decided to have dinner here on 05/27/24. Worst decision we could have made. My boyfriend ordered calamari as an appetizer. He loves calamari and can easily devour a whole plate of it by himself. This time, however, he could barely stomach a few pieces. It lacked flavor and many of the pieces were like chewing gum. Our poor waiter was new and seemed entirely lost. My boyfriend specifically ordered an UNSWEETENED tea. The waiter instead brought him a sweetened one. Not necessarily the biggest deal in the world, but it was just an inconvenience that would later go on to summarize our entire experience here. When placing our orders, we had to point to what we wanted on the menu because he didn’t seem to understand what we were saying. When I ordered our entree, I told him that my boyfriend and I were going to split that one meal and asked if he could bring an extra plate when the food was ready. He acted like that wasn’t a problem. When he returned with the food, though, I immediately got concerned, as he had brought two separately plated meals. I asked if the kitchen had simply split the portions in the back or if he had rung it up as two orders. He didn’t know and looked like a deer in the headlights. He then left the food at our table to go to the kitchen to find out if it was indeed one portion like I had ordered. After 5 or so minutes, he finally returned, bringing two empty plates (which were completely useless to us since we had two separately plated meals). He confirmed that it was one portion and we were only charged for one. Come to find out later, though, after checking the receipt, he had actually charged us for two (he recognized his mistake and took it off our bill). After going through all this trouble beforehand, I hoped that maybe, just maybe, the entree would be the saving grace of this experience. That hope was quickly shattered when I took the first bite of the Seafood Alfredo. The Alfredo sauce was extremely bland and was room temp. The shrimp and scallops were the same. They had no flavor and tasted like they had just been boiled in plain water and then thrown into the pasta. The scallops were small and were cool in the center. Overall, it tasted like a frozen TV dinner. I had to force myself to finish my meal. My boyfriend, on the other hand, couldn’t even do that. We both left feeling sick and extremely disappointed. Later that evening, I ended up getting sick and throwing up my meal. Oh, and don’t touch the electronic device stationed at the table. My boyfriend was playing around with it while waiting for our food and it charged us $2.99 for a “table game” without even warning him that we would be charged. Ridiculous.

This whole experience at Olive Garden was a complete letdown, and I will never return to one again. Save your time, money, and stomach and go somewhere else to get fresh, homemade Italian food like Florentina’s (which is only about a 5 minute drive from this...

2019 Update: I originally gave this location 5 stars last year on Black Friday. This past year, We went with the same group on Black Friday and had a terrible experience. Not at all what I was expecting after years of great service for large groups on that day. We had a group of 8 adults and 3 kiddos. We had two waiters, and it looks like one was in training. Nick was our main waiter and Philippe was the trainee. One of the meals was not brought out until almost everyone else had finished eating, the children's meals were brought out last, we had to ask 3 times for butter for the bread and ketchup for the children's meals, and they had to correct our receipts 4 times. Mind you, there were only 3 receipts for our table, not 7 or 8, just 3. It looked like the table across from us was also having issues with getting correct orders and correct receipts. They mentioned they were short staffed, which I understand. And they did comp the meal that was super late, but unfortunately, they comped it on the wrong receipt and they brought out the wrong receipts 3 different times, with orders on them that we didn't even have at our table. After the third time, the entire group was getting pretty upset and we just wanted to leave, but we were having to wait an extra half hour or more, JUST to receive our receipts so we could pay. Nick offered free desserts after bringing the receipts the fourth time, but by then, we just wanted to leave as we had been there for 2 1/2 hours already. On top of all of this, both waiters were trying to make small talk and insert themselves into our table conversations, which we wouldn't have minded if we weren't already having so many issues with our orders. I understand it's a busy day being Black Friday and that they said they were short staffed, but the receipt issues and the incorrect orders were very frustrating to our entire group. We come here year after year on Black Friday to enjoy family time and unfortunately, I'm not sure we will be at Olive Garden next year.

2018: We had a large group of 15 and were still seated quickly, even during the busy lunch hour on Black Friday. We had great service and all of our food came out correct and delicious! This location has been updated and the modern accents help make it a pleasant experience, even more so...