Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Brookside

Just left there - not a great experience. Olive Garden now falls into the three strikes and you're out category. First time there (different location 20 yrs ago!) was decent, but nothing memorable. I'm slightly biased here because I think if you want really good authentic Italian food you should find an Italian restaurant that you like.

My second visit (different location)was five years ago and was downright disgusting. I made the mistake of not filling up on salad, which was probably edible. The Fettuccine Alfredo with chicken was a big glob of pasta with a pasty, tasteless sauce - lukewarm. The chicken was chewy. Too chewy. At least the bread sticks were decent. Swore I would never go to Olive Garden again.

Yesterday was an invitation from a dear friend and I couldn't say no. Service started out well enough and the giant salad bowl is certainly impressive - the bowl, not the salad, which was served family style for the two of us. Large pieces of torn iceberg lettuce, three very small slices of tomato, three black olives, and a spattering of red onion, shredded carrots, croutons and a couple of hot peppers tossed in. Eh.

My friend had eggplant parmesan with spaghetti and there were no complaints. My fried stuffed ziti w/marinara was okay, but the shrimp topping was forgotten. The server, Abby, says it wouldn't be long and asks would I like to put my second order in now (all you can eat deal). I'm only halfway done, but said sure, why not. As I combined my salad and ziti to one plate, I noticed a hair in the salad. STOP! It wasn't a deal breaker, but I did lose my enthusiasm and wanted the plate removed. I very politely asked the waitress if she could take my plate back to the kitchen and have a look at the hair near the black olive. She stood right there, held the plate high, turned it at an angle, and said, ”Oh, you mean this blonde hair?" (For the record, my hair is light, not really blonde and was tied back, and the server's hair is dark, not tied back.) I said, "I can't really tell what color the hair is, but it's a hair and it's in my food." She says, "What do you want me to do? Should I bring your other plate of food?” I answered, "Yes, please, that would be fine."

And then it was never mentioned again. No apology, no reference to the incident at all. Let me be clear - I wasn't looking for anything, no free food, no big scene, just a quick, "Oh, sorry about that" or something similar. Nope.

After working in restaurants for over thirty years, I know stuff happens and the hair could have come from any number of places, even me. I'm a patient and polite guest, tip well, and fully understand what a difficult job it can be. I could have spoken to the manager on my way out, but didn't want to bother since I won't be coming back. I swear I'll never go there again. Starting ... NOW!

PS - the bread sticks were...

Let me start out by saying that this place looks awesome. That being said, I wish the food was as amazing as the decorations. What we got was even lower in standard than typical olive garden food. We ordered the stuffed mushrooms and pasta chips to start. What we received was uncooked, Cold, and gross. We ended up not even eating the mushrooms because they looked as if someone has pulled them from a package and microwaved them just enough to warm them but not cook them. ( It's bad when the stuffing is actually shaped like a square like it was pumped from a tube ) The main dish was okay, I have no clue where on the menu is said my chicken scampi was going to be filled with sweet pepper seeds and have red pepper flakes slopped onto my plate because someone got a little crazy with the spices. Salad, I know... How can they mess up a salad. It's like their thing! Well they did, the salad was filled with bitter large chunks that where inedible. The bread sticks ( again something they are famous for ) where cold and tough to eat. Now, on to the wait staff, our waiter was... Kinda nice... He smiled to your face but after he walked away his smile dropped to a " I hate food service " scowl as he brooded by the register. I can't blame the guy because, well he works at Olive Garden. But the one person who drove me nuts was this waitress who was teaching the new girl the ropes. She was so loud and ridiculous about the service their she came off as super fake. More times than one did I have to plug my ears due to her loud forced laugh that made me wish I was in another section. I'm all down for teaching the new girl how to be confident and friendly, but dear lord you don't have to laugh so loud even the hard of hearing are like " jeez, someone shove a bread stick in that chicks mouth so she'll quiet down " all in all, it's Olive Garden, don't expect a 5 star meal from a 2 star place. It's a chain restaurant so the expectations are low already ( especially since they had folks coming in dressed in their finest pair of pajamas plastered with Deadpool riding a unicorn for dinner ) but this place lowered the bar a foot or so more with their unappetizing food and Sonic...

My daughter and grandchild this would be our second time coming to this Olive Garden, the first time we came up around 9:30pm the young gentleman was so professional customer service skills was excellent, he didn’t forget our utensil nor our drinks and didn’t forget any of our items. We went back for the second time on 04/13/2020 and was greeted over the phone by Michelle with respect and professionalism.

Our waiters and waitress that came out to our vehicle was a hot mess so unprofessional and racist. The waitress Daphnia had the nerve to ask us where we living a tip, once we told her not today, they started stereotyping my family and I Daphnia and the ignorant waiter. Once the mad waiter that hate his job told my family he’s not allow to hand us our food in our hands nor is he allowed to sit it on another seat next to someone else, which didn’t make any sense when we seen Daphnia hand another customer which is Caucasian there food, in there hand they messed up our food didn’t give us our drinks, this is not a time for people to be ignorant and racist, these people at Olive Garden should have gratitudes especially it’s people like me my family and friends and other customers help keep there jobs going, I recommend to my family and friends if you wanted be treated with respect don’t support this Olive Garden at 1279 New...