Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Carlsbad

Where do I start? When there with my kids and granddad. The experience was horrendous from start to finish. It's like the people working today don't care they have a job. The tall male hispanic server with glasses I had (morning of 6/10/24) was just disrespectful. He spent a lot of time hanging out with his male friend who was sitting by us with a baby and toddler. I understand you people know people, but this is still a job. What made things worst was the service. There's 5 of us. Instead of giving us 5 plates for our salad, he gave us two. And when I pointed out one of the plates had food on it, he gave me some obscure excuse, took them back only to return with 3 plates. By now, I'm getting agitated. I check his demeanor and I felt a bias that we're just a bother/not important enough. At every turn, he was shortchanging us. Two glasses of water for 5 people. My patience was being tested and my kids had to see me get upset. Even with the straws for my kid's smoothies, I had to tell him twice, because he "forgot." In terms of the food, it's like the energy transferred over. I had the Chicken & Shrimp Carabano. The food was hot, but something was wrong with it. I really couldn't eat it, because it was retaining too much heat. I had another order to-go for my wife at home and when she tasted hers, she found the problem: the noodles were drenched in cooking oil. The chicken tasted funny and didn't have the texture associated with chicken meat. When it came for my family to leave, we really didn't eat much. I couldn't eat half of my own plate, so we told the server we wanted to-go boxes since we had plenty of food left. My father told him we needed 5 to-go boxes. What did the server do? He comes back with three of the smallest boxes you would use for taking home a slice of cake. The level of hidden disrespect was enough to make someone start a fight right then and there. If he thought I didn't notice, I was just holding myself back from making a scene that would have put the place on the news for the wrong reasons because of my kids, my father and the other children around and I didn't want to ruin the experience of every else sitting next to us. We just came back from the VA hospital (we're both veterans) and this is the service we're treated. It just all felt like out of spite. Overall, the service felt like we were burdening him as if we forced him to work there. If this is what restaurant service has relegated to, then I guess this is the end of the industry. I'd expect this level of disrespect from a...

Our first visit to this Olive Garden location was pleasant and accommodating. When we arrived, the reception desk in the foyer reported the wait would be about forty-five minutes or more. The reception desk is in the lobby near the main entrance. There are dining tables behind the reception desk and the bar counter on the other side of the tables. Seating at the bar showed two stools were empty. We asked for the two stools and were immediately seated (Image: Olive Garden Carlsbad Foyer). One of my favorites at the Olive Garden is their unlimited Soup and Salad item. Most of the time, I’ll have a bowl of soup, “Pasta e Fagioli.” This soup is a mild Italian-style chili with a tasty broth. The large salad serving bowl always gets filled at least twice for us. I like their Olive Garden Salad dressing. It makes the fresh crunchy vegetables a wonderful meal that makes us return often. When we first arrived and parked the car, we didn’t see the main entrance. We looked for people, headed towards them. The main entrance is on the end of the building nearest to the Marron Road end of the parking lot. As we got closer, the main entrance was clear on that end of the restaurant (Images: Olive Garden Carlsbad Entrance Area, & Olive Garden Carlsbad Entrance). This Olive Garden has a lot of tables along the length of a long building. On each side, there are a lot of tables for a lot of people. Each dining area, not including the bar tables, is on the side of the building. That much dining space would make hosting a private party easy, while regular dining could happen on the other side. Bar seating distance was created by removing the bar stools. Unexpectedly, the spaced seating seemed to generate many conversations with those at the bar and the tables. I don’t remember this happening before the pandemic...

I have enjoyed Olive Garden and the service is usually pretty darn good but the last two times I've been there is just awful. They offer a gluten free menu that's a plus for us. My adult handicapped daughter has celiacs and must avoid gluten. It's nice to treat her to a restaurant meal at least a few times a month. The last two visits she's asked for and ordered from their g.f. menu. I however can eat their regular offerings. In December we were there and I made it very clear that my daughter's needed to be g.f. When the server brought our meals they were not as we ordered. I specifically asked to have no croutons on the salad. It came with lots of them. My daughter said that's okay I'll skip the salad. Then her grilled chicken parmesan with g.f. pasta arrived breaded and on top of some lovely spaghetti . I asked if this was safe and gf, oh no says the server you need to order off the special menu. We had to have her meal replaced. About 45 minutes later her meal came. She insisted I go ahead and eat while mine was hot. That in it's self was very disappointing. I should have learned my lesson then but silly me I took her back on Monday evening. It wasn't busy at all. We asked for and received the special menu, ordered from it and once again they brought a meal that had she eaten it made her quite ill. My sweet daughter waited for another 20 minutes for another plate. I think they should have at the very least offered a discount on hers. This time I didn't eat before her and ended up just bringing mine home. I ate a little and tossed the rest. It's way too upsetting. WHY offer a gluten free menu and just bring whatever from the regular one. No more Olive Garden for us. I used to...