Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Champaign

So this actually happened!!!! I’m standing in the line to get a table, maybe 5 minutes at the hostess stand and a lady walks in and goes directly in front of everyone waiting and puts her name on the list…..mistake #1. I then approached a young pleasant young hostess and informed her people such as myself had been waiting…..she then responded I asked for the next person…..which she did not…..mistake #2! The young girl hands me silverware wrapped napkin, hands me a menu after I asked…could I get a table at the bar, she responded….Seat yourself, I said ok and within 2 minutes an African hostess comes to the table and says…..I’m sorry mam but these tables are not part of the bar…..I quickly responded saying the other hostess told me to seat myself…..which I did! The African hostess tells me I need to seat myself at the bar…..I looked at her all kinds of crazy and said to her the other hostess told me to seat myself…..which I did at a table clearly in the bar……mistake #3!!!! If you train your employees they would likely have told me to be seated directly at the bar or at least told me where to go but didn’t. Then to have the other hostess approach me afterwards and literally tell me I have to move was totally inappropriate! #1-2-3 Do your job, suck up your mistake and let me order my dinner in peace! The only saving grace was the male bartender who quickly brought me my food, checked on me regularly and the food was good! However upon leaving neither hostess thanked me, the least etiquette wasn’t observed and in fact the African hostess had the nerve to roll her eyes as if I did something wrong. Please train your employees to do better because I will not return and spend my hard earned money here ever...

We arrived a bit early for the dinner hour, but folks were happily eating. We waited about ten minutes or so to be seated, which wasn't bad. Alas, our server was nowhere to be seen. No one stopped by our table, though two servers were in our area, serving food, chatting up the diners, and acting as though we were not there. It was a moderately hot day, but no one brought water. We decided to take matters into our own hands, and used the table kiosk to order appetizers. Unfortunately, the kiosk doesn't allow you to order the less expensive beverages -- like water, or coffee that isn't a $4.00 cappuccino, or iced tea. So, we used the kiosk's Call Server feature to attempt to summon our server. After fifteen minutes, I walked back up to the front desk to complain that we hadn't been greeted since we were seated, despite two servers coming into the area and using the "call server" feature on the on-table kiosk. Five minutes later, the manager came over because the kitchen had alerted her to our kiosk placed order; there was no server connected to the order, and they didn't quite know what to do with that. The front desk person evidently hadn't gotten to the manager. The manager was pleasant, but spent more time apologizing than was necessary, and thus delayed getting our beverages even longer. Finally, she allowed us to ask for water, coffee, and iced tea. Seven minutes later, a wait person arrived with our water. Not impressed with the service AT all. To be fair, the server who was finally assigned to our table fell over herself trying to make up for the initial snafu. But this is far from the first time that the service was disappointing. The food wasn't nearly good enough to be...

Did a take home order..like we used to do.. the food is starting to taste like it was frozen and reheated. Very disappointed with my tour of Italy for 18$ it was tiny and bland..not at all like it used to be.They used to package each part in it's own container..it was all shoved into one and barely any sauce for the Alfredo..thankfully I had ordered Alfredo dipping sauce for breadsticks...and used it on my noodles. The lazanga was burnt.

My daughters food wasnt very flavorful..thankfully I picked up fresh parmigiano to shred onto it.

The salad was huge pieces of lettuce and lettuce heart.. I dont remember having to cut my lettuce just to be able to eat a salad there. The onion was huge, thick, dried out slices and the tomatoes were almost non existant and barely pink.

The salad gave me stomach cramps..normally that only happens if they have used something to keep it fresh like MSG or other product. I had so been looking forward to this salad to as its normally my absolute favorite. Sadly we through most of it away.

The gallon of belini tea was awesome and the desserts were amazing.

When you spend almost 100$ and it was to say thank you to my daughter for helping me.recover from surgery..not to mention we drove in 35 minutes just to get it cause it's her favorite... its pretty disappointing! Wont be spending money here again ever.

Edited to add.. I should say this was.mid afternoon very few cars in the parking lot and other then waitstaff looked.like a ghost town. The gal checking us out was really good..showed me that each item was there which was nice considering our 35 minute drive home.. nothing like getting home and finding out someone's food is missing. So she...