Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Chandler

Starting off, we were taken to our table and there was food in the floor that we had to step over to be seated. Straw wrappers, napkins, and other litter were on the floor as well. It looked like a small food fight has happened. Additionally, we were seated under an AC vent. Nothing wrong with that inherently, but the vent had dust all over it in thick layers. Also the wall that it was blowing onto was covered in dust from the AC blowing. It made me think that dust was going to fall on our food.

The waiter, Joe, was nice enough.

We ordered drinks, appetizers, and main courses. The drinks were fine. My wife's cup was dirty and had food on it that we could scrape off with our nails. Nothing great. The appetizer was delicious. For the main courses, they got my wife's dish wrong. Very disappointing. I ordered the chicken and shrimp cabonara and it didn't taste good. Also disappointing. The food seemed to take a bit longer to arrive too. That's more understandable when they are meticulous about getting it right but not when it's sloppy and missing a dish. We all noticed that the silverware seemed to have dried water on it as if the restaurant had "hard water" with a lot of calcium or lime in it. Again you could take your nail and scrape off the film that seemed to be on it.

We ate the appetizer and had dishes on the table, had a salad and had some dishes left over, had a few drinks with decanters left over, and finally got our mains on bigger plates. At no point were any of the dishes cleared which meant the table was absolutely crowded and we were pushing things around to eat our food. My wife even stacked the plates up so they would be easy to remove but that didn't occur to anyone.

I ran out of water before my main dish was done. We weren't asked if we wanted refills; we had to ask for them each time. We weren't asked if we wanted dessert which was fine. I wanted to get out of there. The bill was on the table top payment kiosk thing. To add salt to injury, it had all the right dishes listed on the digital receipt. That meant that the kitchen got it wrong and Joe just didn't notice and brought out the wrong dish. $150 for a meal for 5 people so that's an average of $30/person.

Overall, I...

Honestly, I was pretty dissapointed the most recent time I went. My coworker and I went out after work for the unlimited soup/salad/breadsticks lunch special which was supposed to be $9.99 because we made it there before 3. Our server, Leo, was attentive at first but after the first round of food came, his visits were far and few between. after the second round, we stopped seeing him entirely. we sat down and ordered at 2:37pm and it was 4:20pm by the time we left. the first 45 minutes were spent eating, but the entire hour and half after was spent trying to get a server to help us. The restaurant was PACKED with employees but every single one ignored us since it wasn’t their table. Leo, our server, must have went home because we had to go to the hostess stand to find someone to close our tab. Our tab was never open- we were never put into the system. The manager came to help us, realized we did not have a tab open, and decided to ring us up again. we mentioned that we ordered before 3 but he still rang us up for the $11.99 total not the $9.99 lunch special. Sad because a table behind us got their entire food comped because it was taking too long, but we weren’t even in the system and were left without refills on our salad, soup, breadsticks, and drink, and still had to pay more than what we should have. personally i felt like our meal should have been comped as well SINCE OUR SERVER WENT HOME AND WE WERE LEFT TRYING TO FLAG DOWN SERVERS FOR AN HOUR. overall i was extremely dissapointed. By the time we had our entire issue resolved, i was hungry again. If they comped our meal, the restaurant would have never lost income since our meal was never rang in to begin with. We never had a tab open so why did we have to be rerung up (at the wrong price) and pay when we had 2 hours of bad service. Dissapointing. I would like to go back to that place since it’s right by my work but if it takes 2 hours I’ll go...

Visited on Sat, Feb 25, 2013, 4:45 PM. The good - Excellent service as usual. Quickly seated and waited on. We usually stay in the same menu selection box - AYCE soup and salad. The salad was good but the soup was horrific! A watered down, disproportioned ingredient, major disappointment! The people sitting across the isle had the same complaint with their AYCE S&S. The couple across the isle and down a booth apparently ordered main dishes and had their main dish served before their salads. They rejected the main dish and told them to bring the salad first.. The waiter obliged and took the main dish back and eventually brought their salad. About one-half hour later their main dish was brought to them and it was barely warmed over. The guests rejected the main dish too. Makes you wonder if the pictures OG shows on Google are accurate. They look pretty fresh and tasty. lol! I always thought the best time to eat out was on a weekend evening when a restaurant’s best staff were there to make its best effort and impression. Well OG proved me wrong on this visit… I wonder what happened? New management? The Master Chef departed for a better paying assignment? In fairness the OG in Gilbert has been a GREAT EXPERIENCE for years, but this is strike two for OG this winter. I use the three strikes and “You’re Out” rule! I get it, these problems can occur with the very best restaurants. Google should add a “Strike Out” rating…. Come on OG, figure it out. Three disappointed patrons sitting near each other, having different wait-persons, and on a Saturday late afternoon? Come on OG you can rally the team! You can solve problems like these and return to home runs… I don’t want a “STRIKE THREE - YOU’RE OUT!”...