Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Colonial Heights

Earlier today, around 4:30 p.m., our family ate at the Colonial Heights, VA location. We were so pleased with our server, Chrissy. She was so sweet, & we were very impressed with her attentive care with each of us. This young lady took our order with precision. After writing 4 separate orders at our large table, she could recite our order without looking at her order pad, not just once but twice. To be truthful, I was a server in the past, and when you have a large table, it is difficult to recite 4 orders with add ons. Thank you, Chrissy, we hope to see you in the near future. Thank you to the rest of the staff who were at the entrance. These ladies were welcoming to us & other people who entered the restaurant. Last but not least, to the chefs & kitchen staff, the food was Excellent. This was a birthday gathering for my daughter, my son, and myself all November people. What a Wonderful gift!!

Excellent time all the way around with food & service.

Olive Garden Colonial Heights, VA 1/12/2024 Lunch Time: To the Management Team: We met with friends today & ate lunch in your restaurant. We wanted to commend you for the absolute smoothness & ease when we entered into your doors. We were seated by a lady with black glasses to our table. Sorry we didn't get her name. The level of professionalism of this lady & our server was impeccable. We do not go out & find this level of service a lot. From the time we were seated at our table, Shamiya was already at our table, ready to help us. I must say she is exemplary! She made sure that our experience was the best frankly that we have ever experienced. Shamiya is the sweetest, most wonderful young lady. She truly made us feel wanted & accepted. My gosh, what a breath of fresh air. Shamiya Thank You Sweetheart for everything. Thank you for your kindness & love toward us. Managers keep this young lady. She is truly a huge asset to your brand. She needs to be given a chance to grow in your business (like Trainer, that trains your staff in true customer service & she needs to be in Management). Again, thank you all for the quality of service that was shown today. By the way, ask for Shamiya to meet her & entrust her with your meal service. Tip her very well customers. You will not be sorry. We will return soon! Go, Shamiya!! We're your new fans. 😳 Poor thing, LOLOL ❤️😁🏆🎉🌟👏 ------‐------------------------------

Summer of 2023 Service was very poor Update: From the time I made this review, Olive Garden reached out to us. Their willingness to do so and their invitation to come back made us come back to eat there. The experience was so much different, we have now gone back twice and this recent visit was wonderful, the food delicious. Thank you, Olive Garden, for reaching out to us and thank you, Colonial Heights Olive Garden for a...

I haven't been to Olive Garden since before the pandemic. I drove up to Petersburg and took a friend out to dinner. There were 3 of us dining. They were busy and this was the servers first day at work. She was having a hard time because they threw her into a busy restaurant with 6 tables on her first day. She was pleasant and smiled and despite having some difficulties she did very well for being new.

We all had soft drinks or sweet tea. I had the Tour of Italy with salad, and my two friends had Shrimp Scampi with Zuppa Toscana soup and the other had Shrimp Alfredo. The soup had very little sausage or potatoes, it was almost all broth. The salad was just ok but was not the same as it used to be. Even the dressing on the salad tasted different. It wasn't a tangy creamy italian, it was sort of sweet and not appealing to me.

The meals arrived within 10 minutes of the salad and soup. My Tour of Italy was disappointing. The Chicken Parm patty was deep fried to a hard crispy disc. Even with sauce on top, I was making a hard crunching noise while eating. My friend asked if I was eating nachos. The Alfredo was just ok. It wasn't creamy Alfredo sauce like I used to get at Olive Garden, it was more of a sticky gooey mess but tasted ok. I would rate it below Trader Joe's frozen Alfredo. The lasagna was just too salty and I could not eat it.

My friends shrimp scampi was good. She ate most of hit and liked the angel hair pasta and said the meal was good. My other friend ordered Shrimp Alfredo and received plain Alfredo. The server did not hear her say Shrimp Alfredo and thought she said Alfredo with Fettuccini. She said she would bring a side of shrimp but 15 minutes later, no shrimp and cold Alfredo. My friend asked her to take it back and just bring her a fresh Shrimp Alfredo. She said she had to get the manager to fix it. After that, it took over 25 minutes to bring her Shrimp Alfredo and by that time we have finished our meals and the table was cleared so she asked for a container to take it home.

Bottom line: Food was okay but certainly not worth the $96 dollars I spent for 3 meals and soft drinks. Meal was closer to the quality of Fazoli's fast food Italian than a fine restaurant. It's interesting to note that we decided to go to Olive Garden instead of one of the local family Italian restaurants because both my friend and I loved their salads. Well, that turned out to be a disappointment. It was the first time in 40 years that I went to an Olive Garden and did not ask for a second bowl of salad. Prices have gone up and quality has gone down. Not a good sign and I suspect if we have a recession, a lot of OGs...

Ordered online to utilize a gift card from a different location due to experiencing bad customer service but ended up receiving even worse customer service at this location. I placed the online order a bit after 8:00 p.m. for a 9:00 p.m. pick up. I received a phone call at 8:57 p.m. stating the location was out of something and could only complete one of the orders instead of the original two. I was already walking into the restaurant during this phone call and informed the hosts of me still being on the phone with them. The individual comes out to speak with me in-person and I asked to confirm if the amount charged from my checking account would be less than the original charge...They stated "yes". I said "ok that's fine" waited for the order....for over 18 minutes. Whilst waiting and still receiving nothing in hand, I was finally handed a receipt to sign just to see the incorrect charges on both recipes. I brought it to another staff member's attention and waited just for the individual I first spoke with over the phone to show me the receipts as if I was just going to be okay with their decision to incorrectly charge me. I had to literally state to them more than once how I wanted to empty the gift card and not leave a balance... I later asked her 'what if my card didn't have the amount incorrectly charged on it' only for her to state "well then the card would've just been declined" which proved to me her lack of empathy & understanding of not only did I have to wait 30 minutes for a scheduled pick up order I placed over 40 minutes prior but I also had to experience her agitated demeanor from me even becoming remotely discouraged over the whole unnecessary circumstance. The whole encounter was completely unprofessional & it escalated into something completely uncalled for. I did my best to communicate with them along with the online order system but ended up having to explain myself multiple times anyhow. I didn't find them be genuinely apologetic at all and quite sure if the shoe was on the other foot, they wouldn't appreciate being treated in such a way. Gift Card Wasn't Worth The...