Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Des Moines

We have been here 5 times since the opening. The food has been good. The first time service was not good, it was super slow and salads came almost at the same time as the meal.

We decided to give them a second try which turned out good. So returned a third time only to have very bad service because after waiting several minutes we had to track down who was supposed to wait on us only to find out it was the waitress who had walked back and forth past our table multiple times.

Not one to give up because we really like Olive Garden and it is only about 2 miles from our house we gave it another try and BINGO we had exceptional service, thank you Kira!

So after being 2 for 2 with service with the last time exceptional service, we thought it would be better times ahead. We returned with a group of 8 with 4 of them being from out of state.

We were seated fairly promptly on Friday night about 4pm and the place was not busy. There were multiple employees standing and goofing around with apparently nothing to do. We were told we would have one waitress then switched to another. Ordered drinks and waited several minutes and had to ask for water twice. The bartender seemed confused about how to make drinks. One drink tasted like a glass of vodka instead of vodka and club soda so had to ask for another glass of club soda to try and mix it. No Angry Orchard even though it's on the menu.

Then sitting there looking up you can watch the wait staff in what appears to be the drink area, several employees clustered around pulling hair or messing with hair on one while another appeared to be taking pictures. No apparent hand washing after they're playing around with someone's hair.

Little tiny plates had been given to us for bread. Then salads came out without any additional plates until everybody had already used their bread plates for salad. We had the salads for about 3 minutes before the food came out, except for one person's order. Had to flag down another person to say we were still missing a meal. That meal finally came out and it was not what was ordered.

By this point we've asked what may have been a manager to please ask his employees not to be playing with their hair. It was quite evident when he talked to them by the daggered looks the wait staff was giving us. Although extremely irritated by the service it was compounded by watching one of the wait staff repeatedly prancing/galloping past our table like he was one of Santa's reindeer.

The tickets for the meals came which go figure were wrong and had to be redone. The lack of even semi-professionalism among many of the wait staff is desperately lacking.

We had plans to return on Sunday with a larger group for a special birthday. We will not be taking our group there, we already made plans to switch to a different restaurant. Nor will just the two of us be returning to that Olive Garden. Such a sad...

We were in wait about 20 minutes, it was 3 pm. Very busy. Very nice establishment. My first taking my 3yr granddaughter out to eat. We were seated after that at. Our server which I wont name, was very polite but I wasn't even seated yet and asked what appetizers we wanted. I gave our drink orders and asked if I could first look at a menu. She left to get them, when she returned We gave her our appetizer and dinner orders. She brought the soup and salad and appetizer. And then for long long after we finished it our food still hadn't arrived and we were just sitting. During which time a couple sat way before us hadn't even been served their drinks yet, come to find out they hadn't even been asked yet. After their long wait, they told the person who finally noticed they were leaving. Two tables sat after us, were apped and served food and drinks and completed. Hadn't seen our server for quite the span of time. My granddaughter starting to become a very bored 3yr old, finally our server makes an appearance and says oh, you're finished? I said yes we have been done for some time. She says she will go to check the food, when she returns for the 3rd and last time over an hour and 20 minutes, she says very unschockingly, and you're still waiting. I tell her I think I'd rather just be charged for what we did consume and wait no further. She leaves. After a long wait again I go up and quietly ask for a manager. Finally one shows up purely by coincidence, and they tell her I need to talk to one. One of the managers, which I will name, Deanna(sp) was very thoughtful and listened and she apologized emphatically and sincerely. I explained I know they are new and busy and that after the kinks were worked out we would come back and give it another shot. She was still very generous and kind and didn't charge us for what we did consume. She even offered further compensation. I declined that as I truly wasn't mad, and understood. However knew my granddaughter probably couldn't take much more of a wait. I am writing this review for basically to let that manager know how much I appreciate her handling of the situation. As far as our server goes not even as much as an apology or even an appearance. They had many servers doing excellent service, just not ours. Welcome to the Olive Garden and have high hopes it all...

It took about 45 minutes for us to have our name called with our table available, witch wasn't bad we sat in the bar and had a drink while we waited. The drinks were good but really pricy especially for the size of them and the large amount of ice they had more I've then drink. Really the wait and the drinks we not too bad at all. The problem was after being sat with menus at out table it took about 2 hours to actually get our food. We didn't even get spoken to until after about the first 20-30 minutes. We had to flag down not one, not two, not even three but the fourth person we flaged down to get any type of service, we didn't even receive water, salad nothing before we sat while watching evey table surrounding us leave and clear out, and with out refilling before we were even were knowledge we were there. The third guy obviously was told by the first to lady's we hadn't received any type of service yet, coincedently had been walking by but and just happened to stop to find out if we needed anything and had been taking care of, He obviously was some sort of management cause he had his clip board and pin and wasn't dress like the rest of the servers. But then the fourth woman that we flagged after waiting who knows how long for our appitizers, she ended up finishing getting our food and drinks to us, did apologizing on one more then one occasion for the poor service did then end up taking care of all of our bill except for our drinks due to them being alcoho. She did at one point tell us she was the general manager and that that was her store of management. My husband and I both working food service and know very well how nice it is to have customers with patients specially when it's busy and frustrating with every move you make. We over all did have really really good fresh hot food and couldn't finish it all ande ealnmanag to take home leftoerver and they were even great the next day reheated. Anyway I'm sure I'll go back but it will be awhile. It is a brand newly opened restraunt so will give it sometime to get things figured out and taken off for better excellent service. General manager Diana was the server of the evening that got our vote for excellent customer...