Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Evansville

Awww. Olive Garden. One of my all time favorite places to go. I don't get to visit often due to all my money going to bills and LOTS of kids, but when I do get to go......

The Olive Garden here in Evansville, Indiana is almost always standing room only. It seems to be so anyway because I suppose I go when all of Evansville is there.

So, we go in, sign the waiting list and wait.....and then we wait some more.....and then after 20-30 min. our little round vibrating, buzzer with red lights let's us know it's time to be seated.

Then we wait some more. :-) Anticipation makes the food better I suppose.

The atmosphere, a quiet buzzing of people, is actually quite relaxing. With almost every table occupied we follow the host to the table and......we wait some more. lol

Our waiter arrives with wine in hand and offers a sampling. This sample is a sweet white wine and though I'm not a drinker, I wanted to give this wine my time after sampling it. He pours a glass of sparkling sweet white wine called Mascato and the wine makes a wonderful compliment to the bread sticks and salad.

I love the way they toss the salad right at the table and of course I have to have the extra cheese grated in the salad.

Looking at the menu is always a mental breakdown for me. There's so much to choose from. It's almost as though I were a kid in the Willie Wonka Chocolate Factory......I want everything!

Choosing the Seafood Alfredo and stuffed mushrooms I wait for the meal to arrive.

I fill myself (all 104 lbs.) of salad and bread sticks until the meal arrives. Steamy, cheesey white sauce with crab and shrimp, covering a mound of noodles makes me almost wish I hadn't eaten so much salad and breadsticks. My little belly is poked out and full. However, for Seafood Alfredo I loosen my britches, take a deep breath and begin to shovel. OMG! mouthwatering!

The mushrooms are filled with cheese and a breading, look to be oven fried, and I don't think there's anyplace in the world that makes stuffed mushrooms this yummy-fied.

The Mascato white wine makes a beautiful compliment to the Alfredo and mushrooms and although there's NO possible way for me to eat everything.....I try!

By the end of the meal, I'm miserable and I tell myself "ugh, I'm never eating this much again, I'm miserable". Then I remember my last visit to Olive Garden and realize I felt the same way then, and the time before that.

It's funny that I would be so miserable and so content at the same time.

Olive Garden.....be miserable and enjoy it! should be the theme. lol

So yea, I love Olive Garden, I love the wait (it makes the food better), the staff, atmosphere, and food are the best.

Thanks Evansville Olive Garden for making me miserably content. :-) Keep up the great work.

RitaAnn~ ...who is daydreaming of fresh out of the oven, garlic butter breadsticks dipped in Alfredo Sauce only the way Olive Garden can make it. ...

Food was good. But I didn’t realize adding broccoli for my chicken Alfredo was additional $3! Wow!! That’s not my point of review though… 1.) they put us in the farther back, and across from a table of 3 was sitting, and a bunch of empty tables behind us were. Halfway through our meal, a table of about 6 people on the other side of the half-wall, stood up getting ready to leave. A blonde head waitress instantly walked up to the table of 3 to grab a chair tucked in the corner to replace back at the table of 6 area… Waitress could have waited or easily grabbed a chair from another empty table behind us. Instead interrupted the table of 3 who was eating to grab that chair. The table of 6 was still there too just standing, they haven’t even left yet! Like the waitress was rushing them out and I found that rude to both parties. 2.) our super polite waitress, Caprice, was mistreated by her coworkers and one who was possibly manager. So as I mentioned, all those empty tables behind us, they started moving chairs now and tables around for a large party. And Caprice asked if she was getting a large party and how many. And they RUDELY told her not to worry about it. She respectfully replied something along the lines “I’m confused because this is my section” and they told her she’s going to break and they have it. Meanwhile, my table and another table are still there under her. And when we were ready to go, the what I assume managers seemed bothered that we asked them for a box to go. And we never even got our mints. the best reason to even eat there is the free mints at the end of the meal. When we left, I noticed Caprice was sitting down and she looked really sad. The way the management was treating her. I had perfect view of the main room/back room, so I couldn’t help but read everyone’s facial expressions and it seems like this place is not caring/family oriented towards their coworkers….. then I come on here to purposely leave this google review of the poor management style and remarks how they mistreat their employees. I couldn’t help but notice this isn’t a one time occurrence. Others below me recently left similar comments. Corporate needs to step in. Promote and give Caprice a pay raise. Better yet, girl, if you see this, I pray for you to find a healthier working environment ! You did a absolutely amazing and treated us and the other random table of two moms and kids good. I overheard your conversation with them and including the children too. And Olive Garden, retrain or fire their current managements. The tall white man with facial hair, the dirty blonde hair lady, and especially the mixed or Mexican black hair lady with a little strip hair color in. I can’t believe how disrespectful they all three were to both their employees and to interrupt someone’s meal to move a...

As someone who has eaten at many Olive Gardens, the only reason this particular one will get 2 stars from me is because my Sever was willing to go above and beyond, had the sweetest tone, and a smile on her face the whole time. And the Female Manager or shift manager, whichever she was, was so willing to try and help. It just didn't make up for the inconsistencies coming from the kitchen.

Chicken Alfredo with Broccoli added is my dish of choice. Well, the grilled chicken was rubbery, and I don't mean the usual cooked chicken texture that I've come to enjoy from olive garden. It was overcooked. I did get it replaced with the Fritta style chicken and was much happier with the chicken, but by the time this all came to an end, I'd eaten my soup, most of the breadsticks and just had to Box up my meal which was disappointing. My Alfredo was watery because my noodles weren't drained all the way, so it completely threw off the texture of my dish, and the sauce just pooled around the bottom of the dish under the noodles. My partners Tour of Italy came out looking like somebody had already tried to dig in, which was a first for me because I've seen many Tours of Italy come out pristine. And he had a crispy piece of chicken on his plate, which was odd, but if I throw a fit over that, I'm just nitpicking. That won't lose your points. Sometimes, the presentation gets messy. The temperature of the food was a huge disappointment, I'm used to Olive Gardens Dishes being nice and hot, giving you a few minutes to socialize while they cool in front of you. This was not the case at this location, it was finger warm warm enough to see notice a temperature difference but you can't convince me that this had just been prepared or even thrown in a microwave to at least bring it back up to temp. I love Olive Garden, and the Chain will always have my business as I've been going to them since I was 12 years old, 11 years later and I still haven't found a better, or more consistent place to get my Alfredo and Tiramisu for date nights and social events. But this location will be hard pressed to get me to return, which is disappointing. Please do better and work on your consistency...