Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Flagstaff

Poor management

For starters our server Sofia was absolutely wonderful. She was super friendly and very attentive. So this 1 star review does not reflect her in anyway.

Our problem was with the manager Carlos. My 22 year old son was visiting from another state. We typically like to support the family owned restaurants but pasta sounded good. My son ordered an alcohol drink and when we showed Sofia his ID she informed him that per her corporation she was not allowed to serve alcohol to anybody if they had a vertical ID. She apologized profusely and we totally understood she was doing her job. Since that had never happened to us before, and we travel a lot, we looked up the law. The law did state that AZ residents must have the horizontal ID no matter how old you are in order to order alcohol but out of staters are exempt from that. No problem. So we just gave our server a heads up. She did the right thing and said "oh okay, let me get my manager." Perfect So our intention was just to tell the manager to give him a heads up so maybe he can let their corporate office know about the exemption for out of staters. That's it. So Carlos the manager comes over and says to us "you had an ID issue?" My husband says "just a heads up for the future, but we just looked up the law, and according to the Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control out of staters are exempt from having to have a horizontal license if they want to order alcohol and we have the copy." We thought Carlos would have had a professional response and said something to the effect as "I'll have to look into that" or something to that effect. Rather he totally deflected it upon us and says "well my question to you is...." turns to my son and asks " why haven't YOU updated your license?" It totally caught us off guard. And we all said "he's not from here." So at first my son's response was "just haven't taken time to do it" but we were all baffled. Not expecting that deflection. Once Carlos walked away we said to each other " where my son's from you don't have to change your vertical ID to a horizontal ID if you're 21. Our state wants your license to expire before you order a new one. So why in the world would we change it if it's not needed." Carlos's deflection making it seem like it was our fault rather than saying "I should look into that." Made us lose our appetite. My son and I packed up our food and left and will never return. We just expected a more professional response...

Ordered curbside via the website. Got my email from my bank my card was charged, got an email from the restaurant my order was ready for pick up. Have a receipt that shows I paid for my food but the manager has called me two days in a row stating my order was declined. Saying something about my card only going in for $6 and the bill was $24. NONE OF THIS MAKES SENSE. How as a company do you walk food out to a customer if the order isn’t paid for? Why is the charge showing in my account? You want me to pay AGAIN over the phone with you!? Never in my life has this ever happened. Then the manager wants to sit and argue about whether I have money in my account or dispute what shows in my account. I called my bank and they’ve never heard of this happening and said they don’t see a refund on the way and if it was voided the charge will fall off but could take some time.

Every person I’ve told this story to has agreed this has never happened, a restaurant charges your card before they walk the food out to you. So what’s really happening!? Is he about to write my debit card number for some Amazon purchases later!? This is wild!! Making me out to be some bad guy when I did what I was supposed to do, it’s not my fault your system charged my account but hasn’t put this money back in my account! Don’t go here, sounds fishy to me.

If I was trying to scam this place I wouldn’t have left my real name and phone number, seriously piss poor management team. If he’s being truthful and it voids payment from my account I’ll gladly drive all the way back to flagstaff and pay you in cash, but you’d surely attract more 🐝 with honey than vinegar David. If that wasn’t your vinegar, you need to figure out why...

Rating: 0/5 Stars, I have been a customer of flagstaffs olive garden for 4 years since i moved closer to the university for school but after the behavior of the manager i will no longer be going to eat here, David is the head manager, i have spoken to him at different times as he comes to check on tables but is always with an aggresive atttitude and seems like customers are incoveince rather then customers. I have witnessed him being harsh on employees but after his more aggresive and recent behavior, i saw him call a female employee weak because she couldnt carry all the boxes he needed moved when he was much bigger and less busy then her, she had multiple tables to attend to. The comment about how women are less then men and not strong or fit to carry items. I have noticed david is the only one using foul launguage in front of customers AT EMPLOYEES, he has used innapropiate gestures and movements towards female employees which all get stressed when he walks into a room. Nobody wants to be around a creepy guy. The tension between manager and employees is horrible, not to mention knowing a couple of them through school who have said its the only job they can have but david runs the place like hell. The waiters and waitress have always been kind and fast, they do amazing job but when david steps into a room it makes the atmosphere horrible. i dont want to see a grown man running around and rudely yelling at people if they like there food or not, try asking nicer david. If this place had new management i bet they would have even more...