Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Florence

We enjoyed the food, the server was pleasant. My issue is not with Olive Garden alone but with all restaurants. The pay plan is minimal and servers generally survive on tips , so much so the facility usually print the suggested gratuity amount on the check bottom for 20-% , 22 % and so on. However, and here is my problem there is no training and zero service. Serve from the left, bus table clean of plates between services, know who ordered what and place it in front of them without asking and without putting your elbow in someone's face as you lean over table from the end, make certain entree not starch or vegetable is facing customer when putting entree down and so forth. Don't serve the appetizer and salad right on top of it.... These are different course. Don't ask if we want dessert because one person is finished yet 3 others are still eating. You can turn the table without pushing in the same time frame and without customer feeling pushed. ( It's no different than the guy who weaves in and out of traffic dangerously but we still get to stop light together time and again) Not seeking perfect 5 star service by any stretch how ever last night included: previous tables 2 old wine glasses left on table for us a table of 4.???, Not removed when we simply ordered water, side plates left on end of table in stack for us to hand out, salad plates literally dealt to us , handed in air not placed on table when salad bowl arrived, entrees served same way after calling out ...Alfredo, chicken parmesan and so on,. Guest check delivered to dirty table with not one entree plate removed and salad bowl still on table. Barely had room and needed to move stuff from in front of me so I could leave 20% tip or $15.00 in this case. So restaurants don't train servers anymore and count on public to pay them. They , the restaurants practically demand 20% for the servers yet don't care how we enjoy the meal and dining experience. At what point do we have a right to tip based on service and experience and not screw over wait person's whom don't receive proper training . It's restaurants fault 100% and I regularly leave 20% but it's getting old as standards don't exist and restaurants continue to lower the bar as we continue to pay. Final thought and point, we just returned from Florida where entrees averaged $30-40 per plate and service was poor, yet we paid a $8.00 tip per plate for someone to stand at the end of table and say " strip - medium". It's getting hard to accept at that cost per plate when your tipping for service that doesn't exist. Provide me an experience , make my table feel like a priority, provide me service and serve me at the pace you sense I want, not rushed ,not dragging, bus my plates between salad and entree, After everyone at table is finished bus entire table,EVERYTHING and then ask if I want coffee and desert. I waited 50 minutes for the table to get bum rushed , under serviced and...

Been to this Olive Garden MANY times, and had always had a pleasurable experience...but this last visit to Olive Garden in Florence left me completely undesirus to EVER return!

The wait time was over 2 1/2 hours long even after calling ahead and reserving a table! This I chose to ignore because it was Mother's Day weekend and figured they were slammed for the holiday, and perhaps understaffed due to COVID, but no! Yes, they were only seating at half capacity, but even all the available tables were not being utilized! And they appeared to be fully staffed, in fact, OVERLY staffed for the amount of seated tables!

But despite having plenty of staff, only two other seated tables in the section, after FINALLY being seated it took nearly 20 minutes for our waitress to appear and ask for our drinks! It took an additional 20 minutes for her to bring the drinks and bread sticks, then we had to ask for additional straws four or five times before we finally got them! Our waitress only refilled our bread, endless salad, and drinks ONCE despite our asking multiple times throughout our stay...

We were a party of 8 this Mother's Day weekend, but it took an UNGODLY amount of time for our food to come out, and once it finally did, 5 out of the 8 of us had ice cold food...the pasta was chewy like it had been microwaved to death, and it was severely lacking in flavor. Due to COVID I reckon they're not allowing salt and pepper on the tables, but it was very frustrating not to be able to amend the majorly lacking flavor of our dishes(yes, we did ask for them, but she didn't wind up bringing them until we were ready to pay the bill!) We wanted to send the food back to the kitchen, but our waitress chose not to check on us for over 30 minutes after she served our food, and by that time it was nearly closing time.

I have been in wait-service off and on for years, so I GET that some things are just completely out of a server's control. But ours that night seemed like she genuinely didn't care, she made NO effort to meet our most basic expectations, let alone go above and beyond to provide excellent service and EARN her tip! I always try to be understanding of my servers because I have been in their shoes myself over the years, but I cannot reasonably explain or excuse the utter lack of effort she gave, nor can I ignore that whoever was running the kitchen decided that the plates they served us were acceptable.

If I could rate this latest experience at negative stars I would, it was beyond pitiful and inexcusable. Highly disappointing, because before this, I LOVED this Olive Garden and was always pleased...will NOT be wasting my money at this location...

My kids and I love Olive Garden. We Evacuated Hurricane Milton, and we spotted an Olive Garden right by our hotel in Florence, SC. We knew we would go for one dinner while we were here. We got seated by the manager who was very nice. It took more than 10 minutes for a server to come get drink orders. Once she got our drink orders it was another 15 before she brought 2 of the 4 over and apologized she had forgotten what the other 2 were. Not a big deal. I asked if we could go ahead and order an appetizer right away because the tablet at the table was flashing red and said our check had already been split and to ask out server for help. She got our appetizer in, and went to get the other 2 drinks. A different server or food runner brought out our fried mozzarella. Our server finally came back with the drinks, at this point it had been more than 30 minutes... and we still hadn't even gotten any breadsticks. We placed our food order (3 kids meals and a soup/salad meal with no olives in the salad). She came out with breadsticks, which were so dry and like no other breadsticks we've ever had at Olive Garden. My kids each took a bite, made a face and put them down. When the server came out with salad, it had olives. After over an hour waiting, the soup and kids meals came out. My daughter took a bite of her kids cheese pizza... and got a mouth full of uncooked dough. Let the server know, but that we didn't want it replaced. Just taken off. At this point we just wanted to be done. I asked for the check, which took another 15 minutes. When she came with the check I handed her my card so she wouldn't walk away again and take longer... she disappeared again. 10 minutes she had walked away with my card I asked a hostess if she knew where she had gone, so I could get my card back to leave. She knew exactly who our server was and apologized. A couple minutes later the server FINALLY came back. Never in my life have I left no tip. I have been a server, and always tip very generously. But this was by far the worst experience I have ever had in any restaurant. The food was not good, and the service was terrible. We travel the East Coast often, but will definitely not be back to...