Red Olive Restaurant - Howell — Restaurant in Genoa Charter Township

I walked in and watched Miguel the bus boy (man) do a great job cleaning tables, a good sign. Frank’s first night after training for this job ends up with me and my family as he customers for the evening. Bow your head for this port young waiter. Restaurants around Howell call me “Trouble”, not what you think! The managers-and staff like me! Frank carefully took our order and served ice cold water for our drink choice. First sip of clam chowder hit me wrong but after a second spoonful why did my taste buds deceive me? It was delicious and not your usual chowder. I loved the taste. I ordered mushrooms and Swiss cheese omelet with hash browns. I’ve been served this style of cooking elsewhere and not to my liking. Gracious Frank served our dishes and I started with the hash browns. The cook was terrific, these none oily or greasy hash browns were perfect and so potatoy I wanted more! The omelette looked meager with today’s prices but EVERY bite was top of the line in I asked Frank to choose the toast for my meal. My fault, the cooks thought Frank forgot to ask me. I told the other waitress that I told Frank to surprise me and the cook did!! I was served a toasted light rye with Honey! I honestly never ate honey on toast i my life. Butter or strawberry preserves or any fruit topping but not honey. My first bite was delicious and honey got all over my hands. Pure beloved stickiness! My family enjoyed their food, but I loved mine. Today was Frank’s first day soloing. He asked for help when needed. EVERY customer left happy and satisfied. I pray Frank stays as a shy, quiet customer friendly waiter. He is off to a great start. The staff was excellent but Miguel was a huge asset to this restaurant. I cannot wait to return. My third time was a charm!

April 2023. Update our server. Amelia was absolutely outstanding when I walked into the place I could tell that she was fussing a lot more than the six tables that she claimed to have been busing. She worked her feet off to serve many many customers, including my wife and I . Along with Amelia is Devesh. he too, was working hard, serving large tables, getting orders, correct and doing it with Amelia short staffed they could’ve used one more waiter.

One hidden surprise is Oscar the current busboy at red Olive. He is a devoted employee. He works very hard to make sure that every table is spotless. He carefully wipes him down and make sure they are prepared for the next group of people.

The real gems are the cooks hidden behind the pane, glass windows, each morsel of food that my wife and I enjoyed was because of their hard work and expertise. I don’t like take pictures of food simply because it’s betraying you you don’t know if it tastes good or not, it can look good and taste like garbage it could look bad and actually taste divine , but I can reassure you that every part of our meal was exceptional and I cannot wait to come back and try more. The price for these meals were comparable and even better than many other restaurants in the Howell Livingston county area. You cannot go wrong dining here.

Today we were seated by Kritan who just started work and served by our waitress San. Each time I visit, whatever staff we meet are always well trained and enjoy their job.

The Super special with three eggs was served so hot and tasty that I was surprised. Every item on the plate was a savory taste feast. I will order this again!

July 7th update:

April was today’s waitress and consistently was as exceptional waitress as any previous server. She was outstanding especially to each table she served. I made it a point to ask April and the Hostess to make sure the cooks got their due recognition for cooking our food to near perfection. It was so delicious, the gyro plate, the Ted Olive Omelet and the shrimp dinner was culinary delights. The amount of hot food was generous and the price was reasonable. April kept our water glasses full, he wonderful personality made our dining experience that much more special. See my updated photos ....

I'm not big on making reviews but my service here has been so horrible that I just feel the need to let others know about my experience here. We (my wife, son and I) used to go to Red Olive quite often before the pandemic. The service was almost always mediocre but that's to be expected. But after the pandemic, we would often do carryout. Every single time, our very basic order would be wrong. I'm an understanding guy so I just brushed it off. This occurred almost weekly as we liked having breakfast cooked for us on the weekends. The last time we ordered carryout, all of it was wrong. The wrong eggs, onions on the food when they were told "no onions", sausage instead of bacon (we all hate onions and sausage), no syrup, no extra sour cream that was ordered, the wrong vegetables, basically everything we ordered but was prepared incorrectly and not anything we would eat. I finally had enough and called to complain. The hostess said they would remake it for us but we didn't have time for that so she said that the next breakfast is on them. Today I ordered the exact same items off the menu and I went to pick it up. When I got there, they decided to take 15% off the bill. I protested that as I was told that our breakfast was going to be on them. After some complaining, they upped it to 20%. I was insulted as they said they wouldn't take anymore off because we got the food last time. We did get it but we didn't/couldn't eat it. I told them to keep the food and that I'll never eat there again. I vow that I never will again. I hope they understand why I will never be a patron of theirs again. Sorry this is long winded but they need to understand that if they don't take care of their customers, their customers never return. I hope it was worth it...

Went to dinner here with my family. There was 5 of us so the hostess seated us in a large booth. The Hostess Melissa was extremely rude from the moment she walked us to our table. Our waiter was great, the food not so much. The chicken on my salad was extremely dry and over cooked, my moms steak was supposed to be cooked medium and came out very well done, and they served me a cold piece of pita. I have eaten at the Hartland Red Olive many times and never had food this bad... we never even complained about it since we knew it wasn’t the waiters fault.

We were finishing our meal and my mom went up to pay when she overheard the Hostess telling another girl, loudly, “just go tell them to leave because we have other people who need that table”. At that point the other girl walked up to our table and asked us “how much longer are you going to be? Because we have other people waiting?” Some of my family we’re still eating dinner! How unwelcoming and rude.

To top it all off, I tried to call and speak with the manager and Melissa (the Hostess) said I could not speak to the manager because they were too busy to talk to me. Worst customer service ever! We will NEVER again go to this restaurant 🤬 and I will continue to urge others not to...