Purple Garlic Italian Cafe — Restaurant in Hollywood Park

I’m really, really surprised at my rating.

I went here over a year ago, and it was fantastic. Service was on point, food was quick, and it was delicious. I mean, it was a cut above the rest and truly very good. However, when I went back this past weekend on 7/26, it was bad. It was so bad that I felt I needed to apologize to those who I recommended this restaurant to. A Saturday dinner service should be your top A-game service. What happened?

We got the spinach artichoke dip, lasagna with a side of grilled sausage, and alfredo with a chicken fritta.

The spinach artichoke dip seemed like it was made with alfredo sauce mixed with spinach and artichoke and then topped with cheese. It was loose and kinda runny, and overall just… a little weird. Definitely not the spinach artichoke dip that I’m familiar with, but could be a preference thing.

The lasagna advertised 16 layers, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was just 6. It was similarly loose, the sauce was bland, and it overall was just ok. They didn’t bring out the grilled sausage, and my server never returned until the end of the meal, so I couldn’t ask for it.

The alfredo was my choice, and it was bad. Really bad. It was tasteless, lacked salt, the garlic pieces were cut in indiscriminate chunks of varying sizes, and were almost entirely uncooked. They had the texture of a dense styrofoam and some pieces were nearly a quarter inch in size. THAT is a massive oversight in quality and preparation. The chicken fritta I received was so dry that it felt more like a crispy jerky. The bread they brought to the table seemed like extremely cheap pre-baked restaurant supply bread, served with cold butter. It honestly felt and tasted like a hotdog bun from Walmart.

Again, what happened here? I had such an incredible first experience here that I dreamt of going back and talked about it for months. I was so let down and disappointed that I felt I’d ruined our one and only date night away from the kids by choosing to go here. I couldn’t stop apologizing for bringing my wife here, and though we took the leftovers home, they just ended up in the trash.

My server was just bad. We got drinks from her, didn’t see her for 15 minutes, she took our entire order at once and then we had other servers drop off our food and refill our drinks once. After that, it was nothing.

Regrettably, I have to give them a low rating. I was hoping to have a repeated experience, but I just got...

A Disappointing Mother’s Day Experience at The Purple Garlic I’ve never written a review this long—or this upset—but after what happened, I feel like I have to. We called ahead to The Purple Garlic to make sure they could seat a party of six. They said yes, no problem. When we arrived about 20 minutes later, we were checked in and waited around 45–50 minutes. So far, everything seemed within reason, especially on a busy Mother’s Day weekend. The problems started when we were finally called up. The host didn’t walk us to our table or offer a menu—she simply pointed and said, “It’s the one in the back, middle of the restaurant.” Odd, but fine. Once we sat down, we waited another 20 minutes before anyone came to our table. When the server finally arrived, she asked if we were ready to order drinks—but we hadn’t even been given menus yet. Eventually, we got menus, placed our order, and tried to be patient. We understood it was a busy day. But as time went on, we watched multiple families—who were seated after us—get their food and even finish eating, while we continued to wait. After over an hour and 20 minutes, I finally said something to the staff. Instead of acknowledging the delay or offering a sincere apology, they gave us a flimsy excuse that “other people had ordered before us”—even though we hadn’t even been able to place an order until much later. They offered to comp our desserts, but by then it was 9:05 p.m., and we still hadn’t gotten a single bite of food. At that point, the restaurant was already closed, and there was no way we were going to sit there and eat while the staff cleaned up around us. Let me be clear: we weren’t looking for handouts. All we wanted was to be treated like everyone else. A simple acknowledgment of the screw-up would have gone a long way. Instead, we were met with deflection and indifference. We left without eating. Our Mother’s Day dinner ended at Whataburger, after spending nearly three hours trying to have a nice meal with my wife, her sister, her mother, and her grandmother. As we walked out—empty-handed and starving—the staff held the door open, not out of politeness, but in a way that felt like they were just relieved we were finally leaving. The Purple Garlic didn’t just mishandle a busy night—they completely failed to make us feel welcomed, respected, or valued. I sincerely hope they take this as a chance to reflect...

We didn’t have a great experience at Purple Garlic Italian Cafe. We stopped in to a semi-empty cafe on the Saturday before Christmas and were seated right away in a corner table near a partitioned room. Walking to our table from the front door, we had to duck under oddly situated cafe umbrellas. If you’re under 5’7”, you’ll probably avoid having to duck your head. I just don’t understand the reason for them inside. I counted 7 staff members in the FOH, and was confused as to why so many employees were milling about. As the evening progressed, the dining room became packed. However, all that staff doesn’t help if the kitchen can’t keep up, which is what we experienced as the meal progressed. We ordered the Pinot Grigio and the house red and they were nothing to fawn over. Our garden salads were pitiful: one red onion ring, chopped tomatoes, and one crouton. It was a stingy, measly salad and the garlic dressing was bland, as was the rest of the meal. There was a blotch of something red under a few leaves of salad, which we had to ask about. For some reason they dress the salad with paprika. I don’t understand that choice but choosing to serve a bland garlic dressing. Our calamari was on the verge of being too rubbery and the breading fell off progressively as we attempted to pitch our forks in them to retrieve them. They were glaringly bland, we couldn’t detect a hint of seasoning. Our entrees took 20 minutes to arrive after the server removed our starter dishes. Warm bread was brought out but we had to wait so long it was room temperature by the time we received our entrees. Thankfully the bread was decent. When the entrees finally arrived, I took two bites of my Chicken Marsala before I sent it back. The gravy tasted like brown gravy powder mix with no trace of Marsala wine. The chicken was completely unseasoned, like they breaded and fried it. The angel hair pasta was completely overdone, breaking a part as I attempted to gather it with my fork. It was a disaster from start to finish. My husband remarked that his pesto dish was “Edible. You can’t really mess up jarred pesto.” Our server was sweet when I gave her my feedback and she’s the only reason for any stars. We were really disappointed because we saw all of the great reviews and our visit didn’t...