Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Hoover

I don’t believe I have ever left a bad review before this, but today was ridiculous. My family expected a wait time because it was Father’s Day—no big deal! The wait was about 25 minutes, which we thought was great! The hostess sat us in the far back corner of the restaurant in a side room with a large party and a small family. We had passed by empty tables to get there. We sat there for a very long time with no server. One waitress looked at us after serving the small family next to us and then just left. After quite a long time, I got up and politely asked a server in another part of the restaurant if he knew where our server was. I clarified that I thought maybe our server just didn’t know we were placed in his or her section. It took even longer until a waitress came to our table and made an excuse about another server being cut for the day. I might believe that except that the same server who turned her back on us earlier took three more tables in our little section surrounding us when more families came in. It would be a very odd coincidence that the one little table of ours stuck in a corner surrounded by her tables wasn’t in fact hers to begin with. Our server was friendly, but everything took a very long time and we had to ask for anything we needed, including refills, Parmesan cheese, etc. She made excuses several times for why things weren’t done or brought out, none of which were very believable to anyone who has worked in the restaurant business.

While waiting, I had the position of being able to watch everything going on. Cooks and bus boys were constantly coming in and out of the kitchen and server “hangout” area eating food and drinking. At least one employee was vaping outside our window. The room we were in was filled with at least 3 or 4 full trays of dirty dishes that were so heavy, the bus boy couldn’t even move them. Instead, he tried shifting dishes around to add more. One of the trays was within an arm’s distance from a customer and he looked over several times as the bus boy tried to add more dishes to it. Our waitress wouldn’t take any dirty dishes from our table. Yet, I watched bus boys and servers bring dirty dishes from every other part of the restaurant to the kitchen to be washed.

After asking our waitress for refills for sodas, she went to one of the filled dirty dish trays, picked up a pitcher that had some type of liquid at the bottom, debated for a second, and left with it. She came back shortly after with what I suspect was the same pitcher to refill several drinks at the table.

Just to note—the restaurant was not very busy at the tables, yet we saw a lot of servers. But when we left, the front waiting area was packed full of people. You would have thought the whole...

Open disclaimer - The Olive Garden has been a favorite chain restaurant for our family for over 25 years. As a matter of fact, nearly every time we ask ourselves "where do you want to go eat?", the answer is The Olive Garden. This is especially true if my 12-year old has anything to say about it.

That being said, this particular location earns relatively low marks, compared not only to other restaurants but, frankly, pretty much every other Olive Garden we've dined in - across multiple cities and states.

The food is actually pretty consistent with fare at other locations. However... this site seems to be particularly bad at managing large (8 or more) parties. I suspect I know what you're going to say - most restaurants don't handle large parties well. However, there are a number of factors that seem to be particularly poor for this location - service, wait times, parking.

Parking first - Yes, the picture below was taken around 6 pm on a Saturday night. Is that an interstate at rush hour or the the parking lot at Olive Garden... hard to tell! The problem is evident not just at this Olive Garden but also the Outback Steakhouse right next door, This particular visit was during dinner, previous visits were during lunch. It's pretty much a given that you will likely need to park in the mall parking lot (spoiler alert - it's just as bad there also) and run a 5K across an uncontrolled mall driveway (please be careful esp. if you have kids in tow) to get to the front door. Plan to spend an extra 10-15 minutes circling either the restaurant or mall parking lot before you hit the front door.

Wait time - Yes, that picture is the scene when you open the front door. Plan to spend a good little while after you put your name in (even if you have a reservation) before your group is seated.

During the meal - Three pet peeves of mine occurred on our last visit: food arrived inconsistently, drinks were rarely refilled, and the bill was wrong (for nearly half the party). The first was probably the most bothersome. By the time the last person of our party received her meal, the first half of the group had finished theirs. One last note, since the bills were incorrect for so many members of our party, we were forced to wait another 10 minutes AFTER our meals just get our bills settled.

Sorry Hoover AL Olive Garden, will be visiting other locations (or perhaps that Mexican diner we heard about) next...

I hardly ever write reviews on restaurants because I always try to make excuses for why things turned out the way they did. I’ve heard MANY bad reviews about this location in Hoover, but it’s been about a year or so since...so I figured it must’ve had some changes. I feel like tonight we were just served to be served.

Firstly, the place didn’t smell too great. Smelled like the carpets haven’t been cleaned or something.

Secondly, our waitress served us our drinks and the straws were wet. She mentioned that they were wet, “but it’s just water.” I feel like even if it was just water, she could’ve at least given us new ones...

Thirdly, we were served our salad and bread maybe around or after 20 mins after being seated. Which we dismissed because we thought maybe she was busy or she’s had a long day at work.

Fourthly, when I ordered my food she had explained to me about what my dish came with, I just asked her to add mushrooms. She even confirmed with me. When my dish arrived, I asked if it had mushrooms because I didn’t see any...she repeated what was stated before that there aren’t any mushrooms. I asked politely that I thought I had asked for them to be added. She was polite too and said she would have them bring me a side of mushrooms. Well, it took some time and SMELLED GROSS. Made me feel so sick.

Overall, not one of my 5 parties were happy or even content when leaving. I didn’t mind her forgetting the salads and breads and even my addition to my dish, but how she didn’t seem to care about what she was serving to us is what got us. I mean, who gives customers damped straws and still serve stinky mushrooms?! While the cook shouldn’t have cooked it knowing it was bad, but she probably shouldn’t have served them either. Everyone at my table could smell it and we just had to get out of there. The food wasn’t even that great.

It has been a long long time since I’ve gone to a restaurant this bad. The only positive thing I can say from this experience is that at least the waitress was polite...