Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Houston

I don’t know how long it’s been open now, but I do know it’s recent. Finding the location was very easy and the parking lot was pretty spacious and had plenty of parking even while packed and busy. As soon as I walked into the building, I was greeted with a smile and sat near the bar since it was just myself. The table I was at by the bar was pretty big, the atmosphere seemed very lively and inviting. My server’s name was Deontre and he asked for my drink order which was just water and it came out a minute or two later. I didn’t see the Never-Ending Pasta special on the menu (mind you I'm visually not aware), but my server let me know the pamphlet or paper was on the table. I started off with my classic and safe option which was a Fettuccine Alfredo, and added the Never-Ending topping, the Crispy Chicken Fritter. I also ordered the Zuppa Toscana for my Never-Ending Soup. The soup came out first around 3 minutes after ordering. The soup itself tasted the way I expected it to, and was piping hot. The server was amazing with his attitude and checking on me. My first pasta came out 5 minutes after my soup, which is pretty quick and efficient. The manager on duty, Heather, was very accommodating; walking around, checking in on other tables, asking how their experience is so far. They left a sense of comfort and customer service saying,”If you need anything, just let me know.” Those words made me feel welcome. The alfredo sauce was delicious, and what i’d expect from Olive Garden, and the crispy chicken hadn’t lost it's crunch even when drenched with the alfredo sauce. As I’m eating, I am near the kitchen entrance, so I can see the cooperation with the staff. Hearing sayings like ‘coming in’ and ‘turning the corner’ to ensure the quality of cooperation and communication while also ensuring the food gets to the respective table with no accidents or incidents occurring. Another server/barkeep (?) named Jose was also very nice and checked up on me as well with a smile. 4 minutes after ordering my next Never-Ending Pasta dish, my server insured me that my plate would be coming out soon, and not even thirty seconds later, the food came to my table. I ordered the Rigatoni with the Five Cheese Marinara sauce and the Crispy Chicken Fritter. The pasta I ordered was the Rigatoni, but I think they were out because they gave me Fusilloni. The sauce was really rich, but the pasta itself was chewier than I prefer and the tomatoes were a little too big for my preference as well. After I finished my second helping and ordered the Alfredo again as the third plate and a refill on soup. It wasn’t until 20 minutes into my meal that my server asked if I wanted breadsticks, I didn;t want to cause a scene, so I said no, but wondered why it took them a while to notice since I didn’t get any to begin with, or is it just my thinking that it usually comes with the meal since it said Never-Ending Soup with breadsticks on the pamphlet/paper. Deontre let me know that they would refill my water as I was waiting for the food and didn’t mind the wait. After about 4-5 minutes, I was a little mad because the second serving of soup was mostly consome, floating onions, red peppers, kale, and potato skins with no potato pieces or meat. The third plate came out after five minutes and forty-five seconds. This was also the time when I came to the realization that the portion sizes differ after the first serving. The first serving was like a standard plate, and the second and third were like a ⅓ of the portion size, which makes sense for Never-Ending Pasta. For both Alfredo dishes they gave me spoons for each one, and I didn’t need them, so it felt kind of wasteful, but I digress. Got pretty full after the third dish and paid and left. Deontre was very nice and hoped to see me again,...

I am writing to you for two reasons, the first being that my son was hit in the head, due to a hostess not paying attention while she swung the door open for a patron exiting, and secondly that the staff kept going back and forth on the table being ready or not. We didn’t have an issue with waiting so much, it was the back and forth, the lack of communication between, busser, server, hostess, I believe that was the mix up. We knew going in that it might take an hour, all I wanted to say is that it should be handled better and more efficiently. While we were waiting in the foyer between both sets of double glass doors for 30 minutes, the hostess, not once, not twice, but more than that swung the door open, to let patrons out. I understand being nice and holding a door open for someone, but to not care about the people behind the doors, who are sitting and patiently waiting, is an issue. The hostess was swinging the door open with so much force that my sister had to say Hey! because she almost hit her. The hostess said, oh sorry, don't worry the door doesn't go back any further. But, the hostess continued to swing the door open. Careless as to who might be behind the GLASS doors. I emphasize glass, because it is see through, see through so that someone can actually take the time to look through it to see and make sure that no one is standing, sitting, walking, running, anything behind the door before she tries to open it. If only she had taken the time to look, she would have seen my two year old son standing there, but she didn't, and swung with the same force as all the previous times. Smacking him straight in the forehead with the door, knocking him off of his feet and on to the carpet. He started screaming crying in pain, we rushed to him while she said Oh I'm so sorry, while we told her to go get ice! At that same instant the other hostess said our table is ready. Our party went to sit while I had to let the manager know what just happened. It is inconceivable to me, how this can happen, when literally all you need to do is look before you open the door. Which she did not, because she was looking back at people leaving the restaurant, and pushing the doors open for them, instead of making sure no one was there first. The manager even had the audacity to say, well sometimes kids run. NO, It has nothing to do with my child, and whatever it was he was doing, sitting, standing, walking, running, if only she took the time to look she could have avoided a big hurt to my son. Sorry, doesn’t make it better, it doesn’t make it right, it doesn’t take the pain away. The manager stated that they sent her home early and that he would let upper management know. I wanted to make sure that someone was notified about this incident, and that all staff are properly trained on how to open doors safely for those entering or exiting so that nobody else is injured at your location. I brought this to the attention of the manager only to say that I know this is a new location and that if they don’t fix the lack of communication issue, lack of awareness, that this will happen to more people unnecessarily and that it shouldn’t. I want this new location to thrive, but there are more kinks that need to be ironed out. If we weren’t out to celebrate my son’s birthday we would have left, but after waiting an hour to be seated and having that happen to my son, the least we could do is make sure he ate what he wanted for his birthday. Mrs....

I was recently there this past Sunday, unfortunately I didn’t catch the servers name but he is young, tall, light skin and has curly orange/red hair, we had the worst experience! He brought our salad and minutes later we found a huge fly in our salad, disgusting !!!! By that time our server had not the intelligence to come back and take our order and we had been waiting for about at least 25 minutes or more, at that time a young lady came by and asked us how was everything, so we mentioned the fly in our salad; she apologized, left and came back with another salad, and at that point the server still didn’t show up at our table, he only passed on the back of me and as I turn he said I’m sorry and still didn’t even ask if we were ready to order!!!!! On top of that, a manager never took a minute to come by and apologize for what had happened!!! Minutes later after we had finally placed our order! And because we had been waiting for so long, we decided to share a dinner portion of chicken Alfredo and broccoli and to our surprise the portions were definitely NOT HALF the portion of the dinner! The Chicken and broccoli looked fine and I definitely mentioned that to the manager, but the noodles! The noodles were a complete joke! It looked as if we had order chicken and broccoli only! Not to exaggerate but it looked like we had about 7 noodles each, it was ridiculous!!! So I mentioned it to the server who finally decided to show up! He called the manger (Hispanic man) and he didn’t resolve anything!instead He argued that was portion!!! Terrible...