Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Indianapolis

My girlfriend and I were greeted warmly and seated immediately. The waitress was friendly and relatively attentive. Drinks were always topped up in a timely manner. The atmosphere was good, and for lunch, the restaurant was relatively quiet.

The service was a mixed bag though. While our waitress was attentive with drinks, it took a lot longer to get an inquiry about refills on soup and salad. It's also worth noting that we ordered an appetizer and that was served with our main courses, completely swamping our table. There was a big bowl, an appetizer, a soup bowl, a basket of bread sticks, two serving plates, about 6 different glasses on the table, and it was extremely cluttered. If our appetizer had been served beforehand, and all the dishes were cleaned up in a timely manner, it would've felt a lot less crowded. The dessert we ordered was forgotten about for a while, but our waitress did remember without being prompted. She was bringing us to-go boxes by the time she remembered. I found it very kind and endearing that she saw that I hadn't put my salad in the box and she offered to do that for me. I would have appreciated if my waitress inquired about the kind of dressing I wanted on my salad or if I wanted it on the salad or on the side, but she did not and I didn't think about it in the moment. My girlfriend was also struggling to enjoy her drink because it was too strong, and I think the waitress could've helped contribute to the problem solving process by offering to water down her drink before bringing it to the table, or bringing us a pitcher to dump some of extra glasses of water and tea into. Another complication of this is that the waitress was bringing us glasses of water with ice and that was making this messier too. Granted, these aren't problems or solutions we thought of in the moment, but I hope this feedback will help contribute to raising awareness about these solutions. Especially after witnessing the mess we were making by decanting these beverages at the table in order to enjoy them.

With that said, the food itself was a mixed bag too. Half of the bread sticks were overcooked and dry. I didn't even want more to take home. The salad was good, even with the default dressing option. The appetizer disappointed me greatly. Apparently they serve the spinach artichoke dip with pita chips now. That wasn't always the case. They used to be served with small quarter inch thick bread rounds that were crisp on the outside and soft in the center. The pita chips felt like they had a stale texture, and even my girlfriend complained that she has always had to eat the dip with bread sticks because she never liked the pita chips. This is worse knowing how bad the bread sticks were that day. I did not enjoy my shrimp scampi either, it was bland, a little watery feeling and I felt like the recipe would be better served with okra than asparagus with the mouth feel of everything. That may be a personal preference issue and not a reflection of the restaurant. The mango-strawberry tea had basically no strawberry taste, and was so overwhelmingly strong that to drink it we had to order several glasses of water. The dessert was great and my girlfriend enjoyed her chicken...

2/29 I left a less than 20 percent tip probably for the first time in my life. Simply because I know this was not a kitchen problem but a strait up awful server. Have you ever gone to an Olive Garden and not been offered fresh Parmesan, it was endless pasta never asked us about refills, rang our food in wrong, i had to get my own boxes, I cleared the table and asked for someone to come get our stuff. Waited 15 minutes for a bag for our boxes and for the server to come back with our check. I left a $5 tip on a $40 bill just cause I felt bad leaving nothing. The girl had two closed tables and one that got sat as we were leaving there was no reason absolutely no reason for our service to be as bad as it was. Yes the restaurant was busy but our food came quick once ordered. Now I’m in the car waiting for my husband to come out. Honestly I served my way through college and I honestly think the service we had today was the worse I’ve ever experienced. The only thing I’ll give her is she brought my nephew some extra olives. Some people should not be servers period.

3/5👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻I wrote this review while waiting for my husband in the car, 20 minutes later he called and said I’m about to walk out, she still had not taken the money for our dinner. I said get up and bring Titus to the car I’ll talk to the manager I explained all above yo the manager and she did foot the bill. So I moved the stars to 3 for the manager at least doing the right thing but i truly hope this server gets her act together. I mean after all that then having to wait over twenty minutes for her to come take my husbands payment when clearly I had already left the table after boxing everything and clearing the table...

It wasn't our first choice for the evening. We had worked a lot that week and wasn't planning on celebrating our Valentine's day until the following day. But decided to go out later in the evening. After traveling over most of the town to find a place we settled on Olive Garden because the wait was very short (about 5 to 10 mins) and we're both fans of the restaurant. I'm hoping that the food was just a one off from what we're used to because of the busy day I'm sure they had. But it wasn't well seasoned very bland and we didn't even take to go boxes for our remaining food. But what really didn't go well was our service. We ordered an appetizer first because we were hungry and well it never arrived and we had to have our server take it off the bill because it literally never came but the charge was there. I'm sure she was exhausted but that frame of mind changed when a gentleman sat at the bar and she spent more time speaking with him and attending to him than the 4 tables in our vicinity that she had combined. So this was either her crush or her boyfriend and it was at least nice to see she was capable of attending to one individual as I saw empty drinks and patrons waiting for boxes so they could leave in our little corner. I would've left but I was still waiting for that appetizer to be removed from our bill. The thought crossed my mind to just make that her tip and leave but no I wanted the ziti fritta off of my bill. The only reason I give the 2 stars I did and not a 1 star across the board is because of my many positive experiences with Olive garden. But in good conscience I can't give anything above the 2...