Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Irvine

Quite frankly, Olive Garden has been my favorite restaurant since I was three years old. It's been something I look forward to for weeks and months in advance, really one of the loves of my life. I've been to Olive Garden - quite literally - hundreds of times. That's why I'm deeply heartbroken and disappointed by my experience at this location this evening.

There are a few things I've come to appreciate about OG, "when you're here you're family" being chief among them. I'm currently living 2000 miles away from my family, so a warm and welcoming environment is something I really value and appreciate. I don't care if you get 800 details on my food order wrong, I'm really just looking to have a lovely evening. That's why I typically leave $70 tips for my solo order. Having a great night out is simply worth it to me.

I understand there are new people that get hired and come on board to the OG team, and not every visit is going to be flawless. That's okay, I've seen new employees before and I've had great experiences regardless.

However, this evening, I had a series of bad experiences. My breadsticks were dropped on the ground, which is fine, I asked for an endless alfredo bowl and it took 10 minutes between refills for my waiter to circle again, which is whatever, I asked clearly for multiple alfredo sauces and I was left hanging for extended times, no big deal. The refills on Zuppa Toscana didn't even come and weren't even offered, that's annoying but I can live with it. The other waiter, the one serving the tables around me, he was helping his guests like 8 or 9 times between when my waiter checked in on me, that really hurt because it felt like I was abandoned the whole time I was there. It was genuinely just a really low quality OG experience, and I felt simply unwelcome.

But like I said - I understand when you have new people sometimes there's a learning curve. However, when I asked for help with a problem with my order, I was immediately shunned and told a manager would be with me. Another 10 minutes later the manager came over, which is fine, I'm happy to chat. I was really just looking for a quick fix, not some drawn-out pseudo-legal argument.

The manager obviously hadn't had even the first introduction to "Hospitality" or "Customer Service" as I was greeted with an unfriendly and cold "what's the problem" coupled with a side of "lacking empathy" and "genuine displeasure in helping." I started explaining the issues I was having, and the manager started arguing with me. Like excuse me, are you serious right now? Do you even have a clue how many times I've been to Olive Garden? Do you even know the first thing about how OG treats customers? Obviously not. Seriously, I can excuse a new waiter for being new, but when a manger comes at me with a terrible attitude - I'm not paying money to be treated like garbage. Get real.

I am a kind and loving person, but after how she made me feel tonight, I genuinely hope that manager gets fired and ends up on the street. I walked in ready to leave a giant Christmas tip, and I walked out ready to burn it down. Out of hundreds of trips to Olive Garden, I can categorically affirm this was the single worst experience I've ever had. No exaggeration. Will not be coming back to this...

I wish I could leave 0 stars. So today (3/10/2013@7pm) was my 3rd year anniversary with my girlfriend. I thought it would be nice to eat at the local olive garden (3755 Alton Pkwy, Irvine, CA). So we walk in and immediately we got an awkward silence and blank stare from the host boy (young, brown hair, feminine looking), who walked us to our table without saying a word. We realized that we were seated in the far right room of the building, where only minorities (alike us) were seated. The host boy handed us our menus and didn’t care to say something like “the waitress will be with you shortly.” But during the moment, I just overlooked this rudeness and looked thru the menu. As my girlfriend and I sat there, we noticed that we were constantly being ignored. The brunette waiter (I didn’t catch her name) walked by us two times to ask us if we need any water or if we were ready to order like any usual restaurant. There was also a tall older gentleman (6’3”+) and a younger gentleman who was standing right next to us at the bar, who both ignored us when we were ready to order. The taller one then proceeded to walk past us with his head down twice, grabbing the check from the table next to us and coming back. Than the only other waitress there, proceeded to help a table behind us, than the next table after (row of 3 tables, we were in the end), than as she walked by our table I saw her glimpse momentarily at us and immediately look away as I made eye contact and helped the table in front of us. Note it has already been 10-15 minutes, and absolutely no service has been received. Ultimately, we were very pestered and decided to walk out. As we walk out the same blonde waitress said “thank you,” which I’m assuming is the instinctive thing to say to customers as they walk again. This obviously showed how much attention they paid to us. This has been the worst service I have ever received at a restaurant. It seems as if Olive Garden is having a tough time in this economy, but the poor customer service is inexcusable for any restaurant as long as they are in business. This used to be one of my favorite Italian Food restaurants that I would frequent on holidays, but this is the last time I will ever...

I ordered takeout on a Tuesday afternoon for a dinner-sized chicken parmigiana. Notably, this comes with two pieces of chicken parmigiana. However, when I arrived home and checked my food, I noticed there was only one piece of chicken. They gave me the lunch-sized portion instead. No biggie, the difference is one piece of chicken and less pasta which could be easily remedied with a small compensation.

I called back to alert them of the error. Matthew answered the phone and assured there were no errors because he packed my food. He even arrogantly asked me to check again to see if I missed a big, impossible-to-miss piece of chicken. Check the picture below, Matthew, if you still don't believe me. There's not even space to fit another chicken which is why the dinner-sized portion comes in a bigger square box instead of the circular one seen below. Anyways, we came to an agreement to send a gift card to my email as compensation.

An hour passes by and I call again to double check they had written down my email correctly because Michael often gets misspelled with Micheal. A different girl picks up and agrees to recite the email she had on her. As I suspected, she spelled out M-i-c-h-e-a-l which I then corrected, stating it is a-e-l. However, she rudely refuted saying "Yeah, that's what I said." She then stated that I would receive my gift card within 48 hours and if you couldn't tell by why I'm writing this review, I never received it. I don't know if they got my email wrong or simply just forgot.

The food was also off that day. Pasta was overcooked and they barely put any sauce making the pasta as dry as a desert, as evident in the picture. The zuppa toscana soup they gave was also 80% potatoes.

All in all, the fact that this small incident was treated with such disrespect and carelessness is shameful. It ruined my day, and now my whole week. To everyone who served me on Tuesday, servers and cooks, I am praying on...