Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Jackson

Terrible experience-High Price for Bad Service

My husband has been coming to the Jackson, TN location for decades & I for about 10 years. My husband last night said it was the worst experience he has ever had at a restaurant, and I agree. We have decided that was our last time ever eating at the Jackson, TN Olive Garden. We drove an hour to eat there. For starters, we clearly said we wanted to not eat in the bar, but in the dining room, since we were celebrating my last weekend before returning to teach. She sat us IN THE BAR. We didn’t complain, since we usually sit in the bar. It took a long time for a server to acknowledge us and she seemed very preoccupied & we seemed like an inconvenience. We ordered a glass of wine each. About 15 minutes later she sat 2 carafes of wine down & rushed off. We sat there for about another 5 minutes with no wine glasses to drink our wine until she came rushing out of the kitchen to bar. Instead, she passes us by to take the order of the table behind us. As she passes again, my husband motions to ask her about glasses, and without even looking at him, rushes past like she can’t be bothered and yells, “I’ll be back!” She did return, but to bring wine to the table behind us, which took a long time. She finally brought our glasses, which should have been on the table before they brought carafes. She took our order. We waited FOREVER on salads & bread. Finally, bread came out with hardly any Alfredo dipping sauce we ordered. We knew we were going to need more. Another excruciatingly long time passes & another girl came to say she would be taking over our table since our server’s shift ended (at 7:30). She asked for our order. We told her we’d already placed our orders. She should have known. We never did get our salads until our meals came out, and they were not brought out by our “new” server, but a 3rd young girl. Our salad came with our meals unfortunately. We asked for more Alfredo sauce, but by the end of the night, it never came, even though our first server told us we would get endless refills. We couldn’t remind our server we’d asked for more sauce because our waiter was NEVER around or way too busy serving others then running immed back to kitchen & disappearing. By then, it was too late to order more sauce. While we ate, a couple had a large dog that stood at our table & shook its entire body next to our food as they left. Uggh. When I finally requested a to-go box, no lie, it took 20 minutes for her to bring it, & that was only after I started to wave my arm at her. We saw at least 8 workers standing not far from the bar that she could have asked to bring us one, but instead, we sat waiting. She brought one too small for my food, then disappeared again for a long time. I finally asked for a bigger one which made her seeming annoyed. You’d think she would, but she did not ask if we wanted our bill. We were done with the long waits just to ask for something. I finally waived my cash at her from a distance. For mediocre food, TERRIBLE service with literally no server etiquette & customer service, $85 is way too much for a meal & experience like that. The servers literally seemed like they had no training at all on etiquette, and customers seemed annoying to them. We were not asked if we needed anything the entire meal & when we did need something it was impossible to find anyone to ask. We can spend $85 somewhere else & have great food and service. Olive Garden has gone way down hill in our opinion. There seemed to be no manager at all making sure customers were satisfied or that things went well. When servers are not trained well or taught serving etiquette, you lose business and they risk losing a job due to fewer customers. Olive Garden needs to invest in their training instead of fancy expensive commercials that portray it as a family fine dining, because with that kind of service, it is not. In the end, we paid a lot of money for a bad experience and a meal that shouldn’t have taken over 2 1/2 hours. And that’s how I ended my summer…..followed by an...

This Olive Garden is the one we've been going to for years. When a friend invited me out to lunch, I suggested Olive Garden. What a mistake.

I know they were busy. I don't take issue with that at all. However, I do take issue with people all around us being seated, getting their food, and leaving before we received anything.

Our server told us she had only been there five days. She definitely needed more training. I ordered the soup, salad and bread sticks. My friend ordered shrimp scampi.

Our server brought the salad. She asked the usual question if we wanted cheese on it. I said no; my friend said yes. Our server proceeded to grate cheese. A huge amount of cheese. Not only on the salad, but the table too! I just sat there and looked at all that cheese. She seemed to realize that I didn't want cheese. I mean usually, if one person doesn't want cheese with their salad, they will grate it on to your plate. But it's no big deal. I only mention it because it shows her inexperience. She offered to make me another salad, and I said, yes please, and thank you.

After a while, the new salad came out. But- it wasn't new. It had an abundance of brown, wilted, slimy lettuce. It was so gross. Meanwhile, people all around us (who had a different server), were digging into their salads, and the food they ordered. Our server eventually made a quick pass and asked if everything was okay. I was like, Nope! Pointed out the nasty salad. She mumbled something about showing it to whomever, I don't know. By this time I could see our pleasant lunch time coming apart at the seams. My friend still didn't have her shrimp scampi. I had no soup, nor did we have bread sticks.

Finally the soup and bread sticks came out. They were good. After a long time, my friend waved the server down and asked about her shrimp scampi. It was soooo very obvious that she had forgotten to put the order in. I mean, just admit it. We knew. Don't lie.

Another looooonnnggg wait. We were seriously thinking about just getting up and leaving. Saw her again, and my friend told her to just forget about the shrimp scampi. We had to leave. The server said, "Oh, it's coming out right now." She said she would get the manager to come over.

The manager offered to take off the salad part of my order, and take off the shrimp scampi for my friend. I told her- we weren't doing this for free food. I hate that. She said, I never said you were. I'm thinking, yeah but you were thinking about it. And the server's attitude- like WE had done something wrong.

You know, I could go on but then I could sell this as an e-book on Amazon, that's how long it is. Don't know if anyone will read this, but I feel better typing it out. My...

I usually Loooooove the Olive Garden. But very sad to say. We had to for refills on drinks twice. Server brought 4 bread sticks. Then we asked for two sides of Alfredo sauce for dipping. She brought the Alfredo but ,three people had a bread stick leaving one and she never brought bread sticks for the now cold sauce until we asked. She started are order , stopped it half way thru and said she needed to get drinks for table behind us. Then she came back and complained the kids at the table needed drinks,and now she would take are order. She just needed to calm them for the mom's next to us. Loud enough for them to hear. She offered no appetizer. And told me at three I had to order off the dinner menu. I told her I worked for Olive Garden in the past. And we always let people order off lunch menu ,even at dinner time. She informed me times had changed and she had been doing her job for 12 yrs. I was very nice and said it was only minutes after three. Dinner menu changes at shift change in the evening. She came back and acted like she did me a great favor and got the food in by minutes. I guess that meant 3:15????. I was amazed. Then she brought 4 boxes as we were eating.and said so we could take our food to go. One of my group had not at 10% of her meal. I said thanks but she would be back out to eat. We we had over half the food left. I also said our other guest wanted a desert. The server was perturbed we didn't know what it was. I said , we'll check when she gets back. She never asked the rest of us if we wanted one. I asked at the start of the meal for a chicken Alfredo and soup to go for a friend. She said she was waiting to put it in when we were ready to leave.Why?!?!!!? We asked to not have to wait,that I had along drive out of town.and just was dropping it off to a friend studying for a final. Soooo ,we packed the rest of the food up. Fiiinnnaly got the to go. Tipped nice. " For real". And left the worst service of our life. I took the time to type this. I Loooooove the Olive Garden. Except for the horrible experience in Jackson,TN. And this was supposed to be a...