Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Joplin

This is 2 bad experiences in a row, and I won't be back to the Joplin location.

Our waiter did not listen, he was on older gentleman and at first seemed nice, but like he either couldn't understand or was not paying attention. I ordered my drink, he repeated it back to me, took everyone else's order, came back to me and said he couldn't catch what my drink was. I repeated it, and he wrote it down. When it came out, it wasn't in the same glass, as usual and didn't have the same garnishment, but it tasted right so I THINK it was what I ordered. He rushed to take our food order, he didn't ask If we were ready, didn't ask if we wanted an appetizer, just came with drinks and said what do you want. I apologize and said I hadn't had enough time yet to decide, so he turned to the next guest at my table and asked her, like taking the other orders would give me 45 seconds to figure it out. When he got to me I still wasn't really sure but under pressure, I picked what I wanted. AGAIN, he acted like he got it, and then said he had no idea what I ordered. I repeated it again, slower, nope... so I got out the menu and physically showed him my order, and then he's trying to leave as I'm telling him the appetizer we wanted, which typically they ask for when you get drinks. only a few minutes go by and we get soup and salad which is great, but no breadsticks. 10 minutes or so goes by and a waiter comes by and asks if we ordered mozzarella sticks, and we did, so we tell him we did. He then looks as if we might be lying and physically grabs the kiosk out of my daughter's hand as she is playing the game on it, i guess to see what table we are at.... very uncomfortable. He then says these aren't our and walks away. He offers them to 2 or 3 other tables before coming back, AGAIN taking the kiosk to check the table, and then doesn't give them to us, just sets them on the edge of our table and says I'm going to leave these right here so I can find out where they go, and then leaves.... so we don't touch OUR order of mozzarella sticks. A few more minutes comes by and our waiter comes by and we ask if we can get breadsticks and he replies 'oh yeah we have those," and leaves to get them. When he comes back, I ask if those our in fact OUR appetizer, and explain that somebody left them and said they would be back to verify. He doesn't acknowledge or apologize that our food has been sitting on the edge of the table because we weren't sure we were ok to touch it, and instead says "yeah those are mozzarella sticks, didn't you order those?" Like again, he either isn't understanding or he's not paying any attention. Our food comes, it was nothing to note. He comes by a while later to see if we need boxes, and then brings those, and then he disappears. We see him bussing several tables and he never offers a check or mints. I was annoyed, because the mints are part of olive garden, they have been since i was a kid, but i decide to just pay on the kiosk so we can go because this has not been a great experience. There WAS an option to pay, but it was greyed out and wouldnt let me. I tried several times. 15-20 minutes later he comes by as we are clearly sitting there waiting to pay so we can go home and says " was there something else that you needed?" And he had a clearly annoyed tone that we were still there. I said we needed to pay and he said, and I'm quoting verbatim because the verbiage AND the tone was rude and off putting "I'm sorry, I didn't know you've never been to an olive garden". I was like, I'm sorry? And he repeated, "yeah I didn't know you had never been to an olive garden before, you pay on the kiosk". Now, I've been to olive garden 2-3 times a month, at least, for probably 10 years, minus the last 5 or so months since my last bad experience here, I KNOW there's an option to pay by card on the kiosk. I've still ALWAYS gotten both a receipt, and mints. He had zero idea if we were paying cash or card. Never bothered to ask, never said have a good day, nothing. I told him the kiosk didn't work and he acted as if I had done...

This review is long but completely worth reading.

The new management here is absolutely awful. The whole place is an absolute no for me, ever again. If you work here, you will notice they will allow "certain" employees to be walked on/treated poorly. Their food often times comes out very poorly as well. Lacking sauce and / or burnt. Etc...

Their main goal here is to hire young individuals to just (get the job done) and it baffles me when things aren't done correctly they do not make headway to get it fixed and / or hire suitable individuals who actually WANT to work.

While working here, I DID WAY MORE than I was ever expected to do. For $6/hr like SCRUBBING WALLS, OFFERING to always pick up shifts, scrubbing black sinks, scrubbing stained tea machines, stocking servers stations, taking their plates if they're busy with tables, I scrubbed underneath the to-go stand by the bar. It was completely covered in dirt underneath it. BUT what KILLED me the most was when I scrubbed the black stuff OFF THE METAL BIN YOUR ICE SITS IN before you are served a drink! If there was paper on the floor, I bent down to pick it up. I cleaned high chairs. If I saw something that needed to be done, I did it whether it was my job or not. Oftentimes, I heard people say, "That's not my job they will do it." We were all supposed to be family here, right? What was the difference between being family to your customers and working together and helping each other out? Favoritism at this place plays a HUGE role! I went completely out of my way for this franchise.

You would think a franchise would appreciate a worker such as only making $6/hr (including tips 40 cent per table). Mind you were ONLY MAX $45-$50 at MOST ... You could work 8 hours at $6/hr here and only make $48 BEFORE taxes. (without tips) It really was not worth being walked on.

Mind you, I chose to be a busser because I was AMAZING at what I did, VERY FAST, specific and EFFICIENT!

While working here, I had a very sweet guest ask me some questions. She explained to me that she was watching me clean, and it looked like I had been there for a very long time because of how I cleaned my tables and did things. I told her I was new, but VERY specific about how I was whenever I cleaned the tables/floors before a new guest arrived! She replied, "Oh yes, I can tell because that lady with the white shirt (she literally gave this girls description, it was our host) walked over here to clean your table and swept all of the NOODLES onto the floor while wiping the table. She did not even move the salt and pepper shaker to clean the WHOLE table. At this point, I was completely blown away, and I did what any worker should do. I immediately apologized and began cleaning the table and FLOOR.

Moments before what caused me to walk out, I had a 20-year-old young girl walk up to me and disrespect me in front of customers! Mind you, I am 30 years old and just no.. Especially if I have done nothing to you! Respecting individuals is a thing, but a lot of young kids these days do not understand that. I believe if she had something to say, she should have pulled me aside to say it. She should've NEVER disrespected customers while they were trying to dine with their families! My manager tried pulling me in the office moments after. Since I already had a disagreement with the other manager a week or so before this, I knew it was not worth the conversation/ heartache. The disagreement with the other manager was that I ordered food during my shift (we are supposed to/ allowed to do that) well, my food ended up going missing 2'xs (different nights) and I was told that if it went missing I STILL had to purchase the food regardless of it going missing or me getting it.... So I had to PAY for something I did NOT get.

If you go in to eat here, pay attention to them whenever they clean the tables. You'll see it all yourself. Tables stay dirty. Sad. This place has done nothing but gone downhill. I will never return, and I do NOT recommend the Joplin Olive...

Unfortunately we had one of the worst experiences we have ever had while dining out last night. I would like to believe that our waitperson did not have proper training, but really do not have any way to know.

First, we were sat in an area where multiple tables had stacks of dirty dishes on various tables. These were taken away after about 5-10 minutes, but it was not a pleasant atmosphere.

Second, our waitperson never introduced themself until he was about to bring the bill, did not talk about any specials (still not sure if there were any) and seemed upset that we only wanted to order water to drink. He actually asked if his tea was not good enough for us.

Multiple times he forgot to bring the water, and breadsticks, then forgot the cheese grater, never ever asked if we wanted any refills, you get the idea.

To make matters worse my silverware looked like it had not been washed before it was wrapped in the napkin - the waitperson never even acknowledged the dirty silverware.

He actually took our complete order before we got water. He then tried to deliver our soup and salad to a different table before bringing it to us without bringing the cheese grater, and still no water or breadsticks.

He went to go get our water and the cheese grater, but it was so long that I was almost finished with my bowl of soup before he brought the drinks or the cheese grater, and still did not bring any breadsticks. A table nearby had already had 2 baskets of breadsticks by now.

Our main dishes came within minutes after he brought the drinks and cheese grater, and the waitperson warned us that it was fresh out of the oven and very hot, but my meal was actually lukewarm at best, and unfortunately we still did not have any breadsticks until we were nearly halfway through eating the main dish of our meal.

Oh and to the other waiter who was flirting/helping the girls at the next table, Gnocchi originated in Northern Italy and is actually an Italian word for "Lumps" but it refers to a type of pasta that is similar to a dumpling. So you might want to remember that it is not a "Spain word" when you are serving Italian based dishes in an Italian themed restaurant while trying to sound smart.

I just hope someone from the company will read this and turn things around for future guests, because if this is the regular experience you think customers will enjoy, I will probably...