Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Kansas City

Last weekend, my partner and I went by for a late dinner together. It was about 8PM on a Friday night, business hours were posted to be till 11PM and the parking lot was relatively empty. We went in and were seated right away, but far back in the restaurant, beside two tables that were seated and nearing the end of their meal. We were given menus and left at our table for 20 minutes with several servers and wait staff walking by to check in on the two tables, clear dishes, refill drinks, etc.

At the 15 minute mark, we're talking, waiting for someone to bring us waters, ask for a drink order, something, anything. But we're chatting, we figured it was a bit busy in the kitchens - it's fine. A few minutes later as more of the same staff is bussing these two, now empty tables, we've decided on what we want for drinks, apps, our main entrée. I hit the call server button on the screen sitting on our table, it blinks red and those same waitstaff walks right on by us repeatedly.

I turn to ask my partner, should we just leave? They've clearly forgotten and are now actively ignoring our table in the back. He's getting upset and I'm getting upset, wondering what we did to be stuck in the back and ignored.

We leave. The hostess who sat us 20+ minutes ago wishes us a goodnight as we leave. I'm so irritated that I don't say anything and we go across the street to Red Lobster instead and have a very attentive, awesome service.

I understand that waitressing is hard work, sometimes you don't want to be there at all, least of all on a Friday night. I get that mistakes can happen, too. But this was beyond ridiculous, don't seat people at the furthest table in the building and repeatedly walk by them, blatantly ignore them for twenty plus minutes. People made eye contact with us, saw us open menus, pointedly look around. They weren't incredibly swamped, there were plenty of other patrons there. Why were we singularly ignored? Wouldn't recommend this location, but rather the Red Lobster across the street, Linda, our waitress...

Good food - they had Many employees & service was not great.... not our waitresses fault- she was trying very hard.... the employees appeared to be ganging up and making life more difficult for her. (I have no idea why.) It's sad that management didn't get involved. [There were employees standing around (3 in the hostess area & they were there for a long time chatting & laughing)] Another table made false accusations against the waitress (attempt to get a free meal maybe?) & the manager was heard loudly "talking" in the kitchen ... my husband tried to speak with the manager before we left..... the manager couldn't be bothered... left our phone number but never received a call. We did not know the waitress - yes, she was struggling but who wouldn't, in such a hostile work environment. Sad that management would let this happen. The opposite side of the restaurant had many waiters/waitresses (even an over abundance) & seemed to be getting along great..... and yet management allowed things to progress to such an unacceptable degree. I used to love going to Olive Garden (my husband doesn't).... he took me as a special treat & what a disappointment! Unfortunately for Olive Garden, the poor management caused a loss of business, who wants to eat in that environment?

*Feel I need to mention this - I had a broken patella, as well as, cancer. I felt we were seated on the smaller side by the kitchen because I was masked and in an immobilizer leg brace. They didn't want someone wearing a mask, in with their "more important" patrons. And while management may come back and say they seated us there for my safety - then I question why would you seat us at the closest table to the kitchen, where so many employees where traveling, non-stop AND ALL the dirty dishes were being piled (yes, in the dining area) ACROSS from our table?

Our waitress should get 4-5 stars - she was...

We decided to stop in for dinner since it's been a while. We got seated right away because they weren't busy, seated in a section with only one other table, a family of 6. Our server appeared and took our drink orders. We usually just get water, and this still took her several minutes even though she only had one other table. She took our food orders and disappeared. Meanwhile, another couple was seated in the same section so our server now had three tables. I overheard a server in another section telling a table there was only one person in the kitchen so the food was coming out slow. Okay, fair enough, it happens. We were not informed. Our server spent plenty of time at the first and third tables she had but ignored us. Finally our food came out, and that was the best part of the whole visit. We didn't even get breadsticks until after we had gotten our entrees. We were lucky to have gotten salad, but just one bowl even though I requested more. When our server brought our breadsticks finally, I asked for a refill of water. She said she'd be back. Wrong. A fourth table was seated in this same section and largely ignored while the other two tables were getting plenty of attention. She finally brought us two more breadsticks to go. Still no more salad, no more water. Fortunately I was able to pay the bill on the gizmo at the table so I wouldn't have to wait longer for her to run the payment.

If it weren't for the food being good I would refuse to go back. I don't expect a server to hover over me, but when there's only 4 tables in a section and two of them are being ignored, even after one of the other two leaves, then I don't go back. No refills, no checking back with us to make sure everything was okay. Overall a very...