Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Knoxville

This is normally one of the better Olive Garden restaurants, but this evening it lost its place on our favorites list. I realize that losing just one customer will never be noticed in the grand scheme of things, but if things like this happen with other patrons, it will eventually have an impact on their bottom line.

Things started going bad from the minute we were seated. We hadn't quite decided yet on our entrees so asked for our server to please bring the salad and bread sticks to save some time while we decided on our entrees.. We were eating in the bar, which was about half filled, and it took the better part of 15 minutes to get the salad and breadsticks. When they arrived, we ordered our entrees.

One of the existing faults of this particular Olive Garden (that I overlook) is serving pasta dishes with too little sauce. Every time I've ordered Fettuccine Alfredo it's almost dry. But I've started simply ordering "extra sauce" which solves the problem.

Tonight I ordered one of Olive Garden's new sauces "Creamy Pesto", which is pesto sauce mixed with some Alfredo sauce. This is a very good sauce, but I forgot to order extra so my pasta came out with their signature "dry look". I tasted it, then started looking for our waiter. It was quite a while before he was visible, but when I did get his attention I asked for some extra sauce for my pasta.

Here's where it unravels even further. He said, "Yeah, I noticed it didn't have much sauce when I picked it up". OK...why didn't you ask the kitchen to add some at that time? Instead, he brought it to our table knowing it didn't have enough sauce. I asked for some extra sauce and a full ten minutes later it arrived. Only it wasn't the Creamy Pesto sauce that came with my entree, it was plain Pesto Sauce.

Fast forward through another wait to find our server again, told him the problem, and he said I better talk to my manager about this. By this time my wife was finished with her Shrimp Piccata (which she said was excellent) and my pasta was cold. I ate a few more bites and gave up. Finally, the manager came by with some of the correct sauce, but by then it was too late. My wife was finished eating, my pasta was cold, and I was pretty much "over" the entire ordeal.

The manager offered a free dessert, which I politely declined. I didn't come to eat dessert...I came to eat dinner, which I didn't get. He then offered another glass of wine...I didn't want that either. I just wanted to be served what I ordered in time to eat with my wife, which didn't happen.

I honestly wouldn't have accepted it, but it would have been nice if the manager had at least offered to take my botched entree off our check, but that wasn't offered. Sometimes it's the simple gesture of goodwill that can make all the difference in these situations where things just don't go right.

I really do regret this, because I enjoy eating at Olive Garden and this is the closest one to us. I'm sure one day I'll try it again, but it won't be anytime soon. I sincerely hope someone on the Olive Garden staff reads this who cares...obviously, that particular night...

Olive Garden is by far my favorite Italian restaurant. I've been to many of them throughout my lifetime and I will continue going just because my family and I love their food. As for the restaurant we last visited in Knoxville Turkey Creek location, I WILL NOT go there again. We loved the place, it looked different from the other Olive Gardens we have visited. It felt very relaxing just going in. We were greeted, called and sat down very quickly. Here is where it took a turn downhill and made me just want to get up and leave. The waiter took forever to get to our table. Once he got to our table, he didn't introduce himself to us (when all other waiters and waitresses do), he THREW our coasters on the table when normally they would reach over and place the coasters down. He also THREW our straws on the table. We told him what we wanted to drink and eat at the same time. He took a long time to bring our drinks. Normally you'll get your soups and salad before your main entré, it took an additional 10 minutes for us to get that. (And I need to mention that the place was not busy at all).I thought that we were going to get everything at the same time. Once I got my soup, low and behold there was a hair in it. Disgusting. He tried making a joke about it by saying that it wasn't his and of course he is bald, but so am I and I was not in the mood for any jokes especially from him since we felt that we were receiving bad service from him. I noticed that he tried to lighten up the mood but it was just bad timing. He didn't offer to discount the meal for the hair issue. I didn't cause a scene cause I'm not that type of person but I will let you know that I'm not happy with your service just by the way I'm looking at you. With all this being said, I just hope that an Olive Garden representative looks at this and rectifies the problem with the employee. And the reason why I'm so detailed with my experience is because I don't want someone else to go through the same thing. For that reason, I'm giving it a 2 star. If it weren't for that particular waiter, I would have given it a 5 star rating.

UPDATE: I had posted the above review about a week ago. This update got to the attention of Guest Relations. Someone from Guest Relations reached out to me immediately to discuss the matter at hand. After reviewing what had happened and speaking with general manager of the location, they were sincere apologetic for what happened and were taking immediate action so something like that won't happen again. This shows me how much the people at Olive Garden not only care about their customers but value them as well. Because I posted a review about my experience, I've decided to post a review about their quickness in the handling of the situation. For that reason, I've changed my original 2 star rating to a 5 star rating. Thank you Olive Garden for your time and attention to this and other matters. Look forward to dining with...

As I am writing this review I wish there was a negative star and regretfully have to give 1 star to make my post as I sadly recommended this place for dinner for my sister and I tonight. I was really looking forward to the food there. We were seated fairly quickly about 5 minutes we had a drink and had given our order to the waitress. My sis had ordered sweet tea and we requested lemon from the waitress - the waitress acknowledged our request and an hour later we were still sitting there with our drinks mostly gone and no lemon and no food of any sort - not even the salad or, bread sticks - multiple couples / people were seated and their order taken and they arrived after we did by the same waitress. The waitress never acknowledged we were even in the restaurant after taking our order and getting our drinks - she brought others who had arrived after us their salads, bread sticks and drinks so, after sitting there as long as we did and no service we decided we had been ignored and definitely deserve better service so, we went down the road to eat at Dickie's BBQ where we were acknowledged at least three times after we had paid for and ordered our food and were seated with our food which too about 5 minutes if that - we were amazed at the service we received there and to be honest the Olive Garden waitress we had could take a lesson or, two from their servers.... There was no reason this waitress should be allowed to waitress in a nice restaurant if she can't or, rather is unwilling to attend to everyone in her area. When you have several tables seated after you and you are watching them get everything that you have been waiting for then it's time to leave.... we walked out the door due to the service or, rather lack of. I don't think I have ever regretted going somewhere as much I did Olive Garden tonight. I highly doubt I will recommend going there again and the waitress we had I think she should have some lessons or, find another place to work there are plenty of people in the world that would love to have a job and would welcome and actually serve everyone in the order they were received. An hour is too long to wait on anything to eat in...