Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Lancaster

First off, let me just empathize that yes, I know there is a staffing issue all over, and yes everyone needs to be patient. But I also feel people should realize this type of thing can happen and it isn't ok. It is not fair to the waiting staff if everyone isn't on the same page. Also, maybe I can be too tolerant, but this was our experience.

It started off as we asked if we could sit in a booth. Instead of just saying I don't have the staff available to seat you in a booth right now and given us the option to wait a few minutes. We are bluntly told they have no booths. In fact, they don't have booths. Huh?

Now the restaurant is NOT full and we can clearly see at least 4 to 5 open clean booths in the section were taken to. (I even would even have been willing to even wait while they cleaned the dirty booth.) But we are told this is the only table they have available in the entire restaurant.

We look around confused. What? So as we stand there looking at the hostess, like what do you mean? She then tells us we to stand their at the table while she goes up front to ask the older hostess. She comes back, the answer is NO. There are no booths and there are no other tables. This is it.🤯

Ok then, I guess, whatever? We sit down at this half booth seat with a chair that backs it's self into the thruway. Not great, but so be it. Strike 1.🤐

As we are patiently waiting for our waiter. The older hostess comes walking around and is looking at the tables and counting. I watch her and notice that not only 1 booth was dirty, but multiple tables by the windows are with dirty dishes. And she is obviously looking to seat another party. Which she does! Luckily it wasn't a booth. But they begin to clean up the tables. Strike 2. 🧐

Finally, after 10 or 15 minutes our waiter comes by. We order drinks, an appetizer and our dinners all at once. We then see the older hostess walk by and back again holding a container of soap for the bathroom? She must have needed to fill it because it was running out of her hands on her way back to the entrance pouring all over her and the floor. 😬

After a couple of minutes the waiter returns with our salad. We begin to eat. Next he brings our appetizer and apologizes for not having our drinks ready because the bartender hasn't finished them yet and offers us water. Sure. Great!😊

We start on our salads, still no drinks. Finally, as we are waiting to drink something with our salad, he brings us our dinner. And tells us our drinks are still not done. That he has been checking and the bartender hasn't made them yet. Not even the water? 😠 Strike 3 & 4.

He continues to apologize and I say, well so far our experience from the start hasn't been too wonderful. It isn't the relaxing or enjoyable experience I was hoping for. 😔

Honestly, it was great that the food came out faster than McDonald's, but slow it down a bit. We haven't even finished our salad and appetizer, nor have we had anything to drink.

He finally returns with our drinks. The food was typical deliciousness of an Olive Garden. Always very good and fresh. It's not like the authentic privately own Italian restaurants, it is chain restaurant food. But still very good.

The specialty drinks they offered, we liked as well. Though, I can tell you the waiter felt bad and gave us the appetizer for free. However, we feel it wasn't his fault our expectations weren't met and we did give him a good tip.

So my review is this. Good food. 😊 Questionable service; but these are the times we are in. Not everyone wants to work, who does? But hell, we still try to do the best that we can at our job and sometimes not everyone can make it perfect, but we all need to understand too that everyone is at least trying. Hell, the hostess is cleaning the bathrooms!

Thank you Daniel for trying to give us a good experience. You were excellent. 😊 Thank you Olive Garden for good food and drinks. Fast and slow, it was still good. Please know these people who are working for you are doing it and trying to make it...

You should All Be Very Proud of Yourselves, especially Gina!

…. I would like to compliment Gina, our server, While food is Special in its own way and certainly keeps people coming back, There’s nothing like an exceedingly pleasant, server who is A real “People-person” and has a knack for the service industry, which is often so underestimated because it’s a lot of hard work and many different aspects of it,from your shifts of Long hours, Hard floors, sometimes unforgiving customers, Heavy Trays, Constant running, And always having to be “On” from one table to the next, I can’t think of a server I’ve seen in ages that has been as exceptionally talented and ready for a server trainer or guest services management position than Gina, If you were to speak of the kind of server that one percent of which really rarely ever rise to the top of, in terms of quality, follow up, follow through, friendliness, and Professionalism, She’s it, Gina was the picture perfect Example any Manager would be proud to tell their team to follow,because while the food is good enough to bring people like us back, it’s people like Gina that will bring us back often, I want to say 1 or 2 other things real quickly, service like Gina’s, and Food Like this, It all speaks of Excellence all the way around, it speaks a lot on behalf of management and leadership of a location with an inner restaurant culture like this that outwardly shines by such leaps and bounds, I can tell you that Especially with A Server Like Gina, who totally makes for that rare 0000.1 chance, almost with the same odds of winning the lottery, of having such Exemplary Customer service and With such Personality to spare, and delicious Food quality, This Olive Garden is doing it right, They really run the Example that sets the bar, The only thing they could do better is to keep promoting Gina with every opportunity possible,because she deserves it, I can tell you that she’ll only reward your Decision to do so, because as someone who’s had my original recipes recreated and followed From Here to Across the pond, from cookware company sponsors, to the world food championships world chef event, Home shopping networks, I was the Executive Chef at One of the #1 Rated Bed and Breakfasts in the U.S., and still have my food blogs followed by major Television studios, their Business leaders, vendors, brand ambassadors and even some “Household names” I’ve also owned a Restaurant and Bed and Breakfast, and can tell You that when you go out to eat, You hope it will be at least “good”, Like a passing impressionists’ painting of a faint memory of a generally decent dish with kind,but usually forgettable service,But then there’s that 1 rare chance you’ll find a lasting memory somewhere, as a surprisingly good or new “favorite” place You’ll Reward with your loyalty,and this Olive Garden is it, I would love a copy of my review to be forwarded to the corporate office as a Compliment to this establishment, and Gina, Give Gina a great path with plenty of incredible Opportunities because she’s the best of the best, Just like this rare example of a Chain restaurant that Is the strongest link out of all of them in the Chain! In closing, Before We left tonight I said to Gina, I Am a Food Blogger and Love to Write reviews and will be leaving one about Her she so selflessly said “I don’t even care if you do that, because while it’s so kind of you to say, you don’t need to, all I care about isn’t anything about or for me, it’s that You and Your table Have had the best Time and Memory Here Possible I can Guarantee you that most people never have or will experience a server of such outstanding character Like this, But if you do, You certainly won’t forget it, and I hope you Give Her a Pat on the back and a “Job well done” because she should be very proud of Herself and I Hope you applaud Her for being the rare type of person who always does the right thing even when no one else is looking and who does it with Such An All Star Personality, and...

Edit to add: I did receive a $40 gift voucher with an apology from management. Since I now have a gift card, I will try again. Stay tuned.

We’ve been eating at this Olive Garden adjacent to Park City for years, always choosing to eat there on a special occasion. Last night, while discussing where we should get food (we’re DINKs(dual income no kids)/we out a lot), he mentioned OG and I agreed that was a great choice since it had been a month!

We did take out and it was ready within a few minutes of us pulling into our parking spot. We drove the 10 miles/20 minutes home and pulled the food out of the bag. I saw it and I wanted to scream, “would they eat THAT?!?! Do THEY think that looks good?” So frustrating!

I always get the Tour of Italy because I like a variety of foods. My meal looked exceptionally unappealing, disappointing at the very least, just look at the pictures. There was barely any melted cheese on top, isn’t chicken parm supposed to be covered in cheese? I have an addiction to cheese. I’m pretty sure the fettuccine barely had a drop of Alfredo sauce on it (& no, it didn’t sink down to the bottom), I TRIED to eat the fettuccine last night but it was dried out and rubbery, I couldn’t stomach it.

My husband ordered a ‘design it yourself’ meal and it barely had any sauce on it either, you can see from the pictures.

The chicken parm was okay tasting even without any cheese but the lasagna noodles were a wee bit crusty in spots. I only ate half of those two and it wasn’t that great.

This morning, I was able to doctor it up by smothering those remaining halves with cheese and reheat what I didn’t eat last night. The fettuccine was inedible (I tried adding cheese to that as well). Garbage.

There has been a steady decline in quality and taste of this Olive Garden for years but it only gets worse every time I eat there …“fool me once!”…

I truly believe this was mostly due to it being a takeout order, I don’t think it dried out on the drive home. I believe that it was packaged that way in the restaurant for us.

I like to think that it would not have looked and tasted as bad if it had been served to us, on a plate, while eating in the restaurant, because they wouldn’t dare present something like that in person where I couldn’t complain or send it back.

The breadsticks & salad were fresh, so I guess that’s a positive.

My husband surprised me on our anniversary last month with a take out order from Olive Garden and while it was better than what we experienced last night, it still wasn’t up to the original OG quality of years past.

My husband is scared to order me food anymore and I don’t blame him but I am definitely fed up with the quality for the price we pay.

What happened with this Olive Garden?

P.S. I did the survey and asked for someone to contact me but never received an email confirmation. I’ve since thrown out the receipts with our information/order # after...