Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Lombard

I have been going to Olive Garden, mostly this one, since I was a kid. Recently this restaurant has taken a serious turn for the worse. Last night went to eat and sat on the patio. Our server only had two tables. After over an hour my date had gotten his drink, but I had not. We ordered the same drink so why we only got one I don't know. Reminded the server twice, still never got it. Servers here are supposed to have soup or salad to you within five to nine minutes of ordering. After an hour the entire meal showed up at once, including the soups, missing several items. The service here is good if you get one of the seasoned servers. But new servers have no idea what they are doing even after ten days of training. This is the forth time that this has happened to me personally at this establishment. On this occasion I was given a twenty five dollar gift card which didn't even come close to making up for the problems I have experienced here. Additionally, I tend to spend around fifty to one hundred for a meal. My date was given a gift card as well. The manager went out of his way to state it was two separate cards since we had said we were each going our separate ways. My date was my fiance and we live together, so not sure why he thought that. Since he wasn't paying for anything, he just handed it to me saying he was never going back. I will be looking for a different Olive Garden. When all the new servers are this bad it means that the problem is with the management and training, not the servers. Considering it took around ten minutes to hunt down the manager when there was a problem, I can see the management being the issue. He repeatedly did not answer his radio and the hostesses were asking each other "think he's in the office again?". As a twenty five year veteran of restaurant work, a manager should be on the floor working, not hiding in the office. I worked at this restaurant for about a week around a year ago. This kind of service as well as other things I was told and personally witnessed make me never want to eat at this location again. For the record I was not fired, I quit when my trainer told me that I would never be promoted to management because of my disabled son. Appearantly being the parent of a disabled child means I won't be able to work the hours the established needs me too. Keep in mind that they decided this without asking me about what hours I could work as a manager or before I even officially applied for the position. I contacted corporate over this matter and wasn't even offered a transfer to a different location. They did nothing to right the wrong that made me walk off the job. Darden used to have morals. Obviously those days...

Service, food, and location were nasty! In summary, absolutely terrible service from hosts to servers (food was late, no unlimited soup, drinks came after food, and we had 7 thirsty adults!), gross bathrooms, nasty high chair and booster seat, the whole place had an odd smell. The only time my server showed up was to give us the check, though we requested the server multiple times beforehand. We called ahead, because we have a baby and a 2.5 year old, and didn't want to wait too long for a table... they said the wait is about 30 minutes, so we showed up 20 minutes later, and they started giving us attitude right away, and told us we have to wait another 40 minutes, because they have other people to seat.. they also couldn't find my "call ahead name", so then we figured out they put down the wrong name, but that didn't change the new wait time for us, though every walk-in that they got, received the same wait time as us, and we called 20 minutes prior, to ensure we didn't have to deal with a crazy long wait! The attitude was just disgusting! I've worked in the service industry, I've been a waitress, a bartender, a hostess, a manager... I would never allow for such unprofessional behavior!! Needless to say, their staff needs training! The unlimited soups and breadsticks arrived with our entrees... Our drinks arrived after our food did... That soup wasn't unlimited, as we couldn't find our server to ask for more soup! We asked another server, who was close by, and they said they would tell our waiter, but the soup nor the server arrived, until they just showed up with the check! The bathrooms were filthy, and the whole restaurant had an odd, unpleasant smell we couldn't put our finger on, and it wasn't food... This place should close down, get a deep cleaning, train their staff properly, and then maybe reopen, because after this experience, I cannot say that I will ever go to an Olive...

Olive Garden is a great restaurant. Their food is good, they have very kind employees, and everyone there is super understanding. The only reason I rated two stars is for their reservation system. You must wait in a very long online waitlist, usually an hour to two hours at peak times. Then, you are called back with an urgent message that you’ve reached the front of the queue and if don’t return within 5 minutes your spot will be forfeited. Quickly, my family and I rushed over from the mall when we finally got this text. All to arrive at the restaurant and be told there is a further 30-45 minute wait to actually be seated at a table. All of the staff were super kind and angels, but the system in place needs to be redone. There were around 30 people just waiting in the small entrance area of the restaurant all for their reservations too, because if they dared to leave they would probably miss their table whenever it became ready and be given to the next person there. Please, Olive Garden, I urge you to reform this system. Adapt Opentable and allow for timed reservations, create a wait system that doesn’t call you back just to wait another half hour, do something. It truly puts the restaurant at a loss when the food is so delicious and well priced yet customers are left angry by the unorganized and messy system in place, which causes them to wait an hour or more just standing around at the restaurant. Such a simple organizational change would make the restaurant a hundred times better than it already is (which...