Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Manchester

3/2023 - It has been a few years since the last review - I cannot even remember when it was. As it was only the last of several unpleasant experiences, we preferred driving to the Concord store. BUT NOW... Service excellent. Our waitress (Mia) was like a breath of fresh air. Quiet, friendly, and on top of everything. Her timing was perfect. As we were finishing last bites on one course, she was there with the next. The salad (still a little shy on tomato) was good. Uncharacteristically for OG, the lettuce was a little wilted. Since this is the first time I've ever seen this happen, it was probably an oversight. *Bread sticks were piping hot and DELICIOUS! We did not get the three dipping sauce option (now $4.49), as the bread was perfect by itself. *Motz appetizer was excellent. The seasoning & breading were perfect, and it came out nice & hot without being runny. The marinara was also excellent, with small chunks of tomato that were perfect. The Shrimp Scampi was also excellent. The pasta & shrimp were both cooked to perfection, and the scampi sauce was "just enough"... just enough to cover everything, without leaving a pool at the bottom of the bowl. There was a generous amount of diced tomato, and a good amount of asparagus. I enjoyed the service so much, I wanted to let the manager know. Dining Rm manager (Greg?) was interviewing (and from what we saw when we first sat down, he had no problems helping to serve, etc. Very friendly), so the Kitchen Manager (AJ) came out. AJ was friendly & personable, and we chatted for a few minutes. When I mentioned missing their original Steak Gorgonzola, he said that a test come-back is in the works. I'm a little excited about that!

-‐----------------------------------------------------- *The service was excellent - our waiter (Pat) stayed on top of everything. He stayed on top of drinks, and was always close without hovering. *The salad was excellent, but few tomatoes. The quantity was definitely less (since it is bottomless, the sparseness of tomato was really the issue) *The bread sticks were piping hot, but the taste was blah. The recipe has changed. We even paid an overpriced $3.49 for about 1/3c of marinara, and that also was bland. Disappointing. The Steak Gorgonzola has changed to "Braised Beef Gorgonzola". The meat tasted like boiled chuck roast with blah gravy tossed on as an after thought. My first bite of meat yielded a mouth full of fat. (It occurred to me that stew meat is leaner than the mess that was served). While the Alfredo sauce on the (undercooked) pasta tasted fine, it was eventually watered down by the blah gravy. I would gladly pay the price for the Steak Gorgonzola that they once served, but to charge $16 for a piddly (5 or 6 chunks) amount of fatty meat is robbery. While I have loved Olive Garden for years, I cannot see myself returning. Their "new" menu is lacking in class and quality, compared to...

We ate at the Manchester NH Olive Garden on 5 October 2022 for our grandmothers 71st birthday. We were there for THREE hours, every moment of which was wonderful!

Maggie was our waitress. Christian was our manager. They were both EXCELLENT. So patient, kind, truly like family would treat you if you came over for dinner. We could not have asked for better treatment from the staff.

Our grandmother took over an hour to decide what to eat. She gets easily overwhelmed and Maggie and Christian answered probably more questions in that hour than they normally do in a week. If they had others to wait on or needed to be elsewhere, we didn’t know it bc they made us feel welcomed to ask questions and gave meaningful answers. We never felt rushed or like an annoyance.

We were a party of 5. 3 adults and 2 children. Our meals arrived quickly. We had a wonderful time taking our time for another hour eating and talking. Then our grandmother took another lengthy period of time and round of questions to decide on her birthday dessert. The staff sang happy birthday and made this a truly incredible experience.

I’m a disabled combat woman veteran. My two children both have autism. The 3 of us can get overwhelmed. So can the 71 year old birthday girl. All of us had a wonderful time. We were a family that lives in different states. We wanted to spend time together in doors for her birthday bc it was raining and cold and we live too far away to meet at homes.

I could not have asked for a better time in a public restaurant to spend with family. Truly, if Christian or Maggie ever wished we would hurry up and leave or order already, we never felt a shred of it. I use to waitress and I know Maggie could’ve turned over 2-3 tables in that span of time easy. Possibly more for lunch. Yet she smiled and gave us endless patience. You’ve got some great staff! Thank...

A group of us met at your restaurant to have a drink before going to a movie. We sat at the bar, were greeted and our order taken and served. Things went downhill from there. The bartender was trying to get some glasses “unstuck” so she tapped them against the edge of the marble bar. Needless to say one of the glasses shattered and the glass went into the glass fridge!! She proceeded to clean up the broken glass and cut herself. She then disappeared presumably to take care of her cut. In the meantime a couple more friends joined, they got to see the glass breaking incident so they were not waited on. While we finished our drinks we watched a few servers jump in to make drinks for people in the dining room, still no one checked on our group. When the bartender returned, about 10 mins later, she began making drinks for the servers, we witnessed her retrieve a glass out of the glass fridge, yes where the broken glass still was bc she hadn’t finished cleaning it up yet; she looked at a glass, I’m guessing to see if it has any glass on or in it. She then used her un gloved hand to feel inside the glass for any slivers not just once but a few times!! I guess she didn’t find and because she then filled the same glass with a beverage from the beer taps near where I was sitting. Glass wasn’t rinsed or even washed after being in the vicinity of the shattered glass!! I mentioned that she probably should wash the glass before using it since it was near where the glass broke. She responded that, “ it should be fine because it was ‘on the other side of the divider’. We asked for our check and promptly paid and left. I feel bad for that customer who got the draft in the “handsy, glass slivery beer glass”!! I’m still horrified she put her bare hand into the glass and then used it for...