Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Maryland

Tonight the family and I decided to go to Olive Garden for our favorite time of year, Never Ending Pasta. We arrived at around 8:15pm and were greeted with a friendly welcome at the door. After roughly five minutes we were seated by Holly the Service Manager. Holly was awesome. She was attentive, friendly, engaging, and made us feel welcomed. Great start so far. Holly then took our drink and appetizer order and advised us that our server would be with us in just a moment. A few minutes later our server arrives with our drinks and appetizer and took our food order, which of course was the never ending pasta. Roughly ten or so minutes after that she arrives with our salad and breadsticks, but not the Alfredo boat we ordered to go with the breadsticks. Side note, if you have never dipped your breadsticks in the alfredo sauce you are missing out. Anyway, at that point our drinks were running low but I figured she would be bringing them on the next trip. I was wrong. Fast forward to 8:45, at this point the server comes by and asks if we are ok, to which we ask about the alfredo boat and refills. Around 8:52 the main course arrived. Immediately followed by the alfredo boat and refills. We were hungry, and I am a bigger guy, so needless to say it didnt last long. By 9:03pm as the server was checking in I was able to ask for a refill on drinks and my second portion of the never ending pasta. I requested it "same as the first one. The rigatoni with mushroom sauce and chicken" and after a few minutes the refills for the drinks arrive. Fast forward to 9:24, the server checks back in. At this point we are now getting irritated because there is still no food refill, which I would understand if there was a crowded restaurant, but there was hardly anyone there, so we ask for boxes for when the food comes out. She apologizes and tells us that "the kitchen is slow tonight". About two minutes later, Holly comes by again and must recognize the look of irritation on my face because she immediately checks on us and lets us know she is going to go "light a fire under them" in the kitchen. Finally at 9:33 the second round comes out, and 2 of the 4 dishes were completely wrong. We decided not to complain because at that rate I was worried they would be closed before they got it fixed. We boxed our food and asked for a bag. Paid the bill and left. Holly spoke with my wife on our way out and thanked us for coming in. Total Experience Time 1 hour 24 minutes

Atmosphere 7 of 10 (many tables with dirty dishes) Food 10 of 10 (food quality was amazing) Order accuracy 7 of 10 (was almost perfect until the last round) Staff 5 of 10 (Holly got it right. Thats about it though) Price 6 of 10 (Pricing would be great if we had gotten our monies worth. But being ignored kind of makes you feel ripped off)

Overall 6 of 10 (the lack of attention from the server really broke this...

It’s been a while since I’ve had Olive Garden and with how many ads I’ve been seeing I figured why not so we went and I already knew from past experience I love the fried mozzarella and I knew the drink I wanted so we ordered those as soon as the server comes over , drinks come out fast love the guys attitude and everything so we get our salad there’s a wait on breadstick cause they were cooking okay that’s fine no worry, we finally get them and normally they are so good but it seemed like the ones we got were sitting when we were told we were waiting on them no worry’s the breadsticks are still good just a little dry lol, so now we’re just waiting on the fried mozzarella we’re still looking over the menu so no worry’s , we figure out what we want and order everything’s all good, after about 50 mins of waiting we get our food the server kept coming to reassure us that it would be right out and that happened about 6-7 times so we get our main food and he asked if there was anything he could get for us and then we were like I’m sorry we’re still waiting on the appetizer so he comes back with it and like less then 2 mins so it’s obviously been done and unfortunately we could tell it had been sitting under the heat lamps for a while and they were hard and cold , we had to ask for them off the check cause we couldn’t eat them really disappointed cause I love that dish so much and it’s really part of the reason I come, server seemed like he was trying his best and it was busy but all I kept overhearing is like oh I’m sorry this is what we have we don’t have many plates at the moment which I can get it being busy and not having many but I think customers not being able to have plates for appetizers causes there’s not enough isn’t okay, also overheard everyone arguing cause the server was oversat and couldn’t handle that many people but meanwhile there was 3 girls goofing off in the host stand, it’s just all really unprofessional and for me paying 23 dollars for shrimp Alfredo just for the shrimp to be so overcooked I could only eat the noddles not okay either, I think this ruined Olive Garden all together for me but if I do ever return to a Olive Garden it won’t be...

Overall: Had dinner with my wife at 6pm on a Friday and had a good experience, very good service, and good food especially considering the day/time. Roxanne was a fantastic waitress!

Coming at 6pm with no reservations on a Friday can be a recipe for disaster, but not today. We were told there would be a 20 minute wait, and we were seated in about 15. It took close to 5 minutes for our waitress to stop by, but that gave us time to read the menus. We got drinks and placed a bruchetta appetizer order and placed the meal order about 3 minutes later.

As expected it was very busy. Appetizers took a few minutes to come out and this was the only low point. The bread could have been crispier and a little more even oil. We probably won't get that again. It took a little bit to get a refill of iced but the waitress stopped by to explain a fresh batch was being brewed and apologized.

Unlike others our waitress stopped by twice before the main meal, asking if we were OK with drinks, needed more salad, making sure things were OK. My wife made her own tour, and i had the northern tour. My wife said the steak could have had a little more salt but it was still juicy, cooked properly, and overall good. The pasta wasn't bad, you're not going to get homemade fanciness at Olive garden but we were pleased. The chicken that came with the northern tour had a tasty crust but was a touch dry. Overall however I was really pleased, as was my wife.

Again, the service was the Star. Our waitress was very attentive to us and other customers in a packed house. All around us tables were cleared in seconds after people left, and people seated right after. I was honestly impressed because my last olive garden experience in Westminster felt like I was being rushed out the door. Maybe it was a really good day, or maybe others caught a day where they were short on staff. But I was honestly surprised at the experience.

We'll be back when we're...