Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Menomonee Falls

For all the snobs and wannabe foodies that feel the need to make jokes about Olive Garden, I love them, always have. Never had a disappointing meal, their service is prompt and professional and the atmosphere is great.

(If one was able hide anything indicating they were at an Olive Garden from a snob friend, they'd think it was great. Fun to play the same game with your wine snobs who, it turns out, live wine-from-a-box.)

All fun aside, we had lunch with a mixed group of family in town for Christmas. We can be a bit loud and laugh a lot, so it was great to be seated in a dedicated alcove setting with a large table which comfortably accommodated us.

The bread and salad are a hallmark of OG and one reason I always enjoy coming. It was hard to keep track of what everyone ordered, so I'll confirm it was a table of nine, of varied ages, and everyone loved our meals and appetizers. I ordered spaghetti for the first time and loved it. All too often a plate is delivered and it's 95% pasta and a couple tablespoons of sauce and a meatball. Not here. Plenty of sauce, it was zesty (though it's a people-pleaser recipe and not as full flavored as I've had at small family-owned establishments.) My wife and son ordered chicken Alfredo as always, being creatures of habit. We opted for the $6.99 take home dishes, am my ziti was fantastic. In fact, between the salad and bread we took home, a portion of our meals and the very high value take home meal, we each enjoyed three total meals.

In the past I have frequently ordered the "Tour of Italy" which includes 3 items from the menu and now offer your choice of items (I believe that's rather new.) We did not order wine on this visit, and I'm no connoisseur, anyway. But in my opinion it's as food as the sometimes expensive choices family members have at their homes.

Last, our server was a pleasure. He seemed experienced, being attentive, familiar with the menu, options, etc. He laughed along with our goofy group and took our picture before we left. Being the holidays I left a hefty tip which he earned.

Great experience, great food, and a regular OG customer at numerous locations. Highly recommended. I will say yes, various smaller "authentic" restaurants with menus based on home recipes, often focusing on specific regions, can truly amaze and hit it out if the park. My wife and I opt this way when it's just the two of us, but for a group with mixed tastes, OG is a...

Wasn't a great experience by any means. Started out very nice, the hostess was friendly and personable but then it kinda went downhill. We waited about 10minutes for the server to come to our table and notice us. She had maybe 2 tables[including ours]. when we ordered drinks in took an additional 20minutes to get them- which the server wasn't even sure if the bartender made the 1 correctly so she said she'd ask. Only to find the answer out an additional 10 minutes later[however the drinks were good-and tasted good].

We ordered appetizers-they tasted good. We ordered food which seemed to take a while but we could live with it. My salad was great- I ordered a refill... which the server didnt ask about the cheese for it but oh well right? I did catch her a little bit later and asked for cheese and she added it. My husband got the tour of Italy which was overcooked chicken and the pasta was dry/hard but had too much sauce and didnt even try the lasagna. The breadsticks were also overdone-which was surprising.

The staff was right outside the kitchen[our table was near the kitchen] talking about undies and "cheese it boxers" to be exact just what I want to hear while trying to eat dinner.

A staff member walked in from outside with a cigar in his mouth, walking back and forth from inside to outside.

The server asked if we wanted desert which we said oh sure and ordered the black tie moose chake and waited. She came back 2 more times asking if we needed anything else-we said no we are good. [Our drinks were empty and we were just waiting on the cake] then the 3rd time she came back and asked if she could get anything for us my husband thankfully said 'could we just get the desert to go?' She immediately said she forgot to put the order in but would do that right away, but at this point we were already upset and just told her to forget it and we would just pay our bill. We paid our bill and left.

It was our first time eating at this location for a sit down dinner. And Overall was disappointing and sad as I do really love olive garden especially their soup and on a regular basis order a gallon of it to go. We may just have to stick to...

My fiance and I went in to eat at about 7 PM last night. Walking in the manager was at the host stand and promptly said she didn't know where her host was and didn't know where to seat us. When the host arrived and took us to our table we were in a room with 3 other tables, but there was no music playing or anything. It was very uncomfortable as we had to whisper the whole meal so nobody else could hear our conversation. The server came to our table with a very poor attitude and it was clear she was annoyed to even be there. I would mention her name but she never told us...we ordered 2 mojitos which took over 5 minutes to receive and tasted like plain Sprite (3 tiny sprigs of unbundled mint and pretty much no liquor). We placed our order complete with an eye roll from our server and we ordered 2 shots since our drinks clearly had no liquor. It took over 10 minutes to receive those drinks but our soup and salad came out almost immediately. We didn't even want our drinks at that point and there was no apology for the wait what so ever. The food was very average and that's being generous. My pasta had almost no sauce on it and the crispy chicken was all breading and almost no chicken. My fiance's meatballs were a very strange color and honestly I felt uncomfortable having him eat it. After about 2 bites we asked for the check and only boxed up our food to bring home as a treat for our dog. I never post reviews as I am a manager of 2 restaurants and my fiance is a server so we usually understand that everyone has bad nights; however there was literally nothing about our experience that was even remotely acceptable. They need to shut down this store or send in new management that is interested in costumer experience and checks in with tables instead of standing in the doorway staring at clearly unhappy tables. Never going to a single Olive...