Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Mission

Greetings! Sat at table 4:40pm.... Staff walked by at least 3 different times with zero acknowledgement. Mgr/Asst. Mgr (?) chatted with another guest... turned to walk away opposite of me so I called out to her ..it was 4:49pm. NINE minutes! My Superpower wish is to Read Minds... Not, to be Invisible... :}

(Recommend "the looking around before you go" move)

She took my order then brought salad bowl, breadsticks, water and lemons in one swoop minus entrée... BRAVA!

5:17pm, and still No greeting or acknowledgement from assigned wait staff...sure would love some butter for Awesome breadsticks!... especially while they are warm!

Intentionally not asking as to see if approached.

Now, 5:21pm Time...and counting. Restaurant less than half packed. Order arrives... 5:25pm finally "meet" assigned wait staff... just deliver dish...no real greeting...

I asked for fresh breadsticks and real butter...it arrived at 5:33pm Warm and wonderfully seasoned...with butter.

Empty Salad bowl, and ready for offer to be picked up or refilled is Still on edge of table 5:41pm

Still No interaction... Waiting for the "How's everything?" or eye contact; none, though plenty of walk throughs... 5:49pm

Going on 5:53pm ...big, empty salad bowl Still on table. (Yes, have bussers but always nice to eat at cleared table...even more so for bigger party! Looks more sightly...offers space.)

Waiting to be approached to ask for to-go container... 5:57pm.

6:02pm...was offered salad refill...(politely declined), bowl picked up but bread plate with straw paper and butter wrap left behind.

Asked for to-go container with bag...brought promptly...😊 (Always offer a bag...helpful and saves you time and steps)

I forgot to ask for extra marinara sauce to-go for take home serving. (Good question to ask your guest)

A different server offered to take empty plate and brings extra marinara sauce. 6:09pm

My assigned server checked back. 6:11pm

Other server brought sauce 6:13 pm

6:20pm Thought about asking for more sliced lemons for my half glass of water but didn't know how long it would take to get it refilled....I guess, I'm good. Server checked back...6:23 pm ...would have loved the glass of water... 😏

Thank you for your time, I decided to not include names and let this be a Customer Service learning opportunity.

Ultimate message: No matter what--- be kind to your servers!

To wait staff, I hope this helps you to better strive for guests' satisfaction, revisits and generate more tip opportunities!

Food was delicious and plentiful!

CONGRATULATIONS and WELCOME to the Neighborhood Olive Garden of Mission!

Signing off...

Visited new location in Mission TX yesterday for my birthday. We were seated promptly, our waitress was polite. My chicken and shrimp carbonara was dry, the tour of Italy alfredo had very little sauce on it chicken and lasagna both looked over cooked and were really dry). My niece ordered a medium steak and it was served to her really over cooked. Our waitress was no where to be seen to ask for extra sauce for the dry pastas so when a waiter was walking by I just said excuse me sir and before I could finish my sentence, to ask for my waitress he turned his head literally rolling his eyes and that made my blood boil. He did not even bother replying to me. But whatever right, I've never posted a review before and the main reason for this one was that we ended up getting sick afterwards. My sister , my 9 month old baby and myself. (My niece didn't eat that really overcooked steak) I'm so disappointed because I had been looking forward since news of this establishment build to go eat there and I decided to go on my birthday, got sick and ruined my day. My sister and I are fine now but my baby still has diarrhea...

Unfortunately, a nice place doesn't come with nice service and nice food; the waitress we had today doesn't know what a Peroni is and then to make things worse as per her there was none available; the calamari was charred and overcooked had a burnt aftertaste; the pasta and meatballs are tasteless and the salad today was dry with little to no "magical" dressing and lastly the dumpling soup was cold and tasted like raw heavy cream- bland and with no texture or color less taste; I did not complain at the moment as I know nothing will change and a place like this needs to get it right the first time; unfortunately, it is lacking what most businesses are lacking which is good service- nobody wants to do the job; maybe it gets better next year but for now I am hanging the towel on Olive Garden. ( after 30 years of being a customer) The atmosphere is 5 stars as the place is very nice and new; a bit too loud but the...