Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Moline

This past Friday my coworkers and I ordered carryout lunch from here. We called a few days ahead to inquire about placing a large togo order during lunch time and were told to call 24hours ahead of time and they would have our order ready for us at the requested time (11:00- Friday). We called Thursday to place our order and had it confirmed over the phone. Friday we called and confirmed the total. After confirming I was sent to go pick up the order at the scheduled time (11:00). We work less than two minutes away so I arrived right at 11:00. When I arrived the togo person seemed very busy so I waited patiently. When she was done answering the phone and taking orders she asked how she could help me and I told her I was there to pick up our pre-placed togo order. She had the receipt there and waiting for me, but it appeared the order wasn't quite ready yet. The computers were also not working so she couldn't take my payment just yet. I told her it was not a big deal and I would sit down and wait. After ten minutes, the computers were just being rebooted and I hadn't been told much else. Two other customers arrived and now were also waiting for their togo orders. Another ten minutes passed without anything really happening and then two managers appeared. The older manager seemed annoyed and had no sense of urgency. She slowly started putting food into bags while verifying with me that it was exactly what we had ordered. Luckily I had brought the sheet with me that included everyones specific orders. While verifying the order I realized that we were missing a soup and a lasagna. The manager sent someone to grab those and continued slowly bagging our order. At this point I had been there for 35 minutes. The other, younger manager then began running my payment. I handed over my payment and asked that 8.63$ be put on a gift card and the rest paid cash (we were all paying separate and rather than bring in 6 different cards, we all paid cash and one person paid with a gift card). The older manager took my payment and handed it over to the other manager. The other manager asked again how much I would like on the gift card and I repeated, 8.63. I began gathering up my bags when she snapped at me, "How much do you want on the gift card?!" I told her for a 3rd time, 8.63. She then told me the cash was short by $0.39. I asked if something had changed as we had verified the order's total and she said that nothing had changed. Confused, I pulled out my card to cover the shortage and she asked what she was supposed to do with it. She applied the cash and then ran the card for $0.39 after acting like I was crazy for giving her my card for $0.39. This whole ordeal took 40 minutes. I left my work at 10:58 and didn't get back until 11:45. No one apologized, no one tried to make it right, nothing. The employees though friendly had no support when things went wrong. The managers were disinterested and slow at best and rude at worst. Once I arrived with the food, we realized that the breadsticks were cold and hard, the soups and two of the entrees were cold, and they had sent us with a random bag of a bunch of salad tongs and catering supplies. All of the food was subpar at best.

I will finish with this, I used to be the FOH Manager at a restaurant in Bettendorf and I would have been mortified if guests were treated this way on my watch. Because of my experience in this industry I have a lot of patience for mistakes and mishaps, but all this could have been fixed with some basic customer service. There is no reason anyone should wait 40 minutes for a preplaced carryout order. There is no reason the managers should be anything but apologetic. This was a horrible experience and I will not come to ANY Olive Garden for ANY of my dining...

We had lunch at the Moline Olive Garden at 12:30 pm on an early December Tuesday : plenty of immediate seating and quick, friendly service from our server Andrea.

We were torn between getting the all-you-can eat soup/salad/breadstick special for $7.99, or getting one of the entree lunch specials that included all you could eat soup OR salad, breadsticks, and a small entree of some sort. There are three or four choices of soup available.

The special lunch entree choices come in groups of three, at three different price ranges: $6.99, $7.99, and $8.99. The $6.99 range includes a vegetable and cheese item similar to a quesadilla, spaghetti, or another item. The $7.99 option included a meatball sandwich, but I don't remember all the other choices for these lunch specials.

My wife chose the $6.99 'quesadilla' and the slightly spicy Zueppa soup (ground Italian sausage, potato, onion, in a slightly creamy base). Hers came with a marinara sauce on the side. I had the $7.99 Italian meatballs and marinara sauce, which is served on a soft breadstick-style bun, and a side of home-cut style French fries. I also chose the Zueppa soup. Both meals were excellent, and we each ate extra soup and extra of their wonderful, soft, breadsticks. We could have easily just filled up on soup and breadsticks and taken the entrees home-- you will not leave hungry with these lunch options!

The atmosphere was relaxing, with soft jazz music playing in the background. The servers were regularly checking on their customers, and they will grate fresh parmesan cheese on your soup or food for you. The restaurant is large and well decorated. Additional parking, including for large vehicles, is available in the huge, Mall parking lot about 50 feet from the restaurant. They have a large selection of choices on the menu, at a wide variety of price points.

I've always liked Olive Garden, but the one in nearby Davenport, IA is always pretty crowded at lunch time and I usually feel I need to vacate my table quickly so that newly arriving customers can have my table. The Moline Olive Garden had a steady flow of customers, but there were plenty of tables available and we had a very relaxing and enjoyable meal, spending over an hour there. We will definitely make this restaurant one of our top of our choices for a satisfying and reasonably priced lunch.

One note, they have small IPad sized touchscreen devices at each table. These devices have multiple functions, including menu options, bill paying, and games. We were playing around with it while waiting for our food, and played a game. Upon checkout I noticed a $1.99 'game charge' on our bill. I didn't remember seeing anything that mentioned a cost, but it likely said it somewhere and I missed it. So use caution if you are messing around with the game section of the device! You do not have to use the device unless you wish to: we were provided with regular menus and our server took...

UPDATE: From 5 stars to 1 star. Is this Olive Garden under a new management? The first time we went here, the ambiance was very welcoming, the staff were friendly, and we wouldn’t regret waiting to get a table since we know we would enjoy our trip here. We always go here to celebrate simple occasions. Today is my husband’s vaccination-day and we were excited to eat here even if it was heavily pouring outside.

We went in and this mean, big blonde receptionist lady wasn’t even welcoming. Told us if we can wait for 20-25mins to get a table ready and took our contact number and she told us to wait in our car. The thing is, there were only two tables occupied in the booth area, and there’s two other staff beside the lady just staring at us. Why do we need 20-25mins to wait for a table when the restaurant just opened and there weren’t a lot of people eating? Aren’t the tables supposed to be ready when restaurant opens? I know it’s the pandemic that is why we were willing to wait but it was heavily raining and no one’s even waiting at the waiting area. But anyway, we complied since we wanted to eat here and it was almost lunchtime.

Anyway, the lady said they will text or call in 20-25mins. We usually drive around the area to wait because we don’t like being idle. And guess what? After 30 mins, nothing. After one hour, I was already eating a snack from this snack store, still NOTHING. What kind of service is this? We would’ve celebrated on this restaurant but it seems like you don’t even text or call your customers for the table that you told them they’d have. This is not a way to treat your customers. You just lost customers that have been eating here for YEARS.

So, never again. This restaurant is ruining the Olive Garden experiences that we had from this place and other Olive Garden Restaurants. Such a disappointment. Why can other restaurants handle this better? And this is not just a run-down restaurant, supposedly.

(COMMENT 1 YEAR AGO) This store never fails us whenever we eat here. The food is great, the servers are the best, we don’t wait too long for the food to come, and sometimes there’s free wine! Clean and cozy place, and the prices are just right. We’ll definitely...