Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Orland Township

While visiting with my mother and grandmother, we ultimately decided to stop in to Olive Garden for dinner. Since I know this particular location can get pretty busy fairly quickly, and as it was a Saturday evening, I added us to the wait list from my phone, setting as our group size to 5 people (3 adults and two children). When it was our turn to be sat, we were given a booth that was meant to fit 4 people, instead of a table or larger booth meant for a bigger party. When I asked if there were any more seating options available, even going as far as saying I'd gladly wait a bit longer for a bigger table so not to be crammed into this tiny booth with 5 people, I was told "Everywhere is pretty full...". They offered to set a seat at the end of the table, which we ultimately declined as the booth across from us also had a seat at the end of their table, and would make it difficult for the servers to walk around (I was attempting to be accommodating, but apparently, the workers felt differently).

Luckily, the booth behind us was available, so we were told we could move there, and we could have a seat at the end. All was fine and well after that, for the most part.

My two kids decided to get strawberry smoothies for their drinks, which were brought to us with no lids. Kind of shocking considering my children are small, and it was a mess waiting to happen. I was unable to fully enjoy the experience so to avoid both myself, my youngest and the booth from wearing strawberry smoothie for the rest of the night. When our server asked if the kids would like to talk the smoothies with them when we left, she brought lids. Why couldn't this have been given to us when they were brought. I understand I could have asked for them to avoid a huge mess, but this should go on principle when the drinks are for children, no?

When our salad was brought out, we were only given four plates, instead of 5...yes, my kids eat salad too, and my youngest and I ultimately shared a plate until one of the others in our party was finished and gave her theirs. We also were not given the smaller appetizer plates for our breadsticks or the cheese sticks that we had ordered.

Lastly, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY, stop placing ridiculously hot plates in front of children. I get that the plates are hot, and as I am an adult, no better than to burn myself. But, when you place a scalding hot plate in front of my child...who doesn't know the difference, it could cause serious burns. So servers, please don't cop an attitude with parents when they take the plate from you. I will gladly take the burned and red hands over having to deal with a child (2 years old, mind you), that touches the plate and experiences pain that no child should have to endure.

Overall, I think this might be the last time we visit this location as it has rapidly gone downhill over the years. While I understand what I might be complaining about isn't significant to most people, what was supposed to be an enjoyable experience for me and my family just turned...

What happened to this location?? I've been coming to this olive garden for YEARS and can comfortably say it's gone so far down hill it might not be salvageable. To start my beautiful girlfriend and I walked into an almost empty restaurant and was told that we would have to wait for a table to be cleaned, no problem! We were finally seated at a very large booth for just 2 people. We then waited about 15-20 minutes to be even greeted by anyone, meanwhile multiple staff stood around and looked at us wondering why were were sitting there. We were finally greeted and put an order in for two of the new sangria drinks they offer and when they arrived it tasted as if there was no alcohol! Our waiter seemed to be on some sort of stimulant as he was running in all directions with what seemed to be no task to complete. When the salad and soup arrived the salad was drenched in so much dressing the lettuce was taking a dip in a kiddy pool of dressing. We had aten 2 bread sticks from the basket and when the stimulated waiter returned to ask how the drinks were he had stuck his fingers into the bread and asked if we were finished with them. Meanwhile we had noticed that the customers across from us had taken their SHOES AND SOCKS off and were rubbing their feet into the carpet!?!? Now we were beginning to think we were on some sort of TV prank show!! The waiter then brings us our entree's which were actually the only thing on par for the meal. We got our boxes and took home some leftovers. After we paid the check on the tablet we left without even being thanked for our business by the waiter. The delivery guy who I asked for some of their mint chocolates on the way out was very kind, however also seemed to have shared some of the waiters "stimulant". Long story short this location needs some serious improvements!! On Saturday evenings this location used to have over an hour wait time, now it's not even worth a 5 minute wait. And to those people who wanted to rub their bare feet into the carpet that rash on your feet probably won't go away....

Added our names to the online waitlist, we're advised to arrive in 45 minutes to 1:15 minutes. We arrived an hour later and still waited over an hour for a table. Food was sub par. We ordered calamari. It was like chewing gum, no amount of chewing would break it up, it was literally like rubber, flavor was good though. The entrees were decent, soup was good. However we waited 35 ish minutes for soup then after eating my second spoon of soup the meal arrived. The breaksticks were clearly sitting-we dunked them in the soup so no big deal but the second basket was also cold and hard. Lastly I specifically ordered my pasta with no protein (ie chicken, shrimp, meatball etc) the waitress even confirmed? And asked are u sure you don't want meat and listed all the options? I clearly said No just the pasta. Yet the pasta arrived with chicken and the bill showed the charge for chicken. I wouldn't send it back but even if I needed to due to an allergy or something the waitress did not check on us until the end of the meal so we would have waited another 35 minutes for more pasta. Mind you we just ordered spaghetti and fettuccine, 2 basic entrees nothing fancy and we still waited that long. We paid on the little machine on the table to expedite the check situation since we were waiting on that for more than sufficient time for that as well. I know your thinking we went on a holiday and it was busy. No we checked in online around 4:15 on a random Sunday and were seated after 6:30. There was a family of 4 who said they checked in before us and they were still waiting when we were seated. The restaraunt was also only about 75% full. I am assuming short staff but maybe not they had 3 hostesses who seemed bored since no one was really being seated. I will say the restaraunt was clean and the staff friendly. But just be...