Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Oro Valley

UPDATE Feb 28, 2025: I like the Olive Garden, but I had to lower its rating because of the quality of MY food on this lunch.

Everything else was great. The atmosphere was good, people friendly, the room was bright and cheery, and our waitress was personable and helpful, and she didn’t even scowl (as some other restaurants do) when we only ordered the smaller lunch portions. My wife’s chicken parmesan was good for her, except that it was covered in chopped tomatoes instead of marinera sauce — not bad, you just need to be aware of this when ordering. Our friends’ lasagna, lunch sized, was tasty and he enjoyed it, properly crusted and it has both ground beef and sausage. I ordered a side order of meatballs, and a side order of sausage, and asked them to exchange marinera sauce for Bolognese (meat sauce), and they were happy to do that. When it came, the meatballs, as usual were nice size and hot inside. The two sausages however, were just barely warm on the insides, and mushy to boot. I could only eat one of them and left the other. Now the meat sauce was excellent. I realize these meatballs and sausages are ‘pre-cooked’, which is smart, and then warmed up, but these felt like they had not been fully cooked and then not warmed up enough.

BUT, I should also say that the New England Clam Chowder my wife ordered was both of a good size and very, very tasty. In fact, the only restaurant I know of, in Tucson, which serves clam chowder as good as this is the Audobon Bar and Grill (which is inside the Arizona Inn ‘down’ in Central Tucson near the University).

Good job, but please pay attention to the temperature of the food.

UPDATE Sep 8, 2024: Just like last time we had lunch at the Olive Garden, the food was tasty, there was more than enough of it, the servers were friendly and helpful (and even the Manager stopped by to say hello), the food was served promptly ... and I've even gotten accustomed to using that little 'payment kiosk' that they put on your table. ALSO, they were kind enough to give us all 'drinks to go' ... which is good given how much they (and all restaurants!) charge for a drink these days.

Again, the meatballs were great, the toasted ravioli the same, the pasta my daughter had was TASTY (good flavor).

The only thing I found annoying, was that, as they sat us in the bar area, because the floor is tiled with 'Mexican' tiles (which are a bit bumpy, when the dish collection cart came by, it rattled and made a lot of noise. Surely there's a better way to collect dishes. Fine lunch today, and great and friendly service by Austin.

The meatballs were as good as any I’ve had in Tucson, my loved the toasted ravioli and our friend thought the chicken Marsala was excellent. We all three enjoyed O G’s version of beignets (with plum sauce and chocolate sauce for dipping) and the chocolate layered “brownie” was...

Came in on a Friday evening. We were promptly seated in a young woman’s section. She was bright and friendly, we could tell it was busy so we were thrilled she stopped by right away. We ordered our drinks and an appetizer and asked for a bit longer to peruse the menu (as if we weren’t going to order the same things we always do). She comes back after a bit and we place our order. At this point we have run out of breadsticks, but no need to fret we’re sure she’ll refill those when our soups come out. After about 10 minutes or so we are out of beverages, but our soup has arrived. No breadsticks though. She asks if we want cheese for the soup, we don’t. She leaves before we can ask for refills on drinks. We didn't see her for 10 mins so we couldn’t flag her down. She comes around and buses a few dishes from a dirty table but doesn’t so much as glance our way. We’re thirsty. We order waters on the little kiosk. 15 more mins, she comes back to tell us the kitchen is backed up and asks if we need anything and we ask for the water. 20 mins more. No water, no young lady, no food. We get up to leave and the lovely gals at the host stand jump into action to grab their manager. I explain I’m happy to pay for the full meal since they can box it up. He offers to comp it in full which is greatly appreciated. I’ve never been one to complain about service on a busy night, I used to work front of house so I understand things happen when your section is packed but we learned we were her only table after speaking with the manager. I’m not sure we will be back, maybe in a couple of months we’ll give it another go. (I was nervous after making the complaint and spilt our to-go water all over the table- so sorry to the waitress that cleaned that...

I was excited to eat at Olive Garden because it had been a while since I had eaten there. My friend, whose birthday we were quietly celebrating, and I had already decided to order the soup, the salad, and breadsticks selection. When we arrived we were immediately seated. Our server was prompt and very friendly. He immediately took our drink and food orders. It seemed like no time before both arrived. There were four choices of soups, chicken and gnocchi, pasta e fagioli, minestrone, and zuppa toscana. We both ordered the chicken and gnocchi first. It was great! I'm not Italian and I'm not exactly sure how gnocchi is made or how it is intended to taste, but I do know that we both loved the chicken and gnocchi soup! We both wanted to expand our taste buds a bit so we ordered different soups this time. For her second bowl, my friend ordered the minestrone and I ordered the Zuppa Toscana. Neither of us were disappointed! My friend said the minestrone lived up to its name, and I tell you something, whoever thought of putting spicy sausage, kale and potatoes together in a creamy soup hit it out of the park! Loved it! 💕 Even with as great as the soups and breadsticks are (our server even gave us a couple extra breadsticks to go), the salad was a bit disappointing. I'm not sure if it was just too much dressing, or if there was some excess moisture in the bowl, but the salad was a bit soggy. Even though they have fabulous desserts like strawberry cream cake or tiramisu, we both decided to pass. Even though the salad was a bit wet, you can really never go wrong with the soup, salad and breadsticks from Olive Garden, especially with their great selection of...