Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Overland Park

Yes, I know Olive Garden is no 5-star restaurant, but I do think the service could have been at least decent. I don't think that's asking for too much.

I sat at the bar and it was like pulling teeth to get drinks, orders taken, water refills, even napkins/silverware. I had to go to the host and ask for a roll-ups. And they looked at me like I was crazy.

To start, I ordered one of the specialty cocktails. Based on the ingredients and the picture, I expected something that looked at least similar. Instead the drink I got was a completely different color, looked cloudy in the wrong way, and tasted horrendous. No big deal, I got a beer instead.

When we got the breadsticks, they had so much salt on them that we needed to physically wipe some salt off just to make them semi-bearable. And since we had no napkins this is when I had to go track them down. The $5 Alfredo dipping sauce was about 3 Tbsp of alfredo. Which we desperately needed to cut down on the extremely strong garlic salt. And yes, I love garlic salt. I love the breadsticks from this place. These were inedible.

Our food came out when we'd only had a couple bites of our soup and salad, which is fine. Not a big deal, but still annoying. At this point I still had no water and our glasses and plates were starting to pile up. A manager came behind the bar to make a drink, looked at every single empty glass, plate, and bowl, then went on to make the drink. She made an absolute mess attempting to pour salt for a Margarita and left it there and again looked at our dishes as she left the bar area to stand doing nothing at the carryout stand with two other people. When it came time to get to-go containers and bags, we had the same difficulty getting service. We had to go ask the carryout stand for the bowl that they kept forgetting to bring.

And to top it all off, I asked for some to-go breadsticks and asked if they could go a little easier on the garlic salt so I didn't just take a few salt licks home for a horse I don't have. Welp, that was a mistake because they were completely devoid of everything. Just plain, and I mean PLAIN, breadsticks. So dry, so disgusting. I'll take the stick of salt back, please.

Overall it was just a bad experience. Which isn't abnormal for this location, but today was extra irritating and a...

Not a great experience. We booked in online (around 5:40pm Jan 18) and were told we would have a table in 40 mins. Got to the restaurant 40 mins later and were told it would be another 20 mins. 60 mins later, we got a table. A bit of error with the booking system is okay, but 60mins is a bit crazy - finally sat down at 7:20pm. Greeters were not very welcoming...maybe the food would be redeeming. No. First, we sat there for about 5 mins trying to figure out if we order through the computer at the table, or if someone serves us. A waitress comes over after 5 mins or so and we order some appetisers. We got the mozzarella sticks and calamari...oh my, I felt embarrassed for them charging money for what they called calamari (tiny little chewy rings). $10 for a couple fried pieces of cheese and a few tiny rings of maybe-calamari. Perhaps the main would be better. Yes and no. The chicken parmigiana was average (not worth the price) and looked like it had been thrown on the plate in a fit of rage. And they forgot to bring the soup side (which ended up being by far the best part of the meal once it was brought out). The mushroom ravioli was good, as was the bean soup my daughter had. But to be honest, it's probably bar quality pasta...for $16-18 a meal, you can get a LOT better. So we decide to get the bill and cut our losses. Losses hadn't finished there. We had a mystery $2 charge for the 'games'. What the? Apparently the little computer screen our kids had grabbed as we got to the table has games on it that cost $2. No server had told us this and there was NOTHING advertising the charge (there is supposedly a message on the screen as you first access the games that says you will be charged, which is fine, if the adults know about it prior, but we weren't told). Our waitress did remove that charge though, which was much appreciated. Our waitress just seems annoyed to be there, but did a reasonable job. Kind of pointed toward an unhappy workplace. Greeters were just as nice as we left. Apathy, with a side of hostility.

Save your hard earned cash folks. Go...

Olive Garden is NOT how it used to be. As soon as the breadsticks cool down, they're hard - like they had been heated up constantly throughout the day. The salad - which I wasn't told beforehand - is apparently an extra charge and does NOT come with the main course? The menu says it comes with unlimited salad and breadsticks, so why it showed up on the receipt as extra is weird... The waitress wasn't terrible - she did everything right... IF this was iHop. It didn't FEEL like a nice restaurant at all! She was always needing to be summond and would come to our table to drop things off but was terrible at taking empty cups or trash (so our table was FULL of trash and food... yuck). She seemed resistant to letting us order food for my kids and then keep the menu for myself to order after i had time to think (and yet still gave me my food first... no! I purposely wanted my kids to eat first!). She didn't really seem to care what was on the menu and never recommended anything with knowledge and enthusiasm - like a nice restaurant should. And the most AWKWARD part was where she had been absent for most of our dinner, she wouldn't leave us alone when I was trying to pack my kids food into to-go boxes - she didn't help - just offered, I declined, and then stood there... I knew she didn't want to help; the real reason she was standing there awkwardly - staring me down - was because she didn't want to leave till she saw me tip. Which was incredibly unessessry because I had a tablet that I paid from, at our table, and didn't need her hovering over me. There's no reason to tip when you're being bullied into it. A tip should because you're service was actually GOOD and I want to say thank you; not because I'm being bullied into it. There was barely anyone there and so for some reason a cleaner - with a huge cart of cleaning supplies - kept walking back and forth by as we ate (he didn't clean anything in the vicinity of 20 tables anywhere near us......