Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Oxnard

🙄 Hubs, and both of our young adults sons are extremely disappointed visiting for dinner here as a first and last time today Saturday 8.30.25

I tried excusing our waitress Dulce as soon as we noticed she was really lacking on her knowledge on how to be a proper waitress, since it seemed as she was not trained properly I must admit it pains me to leave such a negative review.

We are desappointed with the service, period.

We brought our own bottle and are aware of their corking fee that includes wine glasses to be brought to our table and also for the waitress to open the bottle and serve us the wine. Unfortunately she took forever and brought a bottle wine opener and she (Dulce) asked us to open it because she didn't know how to do it herself. It was an extreme inexpensive wine opener she had and it took my husband a long time to get our wine bottle open. We told Dulce "you guys need to buy a better wine opener or you Dulce should invest and purchase one of your own to use with your customers" she said "oh no not here I'm not going to spend my money here, is not worth it" (She will get great tips if she knew her customers and what customers like)

This incident shouldn’t have happened. We also had to wait an extremely long time just to get water, breads appetizers and ended up asking for to-go boxes to the hostess, because she left and didn't come back.

The restaurant was NOT busy and the lack of attention was frustrating. Overall, not a great experience. We basically felt that the service here was unacceptable.

Plus when one of our sons corrected her on the type of pasta he had ordered she immediately excused herself instead of just apologizing by saying "oh but I did put in the order correctly" and after that comment she looked at my son and said oh you're not supposed to share when he was never sharing with anybody we have purchased enough food for everyone with the exception of me I don't eat past. I ordered the calamari appetizer instead.

I personally ended up talking to David the manager and he seemed understanding and so hopefully the service is better for the rest of the customers going forward...

Ultimately we were not charged the cork fee. Did I mention my husband almost cut himself on an effort to try opening our bottle. Jeez 🙄

It's a bummer because we were here for a wedding and we wanted to bring the rest of our family members here,vbut now we refuse to do so. Please...

Service was just terrible. Went there recently because we didn’t feel like a heavy meal that night but were in the mood for breadsticks. Got the unlimited soup, salad, and breadsticks with intent to also get a dessert. I know we weren’t splurging but Olive Garden is known for its salad and breadsticks and this is a legit meal option, so I think we still deserved service. We were sitting in a section that only had two occupied tables. The other table was a slightly larger party and they got the server’s near exclusive attention. We had to flag her down to get the refills to our “unlimited” soup. (We only got one refill, btw. It’s not like we were taking advantage. And, yes, we were very polite.) Had to ask for more breadsticks after being brought more soup, and it seemed as though we’d asked for something unreasonable. Our second round was stale, like day old ones had been reheated and a little burned, and a smaller amount. Never got more salad or drinks. Server wouldn’t even look at us while serving the - again - one other table. It was not busy at all but I would’ve needed to stand up and shout to be served, which is ridiculous. Eventually, we just wanted to leave. Paid on the table top machine, no dessert, and just left without the server even noticing. Of course I left a decent tip because restaurant owners put the onus on us to pay their employees in this country, when they’re meant to manage the profit from us paying for our food to do that, but I did so begrudgingly. Second time I’ve had horrible service at Olive Garden seemingly because I wasn’t spending enough money. The previous time, the server actually scoffed and asked my friend and I if that was all we were going to order. (Soup and salad for lunch.) When we said yes, she actually rolled her eyes and barely served us the rest of the time. Thought it was a fluke, now thinking it might be a consistent policy to not waste time on people not spending enough. Don’t have it on the menu if it’s a problem. And everyone deserves a...

We have eaten at Olive Garden many times over the years and even during the COVID lockdown service was always great and timely. Thursdays are not usually busy, but the lockdiwn is ending so no doubt you will wait to be seated so at just over an hour wait was not too bad. Seated at 8:30 pm, server came over about 5 minutes later, since we were ready to order we ordered. 10 minutes go by, no salad yet, we tried getting the attention of a few different servers who just didn't seem to hear or notice us. Finally our server shows up and asks if we are ready to order, I told him we already ordered and would like our salad, he was kind of like "oh okay" then quickly brought the salad. At about 9:10 pm our server bring out all the orders except for mine, I ordered Chicken Parmigian, he said they are still working on it , and it would be 10-15 more minutes,i I was already irritated and told him to bring me whatever was ready, he seemed surprised and asked if I wanted what was ready and I said yes, my wife told him I'm diabetic thats why I was angry and he said "oh so he can't eat that anyway". He started making excuses that 70% of the staff is new. I was shaking at this point and he left then came back and said 5 minutes, I told him to forget it and I shared my wife's food. He came back a few minutes later and said the manager would remove the item from the bill. No manager came over ever and the server split the bill, he didn't remove anything. I quickly paid and asked for an emailed receipt. Never got the email receipt and I had to call Olive Garden the next day where the manager started with excuses about no wifi that's why the receipt wasn't emailed. He gave excuses about 70% new staff and said he couldn't email me anything but could print it so I can pick up at my convenience. Funny thing i get enough emailed receipt Friday afternoon, do.much for not being able to email anything. Usually there is a manger walking around checking in on diners, not that night. By far the worst experience ever at...