Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Peoria

We had reservations for my fiance's birthday. We arrived early and were seated reasonably fast at around 7:20 pm. However, we waited for 10 minutes before our waitress came to take our drink order. The restaurant was nowhere near being full as there were almost as many tables empty as had people sitting at them. We then had to wait another 10 minutes before we got our drinks. We couldn't find our waitress to take our order so we ordered the appetizer at the table. When our waitress showed back up to take the order, she was pleasant enough but you could just tell something was wrong. My fiance's daughter saw her in the restroom crying a little later and just added to the really awkward dinner. It should have been having a nice, relaxing, enjoyable meal but instead it was mostly questions to each other about not knowing where our waitress was and why is the wait staff crying in the public restroom. After another extended amount of time, our waitress came back to our table and we asked for some to go boxes and ordered dessert to go as well and proceeded to not see our waitress again for the rest of the night. After awhile, one of the managers came out and asked us if we needed any boxes and we told him we had already asked the waitress all this. He got some boxes and packaged our food up for us and we paid the bill and left. The best way to describe it is having to sit through a two hour movie that was about 40 minutes too long. The food was good but the service was poor. I don't want to sound mean and I do hope that our waitress is doing well and everything is good in her life but if there was something wrong and she was having trouble then she should have gotten help or at least explained that she was a little too busy, or just something to that effect. We didnt want to complain for fear that she would start crying again and by that time we really just wanted to leave. We've eaten at this restaurant before and have had a great time but this time I felt like I just got ripped off. Olive Garden isn't fine dining but it also isn't exactly an inexpensive place to eat so you expect certain standards to be met if you're spending that kind of money for someone's...

We went here for a recent B-Day celebration for our son. It was a Sunday evening, so there was a bit of a wait, but we were seated within approx 10-15min. We were a group of 6, and I think our waitress had at least a few other larger tables, so I've extended a bit of grace with the 3-star review on service. But, there were a few issues. We were a group of 6 (all young teens to adults) and all of us ordered salad and breadsticks as part of our meals. The initial breadstick basket included 4 breadsticks... there were 6 of us. 0_o That being said, on the next trip, our waitress brought out 2 baskets with 4 breadsticks each, which was better but still lacking for 6 adults. My wife ordered the "Endless Soup, Salad, & Breadsticks". After finishing the first, she requested another bowl of soup, and the wait time was excessive. By the time she got the 2nd bowl, the rest of the group was pretty much done, and she requested it to-go. She had also requested crushed red pepper, which again, took far too long to get to the table. I had a iced tea to drink, and had requested a refill, which again, took nearly too long to be refilled. So, the service was there, it was just excessively slow and seemed tedious to get what we needed in a timely manner. Our waitress seemed very inefficient with addressing needs and was making multiple trips to address table needs instead of trying to anticipate needs for refills, etc during 1 trip. Otherwise, the food was decent and the atmosphere is a typical Olive Garden. I think it's a bit overpriced related to quality of food served, but seems like that's about the norm anymore. As an example, why is the endless soup, salad, breadsticks meal $2 more at dinner time vs lunch? It's "endless" either way, so.... why the upcharge at dinner? I'm guessing the answer is, "because we can and...

I have always loved Olive Garden, however, that changed on Wednesday, March 27, 2019. We went there in Peoria, IL to celebrate my grandson's 10th birthday. We had a reservation for 25 people and were assigned 2 waitresses. At first, they appeared to be very attentive. As the evening went on, they barely came to our group. They put breadsticks on the table and took our orders. We waited well over an hour before they brought the salad and soups out. The salad that was placed at the end where I was sitting, was wilted, brown and slimy, obviously it should not have been served. A member of the wait staff, not our waitress, came to check on us and I showed him the salad and he said he would send the manager over and he grabbed the salad from the table. We watched the manager standing in another part of the restaurant looking at us. Finally he came over and asked how everything was going. I told him about the salad and asked if he saw it. He said he did not. I told him what I had ordered and told him to cancel my order. I could not stomach eating there. He walked away. About 30 minutes later, one of the cooks, not our waitress, started bringing out the food. His mannerism was very sarcastic and it was obvious that he did not want to be doing it. After everyone got their food, he went back in the kitchen, then came out, within a minute, and asked who all wanted to go boxes. I told him, you just bought the food out, so why are you talking to us about to go boxes and his response was that he was told to come and ask us that. I have never been treated so badly and for this reason, I will never spend my money at this...