Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Perry Township

The last two visits have been vastly different so I'm glad I gave it another chance. Warning: this is long winded so proceed at your own risk!

The first visit entailed my family of 10 after my justice of the peace wedding. I had called in advanced to ask if reservations were possible because of the number in my party. When I talked to the manager, he advised that though he couldn't make reservations, he would tell his people about us.

So we get there around 5 and I'm greeted with blank stares at the podium. I actually have to prod them a bit. And we wait, and wait. Watching groups of people go before us. I finally asked a host if they're ready for us and she responds curtly that she has to set up our table. I'm thinking this must be a huge deal only to find out its prewrapped silverware and paper coasters.

Then a manager shows up and asks if we're the party of 10 and we get seated. (Remembering he was less than thrilled.) So far, I feel like they're resenting us.

I made even more so when I'm told we're going to have two Waits on our table and they don't show up for quite a bit of time because (I figure) they're arguing who has to wait on us. Note: I'm a former waitress and a table of 10 is not this big of a deal. You just have to know your menu and be organized.

So they show up, take our orders, and from there things just went farther downhill. They disappeared on us and when the food did show up, not everyone was served. My sister sat there and watched the rest of us eat before she got her plate. If we hadn't started without her, our food would have gotten cold. Thats how long it took. Luckily, there were appetizers but to the point my niece gives her plate to her mother. My husband is still waiting on his hot peppers.

What I had hoped would be a nice little dinner to celebrate our special day, turned out to be a bad experience overall. The food was the best part.

Ok, so fast forward 6 months and the plan is to take our DIL and son out for her birthday. She picks OG because she lives for pasta. This is a party of 4.

We get there and are seated quickly and pleasantly. The Wait is attentive and nice. We made pigs of ourselves and enjoyed it. The downside was they were out of certain items on the menu but it was still the complete opposite of the last experience.

Apparently, I needed to get this out of my system because both visits left a mark. I think you can tell which one left the bigger mark. The lesson here is keep it to a...

Never had a bad experience here. We'll always go back. My daughter and I enjoyed a mother daughter Valentine's dinner- might make it our tradition. Edit- went lastnight and our meals were not very good. We mostly ate our breadsticks and salad which were good. The service was lacking from the time we walked in the door. Young adults "working". They did not greet us or even speak to us until they finished their story to one another. 🙄 they were very unprofessional. We arrived at 830pm. It took 10+ minutes to take our drink orders and the server was not thorough on taking the orders. The staff was just not at all what Olive Garden used to be. Our server was a sweet older woman who became our friend though. We exchanged some stories and my daughter drew her a picture. She left an imprint on our hearts, thats for sure. Overall, this 35 and 6 year old weren't pleased with our main courses, at all and the staff thst we dealt with were very blah. Edit: visited our local OG Friday night. They did not disappoint 🙌 food and drinks were on point, so hot and delicious. The staff at the door is still lacking in doing their part but...

I love the Olive Garden, love the food. But next time we choose to go there, I sure hope we do not get the same waitress we had yesterday. She was rude and tried to make us feel guilty for having a long lunch. We have chosen to meet many places, my friends and I through several years and have eaten at restaurants that are far less expensive and some that are very comparable to the Olive Garden in price. Never before have we ever been made to feel like we were not welcome to sit and talk after eating. Guess we will try Olive Garden again and if we get the same kind of attitude, we will have to give up choosing the Olive Garden as our place to enjoy good food AND CONVERSATION to catch up with friends. This was so unexpected. Food was great...but waitress left so much to be desired...not even friendly (and a while back we had a waiter that I had to comment that one could tell he LOVES HIS JOB, not so much with this waitress we had yesterday!). I think she hates her job. Just a very disappointing experience to which I had so...