Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Pleasant Hills

TERRIBLE, NASTY, ROTTEN, ATTITUDINOUS, ARROGANT, COCKY. I came in for lunch in November and asked for Coke Zero with no ice and a glass of wine from a fresh bottle. IMMEDIATELY the server, also the lady who was acting as bartender, said they only keep the opened bottles for x amount of time, as though SHE GETS TO DECIDE how fresh I prefer my wine. That was my very first red flag that this server was an argumentative know-it-all who did things HER way and was right about everything, leading to the worst experience in dining that I've had in probably years, and the worst at any Olive Garden ever.

So I asked for fresh wine and Coke Zero with no ice. I gave the server a $10 bill as a good-faith gesture of getting part of her gratuity up front by showing I am not some rude ass who stiffs servers with $1 gratuities. She came back with the "fresh" wine and my Coke Zero and I started to say, "Oops, I guess I got you flustered" -- well, she cut me off right there. Great listener, huh? I was going to say the talk about fresh wine musta made her forget that I ordered no ice in the Coke Zero. She broke into my sentence saying, "OH, YOU CAN'T FLUSTER ME. I'VE BEEN DOING THIS WAY TOO LONG." So then I finished, as she set down my Coke Zero with 200 ice cubes in it. "Well, I was going to say you musta been a bit flustered because you brought all that ice out."

Then I ordered a "trio" (some plate with three items) and she asked if I wanted soup or salad. I said, "WELL, GEEZ, why not do it as an unlimited soup and salad? You still do that, right?" She said yes, so I said to go ahead with that.

So the soup and salad comes.

About 30 minutes later, she swings by and asks if everything was OK. I said yes, except for the trio not arriving. She looked at me with a hostile air this time. "You didn't order that," she said. "You ordered unlimited soup and salad."

"No," I said, "I ordered the trio, and the unlimited soup or salad on top of that." Obviously her first impression of being a poor listener had carried through to the meal ordering. At this point, she didn't say, "Oh, no! I'm sorry!" or "Let me fix that" or "Whoops" or "My fault! I'll put it in right now!" Instead, she scowled, turned her back and walked off with no words at all.

Next a manager came over and asked what was going on and confirmed the trio had been ordered. I said it seemed odd that he was suddenly at the table handling the ordering as if I had done something WRONG. No, he said, he was "Just helping out."

So the trio came. That was fine. Tasty, even. And maybe 5 or 15 minutes later he brought the check. I put a card in it. Guess what. The check not only didn't comp anything for the rude service and errors, it ADDED extra soup on to the tune of about $5. I waited to bring this up to the manager and he didn't return for THIRTY MINUTES. At that point I was a little steamed. The server had disappeared WITH MY $10 UP-FRONT TIP, as though I were an ASS, he had taken over, and denied anything was wrong, and THEN left me sitting for half an hour waiting to pay. So I explained myself a little more frankly. "Your server didn't get the order right and walked off like I was a jerk, you take over, and you NOT only don't comp anything, you charge me for MORE than I ordered, then leave me hanging for 30 minutes."

His answer? He didn't know I wanted to pay. I ordered the UNLIMITED soup and salad, he said -- that meant I could have wanted to sit there indefinitely.

Really? That is a lie, and an insincere response at best. WHAT'S MORE: He never offered to BRING any more soup or salad to begin with.

Well, that time, he took the excess soup off the bill and I think the trio. Fine. I still waited probably 15 minutes to have the check processed.

Bottom line? Your server here is BETTER THAN YOU, and you'd better worship at her temple. And if you don't, she'll KICK YOU OUT of it and have some insincere liar kick you around further. I STILL left a few dollars in the check presenter. ON TOP of the $10 she made off with.

DO NOT GO.

People like these should be ashamed...

There are a lot of restaurants that do not live up to expectations. A lot of people complaint about "chain restaurants" as well - you know who you are. Well, I just want to say there's a reason why some restaurants are chains - they do things well and offer a large amount of food at a reasonable price. Now, that said - some restaurants are great indoor restaurants, but don't have the best take-out. The Olive Garden has excellent take-out as well - and the Pleasant Hills location is a pretty well-run operation.

COVID has caused us to change our eat in habits. After vaccination, I started eating in restaurants, again... but then comes Omicron. Ugh! So, at least for me, back to take-out. Well, I just want to tell you that Olive Garden take out is excellent. I can't speak for every dish, but I'm a huge fan of their Chicken Scampi dish. The sauteed red, green, yellow bell pepper, large amounts of tender chicken strips, and a great tasting sauce throughout this angel hair past dish. I highly recommend it.

You can use their online app, or just make an old-fashioned phone call (esp if you're driving when ordering). They give you a time... and when they give you a time, it's READY by that time! How novel! Everything is in the bag, as well... bread sticks, complete salad kits, and the food comes very warm in its own sealed plastic container. Just pull up to one of their front row pickup reserved parking spots, and they'll deliver right to your car... and they'll walk it out to your car. All of the staff were pleasant as well (this needs to be celebrated, as it's certainly not the experience at every restaurant).

So, chain-restaurant haters are gonna continue to hate, I guess. If you're not as pretentious and bourgeoisie about eating at a chain restaurant or picking up your meal in a take-out bag, then you're going to love the Olive Garden and this particular location. And of course, I recommend the...

My wife and I went for an early dinner or so and we are not sure if it was due to a shift change or just poor service, but the meal that my wife ordered was drastically over cooked, the bread sticks were stale and it was all an around unacceptable experience. Do not get me wrong, other than our waiter being preoccupied with something other than his job, the rest of the staff seemed polite and the restaurant was clean. One thing is certain though, we will not return.

After creating this review, I was was contacted by management regarding my experience. They showed sincere concern for what my wife and I experienced and I informed them that I would return to the restaurant unannounced to to experience another meal. My wife and I went this past Wednesday afternoon for lunch and I must say that the experience was a much more pleasant one than the intial visit that I reviewed. The waitress, Jenna, I believe was very insightful in assisting with what to order and the meal was much better than we had anticipated. I am a firm believer that we all are not on our "A" game all of the time and are prone to errors regardless how hard we try and I believe that may have been the case on our first visit. The thing that impressed me the most was the concern from management. It was not due to the poor review (well, maybe it was the catalyst), but the sincere concern that we had a bad meal and the impression given that positive changes need to be made so that others would not share the same sentiments as my wife and I did on our first trip there. Regardless we were glad that we returned and had an excellent meal and time together. One thing that I learned during this review process is to choose your words carefully. The adage "never say never" comes to mind and in my first review I mentioned that we certainly would not return, but we did and more than...