Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Riverside Township

Well,, I always come here with my Daughter as a mommy and daughter date. My 8year old says it’s fancy. Well last night my little family and I went a little late. 9ish pm. The host told us it would be about 1hr and 15min wait and I told would we have enough time to eat. She said she will ask her manager and he was very nice and said yes we can dine and they will try there best to call us before the wait time. It’s about 10:20 pm and haven’t been called. So I called in advance just to ask if it wasn’t late and if there still going to be enough time to order and dine without being rushed. The host and manager said of course not. Now the problem was our waitress. She rushed us like there’s no tomorrow. I get we were dining late but we had our 3 kids with us all under 10. She served the plates and basically went over my food to almost drop the plates in front of my kids instead of going around and placing it. I asked for crayons for the kids and she pulled through but was rushing to the point where a pack of them fell in my soup. No big deal tbh but with this COVID having people think twice about germs. Then she swept around our table and literally swept my foot and didn’t say anything. Again no big deal but I was already not liking my waitress at all. At the end we were finishing up with the kids and there were still two tables being occupied, but our table was jut being rushed. She Hanged out for like 2min around our table since she finished cleaning the other tables and basically asked us if we need to go containers and our check is on the machine. Explained how to use it and how the tip goes because she asked if we are paying with card. Ok we gave her a $5.00 tip and I felt as if she was upset cuz as we are getting ready to leave out she’s talking to her coworkers about how we are the last table when clearly we weren’t. As she’s cleaning our table while we put the kids jackets on she talking to my daughter because my daughter asked her some questions. (Kids).. then she said yea I’m here to close and I have to be up early I’m the morning to get this place ready. Now I know why she probably was rushing us. Still all in all I didn’t like our waitress. The place and host and manager our ok but not our waitress. Was trying to leave a review on the machine you pay on but she took that also right after we had confirmed the payment. We left there with at least a table of people still sitting and drinking. Waitress for the night of yesterday was a 2 for customer service. Tanya hope she has a better closing experience with others. Next time I go and she becomes my waitress I will ask for someone different. She might remember me because of the detail. So no bias service for me...

I drove all the way from the south side of chicago to go to olive garden for the first time in 10 years. First when I went to go to the bathroom, there was garbage all over the floor and coming out of the trashcans which I thought was lazy and gross. Second, we get to our table and our server comes to offer us samples of wine. We decline. We order about $87 worth of food and then try to order drinks. Im from out of state but my drivers license is valid and not expired. It explicitly states on the front of it, I turned 21 in 2014. The server says she wants to check with her manager which is fine. Im industry, I get it. She comes back and tells me they can't accept it because it says in under 21 which I was shocked and pointed out to her that it said "until 2014" to which she looked again and said "oh well its vertical and no birthdate on it." There is a birthdate on it which then I pointed out to her at the bottom. She looked again and said she was gonna get her manager. This is ridiculous because neither of them clearly looked or read my ID at all. This server was also more than ready to give us samples of wine before she carded my boyfriend and I. because I work in the food industry, i understand once they reject an ID they can't go back on their decision. Even though I still had my ID in my wallet from when I was underage. The manager came out to tried to get us to stay but I just got off of work and was not interested in eating dinner somewhere I could also not drink. I told her I don't wanna talk about it or argue and we are leaving. She looked me up and down with an attitude and laughed when I told her to "have a good service" in an attempt to be cordial. Ill never go back to this place because of the obvious laziness and incompetency that was demonstrated by staff and management. Having gone through BASSET training myself its obvious to me they didn't even read my ID and just denied it because the format is different than an Illinois license. The whole experience was stupid and the manager had nothing to say of any intelligence or importance. Dont go here, you can find places more worthy of your time and money EASILY. How this place has any stars, is beyond me. -5...

This branch of OG, was fine. They get used to run in low capacity. Also turn out to be some sort of “training center”, they barely train the waitress/waiters, to bring the dishes to the table. If you ask for suggestions on wine and food, a long silence just showed up. Long story short: asked for a white wine; seems like the bottle was stored close to the stove. It was hot..! The glass was dirty. They don’t even know the minimum requirements to serv a wine. Of course, They are to young to explain or know everything, they just got a black dress and “go to attend the table”. , I hope they are well paid. The Italian food is great, however in this place turns to be “rare”. The pasta, kind of dry. The minestrone soup mixed, no good aspect, in fact. Also, if you get into the wait list on-line, you get a table in no more than five minutes, even if you are 15 minutes away, however, if you get there and ask for a table for three, you have to wait 35 minutes..!!! Seems like they have two waiting lists. Finally, if you get there one hour before they close, you and your guests might be removed from waiting area, because waiters and hostesses themselves , wash the floor, during operating hours. The movement of chairs and tables, while the cleaning task at the bar, make you feel uncomfortable, like you are interrupting their clean-up job. So guests are coming in or out with high risk of falling because the floor is flooded, not just wet. I assume they want to save money leaving the place at the same minute when last customer gets out. That is cheap. Not efficiency. Yup. Used to be a nice place. Hopefully franchise owner/manager pays attention to comments and improve at least half of them.

Edit (6/15/23): some improvements were done. However the waitresses/waiters are young people always in training day. Many of them have no idea about wines or even the food they serve. If you ask the details on how a plate is done/served: it’s creepy time for them. Service is vital in a places like this. With that level of training, the difference between Olive Garden and one McDonald’s, is minimum. Please like and subscribe if you find...