Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in San Jose

After today's experience, I will vow to never go to any Olive Garden ever again for the rest of my life. Nor will I recommend any family or friend to visit, else I will personally shame them for swooping so low. Today's experience on August 17th, 2025 was the worst service one could every receive.

First off, why are there 13 parking spots at the literal front of the store for no one to park in. Just a waste of space. And for anyone who does decide to buy to-go enjoy getting scammed and paying for more for less food. The chicken and gnocchi soup literally had 1 piece of chicken and that was it. Literally no gnocchi at all. What?? They didn't even offer me cheese on my soup. They just dropped it off and left. Only after I was finished did they offer the cheese. Why would I need cheese when my bowl is literally empty?? After I finished everything, I purposely put everything at the end of the table neatly for them to pickup and refill on bread and my soda. That never happened. Literally no one came to come pick it anything or ask until much later. The waitress asked if I wanted more bread and I said yes. That never came. I had to also ask for my soda to be refilled. That came but they just took my straw and never offered it. I had to ask for that again. Like, each time I asked, it was a separate time. How about you just ask me what I want rather than me having to waive you down and ask each thing individually each time. This was the cherry on top. After all about 30 minutes, they brought out the wrong food and literally dumped it and walked away. No cheese again. Classic. Not that that even mattered because it was the wrong food. I tried to wave down anyone but no one would come. I put up the call server button on the pay machine and waited. 10 minutes later, they asked what was wrong and I said that it was literally the wrong food. They took it back and said to wait again. 10 minutes later, if finally came. Wow. Thanks a lot.... And again. No cheese offering. Classic. At this point I wanted to get out of there. I also wanted to cancel my to go food option because at this point it was hopeless anyways. The entire time, every staff, waitress, manager, were just chatting with each other the whole time. 1.5 hours of my life gone just like that.

I'm actually glad this happened to me. This was truly and eye opening experience and now I know to never trust Olive Garden ever again. They really ought to close this place down and train everyone for a week. Better yet, I will fully support Olive Garden going bankrupt and closing all their stores in California. It's not as if it's even a good meal at that price point anyways. We don't want you here. We need you to leave. Please close this location or fire everyone. It would do humanity a great service.

I'm going to dispute this with my bank and get...

Tl;dr = Food quality is not worth my time/money/calories. Will not return. "Have you tried Olive Garden?" "Omg Olive Garden breadsticks... they are so good!" - Ever since I moved here - no, even before I got here - from North of the border, I have been hearing these comments. So I finally decided to try it out. There were also the people who said this place is gross and "don't even go, it's not worth it" I wanted to give it a shot just so I have a justifiable opinion.

I wasn't impressed with the decor. I can see they tried to make it kind of like the Italian countryside, rustic Tuscan feel, but it just appeared cheap. Also the low ceiling made the whole place dim, in a bad way.

I usually like to sit on the bench because it's the more comfortable thing (like a couch) but their bench was... really uncomfortable. Like, weirdly lumpy and bouncy.

The food.

Chicken & gnocchi soup = Too salty. Very MSG-y. The gnocchi were meh... I mean they were not good, but I know gnocchi are hard to make so I'll let it go. Chicken pieces, albeit small, were surprisingly tender.

Creamy sun-dried tomato sauce with whole wheat pasta = Tl;dr would be 'gross'. Sauce was just cheesy, can taste the sun-dried tomato but not in a pleasant way. Not too salty, so that's OK. I don't know if it's the pasta or the sauce but the combined texture was almost sandy/powdery.

Breadsticks & alfredo dipping sauce = Dipping sauce alone was about $4. Very very cheesy. Not too salty. Didn't have any high class gourmet taste, but it was addictive, like you just want to keep eating. Breadsticks themselves were just... bread (I was anticipating more like long crackers like in Europe) with garlic salt on top. Nothing crazy by themselves.

House salad = Nothing special. Leaves are leaves, nor organic or special preparation or anything so nothing to say there. Italian dressing is...well, same as any American cafeteria.

Minestrone soup = Surprisingly, this was the best item that we ordered. Better than your usual cafeteria minestrone. Had that homemade flavor, big chunks of tomatoes, can taste the freshly ground pepper. It was nice. It also had carrots, celery, and snap pea.

Service was OK. I wish she were more attentive, had to wait a while for her to appear a couple of times, but oh well.

YAY COUPON. I guess one redeeming quality of OG is that they always have deals. We got $10 off our $33 bill, so we ended up with $23 plus tax for 2 people,...

It really is TRUE that when you're here you're family! Recently, a family member suggested a particular restaurant, where myself, my sister, my grandson and my grand daughter in-law, and my great grand daughter and great grandson could all catch up with each other. But, when I, instead, recommended Olive Garden, it was enthusiastically agreed to, right away. The healthy comfort food, and the caring and anticipatory homey service, again confirmed to us that this is a good place for families. My great grand kids' Mom had gone to get something out of the car, and their Dad had taken his 2-year old son to be changed. So, only their 5-year old daughter remained with us at our table. When our Server asked what drinks we wanted, our 5-year old pointed to two different flavor drinks on the kids menu, one by one, and ordered both of them. Our Server wisely said, with a smile, Maybe I'll wait til your Mom and Dad get back. After her Mom and Dad returned, they told us that she was actually not ordering two drinks for herself, but that she usually orders one drink for herself and one for her little brother. If our Server had not asked our 5-year old for her drink order, or meanly refused to bring her what she wanted, she might have been upset, which may have led to a potential scene. But our Server was polite, respectful, smart and friendly. In other words - no problem. When we were finishing our meal, we were thinking about asking for doggie bags, to not waste the remaining tasty generous portions. But, we didn't need to ask, since our Server, because of apparent good training and valuable experience, asked us first, if we would like some boxes and bags. Of course, we accepted them, and when we left, we left with some tasty reminders, for later, of the good food we'd enjoyed. But, we also remembered the good time we shared with our own family, and the Olive Garden family as well. No problems. Good times. Happy memories. Grazie and Ciao! Thanks and see...