Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Saratoga Springs

In the past, I have been a loyal customer of Olive Garden. We had previously had dinner at this location and was served by a young lady at the bar. It went amazing. She was super nice and made sure that we had everything we needed. However, after an experience that occurred at this location on 6/30, I will not patronize this restaurant again. Initially, my partner, his parents (who were visiting in town visiting us), and I went to Olive Garden for dinner. Unfortunately, after being seated at a table, the wait staff failed to serve us. We were sitting at the table for 10 minutes with no water, no acknowledgement of our presence. It was absolutely dehumanizing. I couldn't help but notice that white customers seated at other tables were served with the exception of my Black family members and I. It was very awkward.

It's 2023 and so surely I thought we can't be ignored because of our race. My partner asked the hostess for assistance and still no one came to our table. Then, my partner went back to the hostess to ask for assistance again. Finally, a manager emerged from the back of the restaurant to "rectify" the situation. She didn't even apologize. But offered to take our drink orders. When we provided her with our driver's license, I was asked "oh what brings you down this way?" as if I as a Black person could not possibly live down in Saratoga Springs. Very odd question to ask me. Then my partner was asked "how do you pronounce you middle name?"... it was subtle racist behavior peaking its ugly head throughout the entire interaction. We were served by the waiter who initially ignored our presecen, but not before receiving a weak excuse of "oh your wait staff person was sent home and we didn't change the staff person for your table." It just doesn't make sense to me that wait staff would see everyone around us getting served and NOT check in to see why we hadn't been served after sitting there for minutes before the ones they were serving. The food was not really good as my Alfredo came out cold. Our entire night was ruined by this experience. It was the night before my birthday and it just didn't feel good to be treated in this way especially when we did absolutely nothing to these people but be nice and BLACK.

Consequently, I will not patronize this restaurant anymore. It's 2023. Racism has no place in our...

We have been regular customers at this restaurant, often visiting with our family of four (two adults and two young children, aged 6 and 4). In the past, we've always received a full bowl of salad, and it has never been an issue to request a second serving when the salad was offered as unlimited.

However, our recent experience was quite disappointing. The waitress brought us only a quarter(very small) of the usual salad portion and refused to provide a second serving. When we asked her why she brought only a quarter bowl of salad instead of a full or decent portion, she replied that since the order was just for one person, she served a smaller portion. This was surprising since, in our previous visits, we always received a full bowl as a first serving, even when ordering for one person.

After some time, the manager came over and brought us a second bowl of salad but mentioned that this would be the last one and that, moving forward, they could only provide one serving per person. While we understand the policy of unlimited salad being applicable to one person, the initial portion should still be generous, as it had been on our previous visits. After the manager served us, the waitress returned and said, "I'm just doing my job don’t want trouble from my manager.”

It felt like the waitress intentionally served a smaller portion, possibly to make us request a second serving only to refuse it. We also noticed that other tables with four adults received full bowls of salad by other waitress, which seemed fair.

This inconsistency in service and the attitude of the waitress were disappointing. We hope the restaurant can address this issue to ensure all customers are treated fairly and...

First time visiting this olive garden and left feeling very disappointed.

Upon arrival, we were sat in a booth where the sunshine was directly on our faces. I know it’s a brief period of the day where the sun is shining through the window, but the fact that this issue hasn’t been taken care of baffles me.

Thankfully we were promptly moved to a table that wasn’t being beaten down by the sun, we then waited a significant period of time to have our server greet us.

Now keeping in mind the only reason we came to olive garden was because the pizza place we originally went to was closed, it was very disappointing to hear (20 minutes into our visit) that they didn’t have a single kids pizza in the restaurant. Thankfully they were more than happy for me to leave to get pizza from a different restaurant for my child and bring it back.

Now in the 25 minutes I was gone getting pizza from elsewhere, our server seemed to forget our party. He brought a salad bowl and left, without taking orders or bringing plates. Another server noticed our lack of service and went to get us plates.

By the time I arrived back the order was placed, but 2 soups were forgotten. It was on his next and final check for boxes that we finally got to tell him that 2 of our party hadn’t gotten their food.

Thankfully we were taken care of when it came to the pizza mishap, but overall a bad experience that will lead us to not frequent this...