Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Sierra Vista

Hadn't been to Olive Garden in over a decade and had heard it had gone downhill even though my wife and I loved it when we were younger. Went last night because not much was open and I regret having misjudged the restaurant. The decor has been tastefully updated and it still keeps the olive garden look but more subdued. Has that Italian villa feel and was more tasteful than most of the Italian places we frequent which are drastically more expensive. Almost felt like a Disney themed Italian restaurant. Can't really explain it..but it has that "this is almost too Italian that it seems fake" but not in a bad way at all.

Our server Alicia was an absolute gem. Incredibly helpful and came to check on us a dozen times. I ordered the unlimited soup and salad because I was feeling nostalgic and it tasted exactly how I remembered it. The Zuppa Toscana in particular is easily as good as any soup you'd find in a fine dining establishment. Alicia seemed to know exactly when I finished my soup and/or salad and was there to refill me at exactly the right moment. My wife had the lasagna and her opinion of the food was "why did we stop coming here again??".

We accidentally started a trivia game but didn't play and Alicia removed it from our bill, no questions asked.

Even the busser girl was fantastic (didn't catch her name but she had a strong accent from somewhere in Asia I believe). Incredibly bright and cheerful and seemed to love her job.

10/10 and we'll be going back to Olive Garden on the regular, particularly this location. We were wrong, they haven't gone downhill. They've evolved while keeping all the charm that made them popular...

This is a shout out for probably the most amazing customer service my wife and I have received at a restaurant in decades. We made reservations at the Olive Garden in Sierra Vista two weeks ago and when we arrived today, we were told that they no longer take reservations and that it was first come first serve.My wife’s younger sister celebrating her birthday, so we came here for a surprise party. Even though the reservation was written in their reservation book, they gave our reserve room away because someone got there before we did.Apparently the new procedure is reservations are only taking on the day you arrive, so we were faced with 17 people and no place to see them. However, the manager of the Olive Garden recognized the mistake and immediately went into action resolving the issue. He got us a nice place in the back of the restaurant secluded but yet very comfortable so that we could enjoy our party. He instructed his staff to take special care of us and they did a wonderful job. When it came time to pay the bill we discovered that the manager had picked up the entire tab for 17 people into the hundreds of dollars.This was customer service well above and beyond what we would have expected. We will definitely be back. As if the customer service wasn’t absolutely superb, the food as always...

• DISAPPOINTING *

Parking lot and building exterior appeared clean and free of any defects. Warmly welcomed upon arrival by the hostess staff. Once upon a time Olive Garden was a dress up date night destination, unfortunately that's no longer the case. Currently Olive Garden masquerades as a fine Italian food restaurant, but it's a mirage of it's former glory days. Hard over cooked breadsticks and wilted salad somehow just couldn't bring back fond memories of better days. We found our food muted in flavor. Somewhere under all that abundance of cheese was a flavorless bland over cooked mistake. We elected to drink water and keeping our waters filled proved extremely problematic. We live in a desert, really, how hard is it to provide water? Staff interaction was warm, pleasant and friendly but severely lack professional proficiency. The entire staff seems to have fully mastered mediocrity. Overall, our meal was disappointing and certainly fell well short of our expectations. We weren't expecting perfection, but we would have truly appreciated your best effort which we felt wasn't the case. We left beyond disappointed, wondering if we should ever attempt revisiting, our impression is that Olive Garden undeniably has vast room for unlimited improvement. A serious injection of pride would...