Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Southern Pines

First, I like Olive Garden. It's a predictable experience. The staff is friendly. The food is dependable, no flair or variation. The food in Kalamazoo tastes exactly like the same menu item in Southern Pines. Again, it's good food, and it's consistent no matter where you go. And it's comforting to know that no matter where you travel you can get a meal that is exactly whatyou expect. Just like McDonalds, the same everywhere.

This review is not about Olive Garden's food, or their atmosphere, or their staff in general. The food is always as pleasant as the staff. The restaurants are always clean, the surroundings comfortable.

I'm just going to give beginning, the conclusion, and the point of the review. You can fill in the story of the evening.

The beginning. The worst waiter I've ever had was in San Francisco. Terse. Inpatient. Uppity. Condescending. I don't remember the name of the restaurant. The story of that evening is long and funny. At least it's funny now, 32 years later. Just take those four words used above to decribe my world's worst waiter, think waiter, and I'm sure you've had your own San Francisco waiter like experience.

The conclusion. This evening our waiter became the first runner up to my aforementioned waiter. But, for a completely different reason. He was nice, courteous, hard working, and incompetent. To be clear, he had no idea how to retain the request of a customer in memory long enough to service the request. For example, one person in our party of four asked for his water to be refilled. Everyone at or table was drinking water, and only water. Over the next 45 minutes the guy who needed water repeated the request 4 times. I don't mean he had the waiter fill his glass 4 times, the glass was eventually refilled one time on the fourth request 45 minutes after he originally asked for a refill. The entire evening was filled with mistakes just like that. One person ordered the never ending pasta bowl. It was turned into the never pasta bowl.

The point. Olive Garden is a good, consistent, chain restaurant. One bad employee has given the group of friends I was with fodder for conversation for years to come. Made for a pretty lousy dining experience for one night, but a night we won't forget soon. Our opinion of Olive Garden hasn't changed. One incompentent waiter is not representative of the company, their culture, or their intentions.

I didn't complain to management, or stiff the waiter. I don't want a free meal. I don't want to use the waiter's name so that he's embarrassed. We ate. It was good. I think he did his best. I hope he improves.

A final sidenote. A table adjecent to our table had a large party of 12, and a different waiter. They had great service, and enjoyed the evening. It was nice to see. They were seated about 5 minutes after us, and they left about 10 min before we left.

Again, we did not complain. If we had asked to see management that destraction would have negatively impacted what was a very nice evening for our...

My friend and I were traveling through the area after coming from the hospital at Chapel Hill. We stopped for something to eat. We ordered the Shrimp Alfredo. The noodles were TOO al-dente for me and I could've sworn the shrimp were moving on the plate. SMH. It was as if they rushed our food out to us. I'm not sure WHY they would rush the food when there were barely anyone in the restaurant. I ordered the raspberry lemonade. NEVER again! It tasted like dirty sink water, so I changed it out for sweet tea. The sweet tea was to die for!!! Yum!

The service was ok. We had a female named Tara. She didn't offer a refill on soup nor did she offer a refill on salad or bread. In fact, we spent the majority of our time there looking for her! There was another female server that would go get Tara for us, which shouldn't have had to happen. And towards the end, Kinston who I presume was another server had to bring us our extra "to-go" bags. We still tipped Tara, but you could tell that she definitely didn't want to be there.

Another couple sat at the booth behind us and they saw Tara and called her over to ask if Tara was their waitress for the evening, and Tara said, "No, she's working the other side but if she knew that THEY were coming, she would've worked that side". That was our cue to leave. Evidently, she has " favorites"!

The price was fair.

Other thoughts that I can share are.... There was a lady in the bathroom when I was in there and I assumed she was the manager. She told me to NOT use THAT sink because it was out of hand soap, then when I moved over to the other sink, SHE decided to use that same sink that she told me to NOT use, and walked back out on the floor. Yulk!

The appearance of the restaurant in the inside was clean. The bathroom could use some type of automatic freshener or something.

My overall impression of our visit to Olive Garden was disappointing. If you notice, I said we were coming from Chapel Hill when we stopped by. The doors to your facility (Olive Garden) isn't handicapped accessible. There are no automatic door buttons to push to open the doors. I had to run ahead and grab the door for my handicapped friend that's fighting cancer and going through treatments and had a walking cane. That IN and OF itself, should be against the law!

What would've made my visit better would've been: ACKNOWLEDGING handicapped people needing assistance and y'all INSTALL a "push button" mechanism on the door to welcome ALL patrients. Put someone on bathroom duty to keep the bathroom topped with hand soap and install an automatic freshener on the walls somewhere. Hire people that loves people. Don't hire people that you gotta get their coworkers to go find to assist us at a table YOU say us down at. Don't rush the food out. We had JUST gotten the bread and salad and drinks, you had time to actually COOK the...

1 Star – Olive Garden, Aberdeen, NC

We’ve been to this location twice this year.

During our first visit, I ordered the salmon. It wasn’t cooked all the way through, so I had them take it back — but the second plate came out the same way. I didn’t order anything else after that. The bathroom floor was wet, and the host who seated us wasn’t personable at all.

Fast forward to November 1, 2025 which is today - we came again for a family member’s birthday. I decided not to order salmon this time, but another family member did. When it came out, it looked nicely cooked at first. However, halfway through, she showed me the inside — a very noticeable difference between the thin, fully cooked edge and the large, undercooked reddish center. She showed the waiter, who offered to cook another one or let her choose something else. She declined and they removed it from the bill, but still — unacceptable for a dish that should be properly cooked the first time.

While we were sitting there, I also noticed the air vent above our table was covered in dust. It was the only vent on that side of tables at the restaurant, and none of the others looked like that — which was concerning. No other table on that side had a vent above it. The other tables on that side were opened so why would the staff seat us there? We were seated near artwork of a white bike, construction/manufacturing art, and blue and purple grapes.

To top it off, there was a knife lying on the floor just outside the kitchen that several people seemed to overlook. And as we were leaving, a worker kicked a piece of ice across the floor — it slid right into the walkway as one of my family members was passing by. I looked at him without saying a word, looked at the ice on the floor for a significant moment and looked back at him. He hesitated, and quietly said, “Sorry.”

That about sums up this location — careless, unprofessional, and lacking attention to detail.

We’ve eaten at the Olive Garden in Cary many times and always had great experiences there. Unfortunately, the Aberdeen/Southern Pines location is the complete opposite. I definitely won’t be back.

We are experiencing coughing, sneezing and nasal discomfort now. 8:35PM. Two individuals at the table...