Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Sparks

Olive Garden is normally a go-to place you can depend on for food and service. But, This Is The WORST Olive Garden I've visited! Family came from SoCal, NorCal, and locally to celebrate my granddaughter's 16th birthday weekend. We were wrapping it up with lunch before everyone got on the road to travel home. We asked that our party of 16 be seated together at 1 or 2 tables. The staff refused to seat us together! There was a whole room open, completely empty, but they still refused to seat us together. So, 6 were seated at the front of a dining room, 6 were seated across the dining room by the window, 4 were seated at a booth in the middle. Within 5 minutes of seating us, they started seating people in the empty dining room!!! I recently broke my knee and am in a brace the length of my leg to keep my leg straight! Ankle, up! I was seated at the booth at the front of the dining room (first booth) and was left to leave my leg hanging out for anyone to kick or trip over! I had to ask for a chair to use to protect my leg. You would think the staff would have offered to seat me somewhere I would be comfortable and safe, but NOPE! They brought me a chair, and I was left to do my best to protect it from serve staff and others running into it. My group also had a stroller with a 3 month old infant in it. So, there were 6 adults, and a stroller, and a broken peg-leg crammed into a booth when there had been an empty dining room available! We order...and our entrees arrive right away! So, fast....but, salad hadn't come yet! So, our already crowded, oddly sticking out table was served entrees, then salad! 3 bread sticks for our table of 6. Our server seemed oblivious that we were irritated and uncomfortable!!! She started getting short when those who ordered endless soup and salad actually ordered more soups and another salad bowl (after sharing the first bowl with the table of 6) and more breadsticks. If you're looking for a staple restaurant, dependable food and service, Keep Looking!!!! This Olive Garden is Guaranteed to Not Care about...

1-6-23: Review Update I am updating my previous review from November (see below) based on the experience I had yesterday (1-6-23). What a complete turnaround. I placed a To Go order as a walk-in customer. The service was immediate and the order was filled quickly. I changed up my order from my previous visit to experience how their other food items fared. Honestly it was excellent this time. I ordered 2 entrees - spaghetti with meat sauce and the salmon and asked that it be blackened. I opted for salad with both meals and ordered a slice of cheesecake for dessert. The food was great and plentiful! The meat sauce was very flavorful, the noodles cooked perfectly and my husband loved the blackened salmon and brocolli. We were so full from our entrees that we didn't get to the salad but they were huge and all accroutrements were included, including extra cheese. Great job Sparks Olive Garden..! I was so impressed watching the staff handle incoming customers as I waited for my To Go Order and then impressed again on the food quality and serving sizes. I feel comfortable knowing I can go back to this location and try other food items and I have revised my review to 5 stars. Thank you!

I usually have no issues with this location but find that my recent visit was an eye opener. I dined in but also placed an order of soup to go. If you think you are eating somewhat healthy by ordering their soup, think again. Very disappointed when I arrived home and opened the soup. The entire container was encircled with a heavy ring of congealed grease. Not sure how they prepare the meat for the soup, but one would imagine that they pre-cook the meat before adding it to the soup. Guess not...but they might need to re-think the process so they can drain the grease before adding the meat to the soup. I threw the whole $19 container of soup away. The salad used to be good, but the ratio of dressing and croutons to actual salad was ridiculous. I had to remove so many croutons that it filled my salad bowl and I needed a new bowl to actually...

If I could give this visit zero stars I would. The management used to be so much better but it is apparently gone downhill which is unfortunate

One of my friends had booked a reservation for 16 of us to have a secret Santa get together at least 2 weeks ago if not longer. They couldn't find our reservation until a manager got involved.

When it came to them bringing the food out, there were several plates that came out of the kitchen cold and had to be remade which was a huge inconvenience.

From the get-go are waitress could have thought ahead with as many people as were in our party when it came to ordering and asked if you wanted to do separate checks. That did not happen.

When it came to paying the bill, first the kiosks at the table we were at wouldn't work between our server and a supervisor or manager they kept on passing the book between the two of them as to how the check was going to get split up. The supervisor or manager made some bullshit excuse about how splitting up the check could be messy. How is that our fault? His employee should have thought ahead and she did not then he tried to say that it can only be split up three different ways. TALK ABOUT A LACK OF CUSTOMER SERVICE. In the end, another lady within our party went and paid the whole bill so that way we could all get on with our evenings.

I don't do poor reviews regularly but this one is VERY deserving of a poor review.

I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS...