Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Spring Hill

Disappointed First Visit After So Much Anticipation

My husband and I had been looking forward to trying this new Olive Garden location since it opened—we used to drive 30 minutes to the nearest one, so having one just 10 minutes away was exciting! After two failed attempts due to 2+ hour wait times (understandable for a new spot), we were finally seated today after just a 20-minute wait using the mobile app.

While our server was clearly new—which we totally understand—she was polite and respectful. She could improve on timing and attentiveness (we had to request straws and napkins multiple times), but she showed potential and we still left her a generous tip.

Where the experience really fell short was in the kitchen and overall management. We waited over an hour for our food. Another table that arrived 20 minutes after us was served first. When my husband's chicken Alfredo finally arrived, the chicken was undercooked. Thankfully our toddler didn’t get a bite before we caught it. When we informed our server, she offered to get the manager, who came over, apologized, and said he’d remove it from the bill—but didn’t offer any replacement or solution so my husband could eat. That was disappointing.

Things went from frustrating to outright upsetting when a joke made by our 13-year-old daughter (something silly like “we should dine and dash”) was overheard and completely misinterpreted. Apparently, this was reported to the manager, who then sent over the head waitress to watch our table. My husband and I played rock, paper, scissor to see who was going to pay, and that was interpreted as who was going to get up from the table first. She stood near us, told another family that we were planning to skip the bill, accused us of being rude to our server, and even described us in detail—including what my daughter was wearing.

What she didn’t realize was that the family she vented to was our cousins—we didn’t even know they were dining at the same time! When we greeted them at the end of the meal, the look on her face said it all.

This situation was embarrassing and completely avoidable. Misunderstandings happen, but the lack of professionalism from the head waitress was unacceptable. Even if we had been a real concern, discussing that with another table of customers is highly inappropriate.

We weren’t rude, we didn’t cause a scene, we paid for our food, tipped our server, and just wanted a relaxing meal after a long day. We left feeling unfairly judged and uncomfortable.

We hope to give this location another chance once the team has had more time to settle in, but for now, this experience left a bad taste in our mouths—literally and...

I typically would not write a review like this, but the experience we had this evening at the Olive Garden in Brooksville, warrants it. It’s Friday night, there’s a wait, which is to be expected, so we waited the 45 mins, no problem. We are a party of five for reference. Waitress (Haley) greets us, takes our drinks and appetizer order. Brings them to us relatively quickly, which is great. She proceeds to take our dinner order etc. Soups come out, and we asked for bread. It was brought to our table by a food runner, not our waitress. We asked if we could get refills on our drinks, she said she was busy but would let our waitress know. Waitress comes to our table 15 minutes later, we ask for refills. By the time she comes back, she brought our dinners with her. Great. We had our appetizer plates and soup bowls on our table (empty) with absolutely no room to eat our dinner comfortably. She disappeared after that. Completely disappeared. 35 minutes of waiting. We weren’t able to get refills on our drinks and my husband who ordered the endless pasta, wasn’t able to order a second serving. I finally stood up and found a manager (Kat). I explained the situation, and she said she was going to find our waitress and send her to our table. Ten minutes later, a different waitress came to our table and told us that her manager (Kat) was still looking for our waitress (Haley), but asked her to come to our table in the meantime. She was polite, and apologized on behalf of our waitress and asked what she could do to help. She grabbed us refills, and explained that we could check out on the kiosk at our table. The manager (Kat), walked to our table and told us that she credited our check for the appetizer and she was sorry for the inconvenience, then proceeded to ask if “everything was okay now?” At this point we were amazed at what was happening. My response to her was…… this was a terrible experience, our waitress didn’t check on us once, my husband ordered endless pasta, to only eat one bowl, but sure, everything is okay. She proceeded to say she would take off the charge for the endless pasta (not the point, but okay). Then she proceeded to go into the “kitchen area”, which we had a clear view of, walked up to our “waitress” and they began laughing. We were in disbelief. While removing items from our bill is the least that she could do, it was clear as day that our experience was a joke. It all makes sense....

This was by far the absolute worst Olive Garden I have ever been to. We waited 60 minutes just to get in the door then we get sat in like a half booth in a corner not very pleasant at all. No one comes to even greet us for over 10 mins. We had the worst server I’ve ever had in my life. Her name was Brianna and we did not get any lemon in our tea like we asked for when we ordered our drink. No straws, once she finally came back with the straws she indicated they are no longer allowed to give straws customer must ask (WHAT) no napkins were brought after asking for them in the beginning . I had to keep stopping other servers one particular name, Jasmine, which was a trainer there. She was very good. Then the table next to us had like a 10 party right next to us they were complaining they weren’t getting their items their food, salad dressing everybody’s food was coming out at different times they were not happy at all and she was the same server. Our appetizer came out then she brought the salad in the soup at the same time and I asked her not to do that from the beginning then she didn’t come back for like 15 minutes no breadsticks no nothing. I had to get the manager. The manager said he would get breadsticks. Somebody else brought me breadsticks. They bought us two breadsticks. I said how come we can’t have breadsticks when we first sat down oh, we don’t do that no more. Then the food was horrible. We waited another hour just to get Alfredo with chicken and it tasted like water down flour no one ever came back and asked us if we wanted any more tea. I had to flag somebody down again and asked for tea. I had to flag another server down and ask if I could have more Alfredo sauce, cause it was so dry. The bathrooms were absolutely disgusting. My husband said the men’s bathroom the trash was all over the floor trash was all over the floor in the women’s bathroom as well plus toilet seats were disgusting. I would NEVER go back to that Olive Garden again WASTED…. $71.00 and Olive Garden is my absolute favorite place to eat. We will continue going to Olive Garden however, it will be the one in Inverness Florida! Would not recommend Brooksville Fl location...