Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Tampa

Won't go back ! Went with family it was the day of my daughter's 31st birthday. Called for reservation 30min. Prior. Was told they are not busy so no need for res. Got there waited 20+ min. While others were as well, asking for secluded space due too we had her daughter age 2. with also family joining us there for birthday. They then sat us at a table for 4. When Explaining we had more family joining us. As we were sitting at the table of 4 our waiter did not approach us. At least 5+ min. In crowded Area of settings tabels asking other Customers if they would mind standing to put a high chair Against the wall ! That's how crowded that area was. I then asked if we could be moved. To a larger area due to family was going to be arriving. At that time, then the waiter finally shows up to the table...Rambling on About other customers complaining. At that time. I should have realized it was a mistake coming to this location / restaurant... so I made A call to my family and canceled the evening. Due to? Already situation going on and did not want to humiliate or be humiliated on my daughter's birthday.. i asked if there was a table or a booth at that time and was told.Let me check with my boss first. As we sat and waited AGAIN.. He came Back. Then asked, have you decided what you're going to have? As there was no beverages even considered. Explaining, I would like to have a beverage. With my family first. Meaning a glass of soda water for myself, diet coke no ice please, and for my daughter she ordered a frozen margarita... and sweet tea.. We ended up waiting over 10min just for our beverages. As we were waiting, he came back and said.Do you know what you want to eat? So we Ordered our food. My mom ordered soup and salad.My daughter and I had the never ending pasta, EASY RIGHT ! The waiter brought out my mom's soup.. we had to ask for our salad And bread. Also asking for light dressing on the salad. I think he deliberately put more dressing on it. LITERALLY!!!!! You could see all of it..... Even the table next to us said the same thing !! I did not say anything to the waiter.In regards to complaints due to my daughter's birthday. So we ate from the top of the salad, my mom finished up her soup and we were still waiting for a simple pasta bowl. At that time I just should have stood up and asked the family to leave...but. I gave it the benefit of the doubt. So we all sat there my mom with an empty bowl.I still with no pasta picking up the salad . My granddaughter was eating bread stick.It was her dinner time and she was hangry..... so I've said enough and that's it won't ever go back to that restaurant ever again and as well as family...

We came here last night to visit and eat with some friends and I had ordered the seafood entree which came with the endless soup. I ordered the Zuppa first which was good but they didn’t even bother to give me a full bowl of it. It was filled half way. My entree hadn’t come yet so I ordered another soup. I ordered the chicken nocchi soup since it was endless soup. Lauren our server, brought me the soup, again half full. I took a couple of bits from it and there was barely any chicken in it so I didn’t really want it anymore. My wife ate the rest of the half filled soup since I didn’t want it. When we got our check. Lauren, our server added an extra soup to my bill and I asked why. She said because you ordered it for your wife from my order. I told her I ate it but didn’t like it. She then proceed to tell me that no she ate it only. I told her that I did but I didn’t like it. She then told me you can’t take advantage to the endless soup like that. But I ate one half filled bowl of the Zuppa and didn’t like the chicken nocchi soup. If I was taking advantage of it then I could have ordered several more soups for myself, but I only ate one bowl because I don’t like the second bowl I ordered. It was like they were trying to control who you could give your left overs to. I asked that if I couldn’t finish my entree and I gave the rest to my wife or kids because I was full, would she have charged me a second entree since I gave my left overs to another person? She said in that instance I should have let her know we were splitting it so she could charge me a share charge. My wife had her own order herself so, to me this is nickel and diming your customers or poor training on how that works. The inconsistency is ridiculous and after being accused of lying of my intentions of the half filled soup that I didn’t not like. Lauren finally took it off my check. It’s amazing because if my wife didn’t eat that bowl she had charged me for , then they would have just thrown that in the trash any if I didn’t finish it. Our check was well over $100 and a $5 extra charge was added but the reason and the principle and accusation was what bothered me about the incident. The greed with some companies is surprising. And the nerve to be called a liar by a server in front of our friends that we visited was embarrassing. Do better and train you servers better about the menus you...

I absolutely hate to write a bad review, I don't know that I ever have before.

To me Olive Garden is comfort food and is my go to for celebrations (birthdays, anniversary, etc.), so when my husband and I were planning our wedding, it was our obvious choice of catering. We could not get the food delivered to our venue, so we planned to have a good friend pick it up on the way to the ceremony.

About 3 weeks prior to the wedding we called the order in and had the catering personnel confirm our order of about $600. In that call my husband was told we would be sent the confirmation and receipt to the email he provided (we asked for this specially because of the large bill and importance of the order/occasion). We then called back 3 more times giving them our contact until we finally got the emailed copy of the receipt.

The order was confirmed for a pick up and even the night before the ceremony my husband called to confirm our pick up time and was even told it could be ready early. When my friend went to pick up the order, they were told it was not ready yet and that he was early. When it was ready he confirmed the pick up was for our wedding, and was handed numerous stapled bags and told to have a good day.

Upon arrival to the venue, it was not our party’s food, it was only salad, frozen breadsticks, and butter. I suppose our friend could have peeked in the bags to double-check it was our order, however he was told by the establishment that this was the order under our party name and he did not want to open the seals on the food. When we called to see if we could get the correct order, the manager tried to blame us and was mad that they would have to remake the order that we accidentally picked up. They did not offer any help with delivery or transport so my coordinator had to leave my wedding to pick up the order. This left us without a coordinator for the whole of our ceremony and led to a few mishaps along the way without her guidance.

As a long time Olive Garden lover I am so sad that this is how the customer service was for this important day. I am not too upset about the mix-up, these things happen. But when it was mishandled and the customer is left to feel bad about this mistake moments before their ceremony starts, it is hard to get past this. I will have a hard time feeling the comfort...