Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Trussville

On a rare date night with my wife where we intended to spend upwards of $125 with tip, we ended up getting out for less than $90. Olive Garden isn't fine dining, but the experience would quite often surpassed by McDonalds.

We were seated at a table by a gentleman who dropped menus on the table and pointed. When our server finally arrived to take our drink and appetizer order a few moments later.(unsweet tea, water, blue Hawaiian, shrimp fritto and alfredo sauce bowl). We requested to be moved into an empty booth adjacent after a few minutes as the bright LED lighting over the table was quite distracting with the reflections caused and making it almost unbearable to look across the table. It took about 5 minutes to get a response to the request. Once we did, we transferred menus and silverware. The tea and water came a few minutes later. Both drinks were empty before the cocktail arrived, and the tea was refilled while the water was not.

The first appetizer was brought out but there was no Alfredo bowl. The fritto was gone before the alfredo bowl arrived, and it did so without any breadsticks. The alfredo was cold by the time the breadsticks and salad arrived. We were told the kitchen was backed up while we watched other parties (of 2,5,6) be seated, served breadsticks and salads, entrees, eat, and leave just in the time it took between placing our order and receiving the food.

The server said, "I'll chase down xxxxx" when ever we asked about ordered food items(rarely as we rarely saw the server).

We had to request more bread, more sauce and that didn't arrive until the food arrived much later. Later I told my wife that if the food didn't arrive in the next 5 minutes we were leaving without receiving either the second cocktail or the food. It arrived 5 minutes and 30 seconds later. The cocktail a few moments later we ate the food without adequate drinks, or even being offered refills.

Literally one of the least attentive servers we have ever encountered in any restaurant, by far the worst service ever received at this location.

The quality of the food was good, the drinks were good, the service was SEVERELY LACKING. As far as atmosphere, the restaurant was clean, the servers(not ours) around us were attentive. Children in the area was extremely disruptive, I have children, I understand how they can be. One customer had an infant daughter with her who began crying. Rather than comforting the child at the table or outside, she proceeded to parade the screaming child around the dining area. The table on the opposite side of the wall allowed their toddler to stand up in the seat, place a cell phone on the partition and blast baby shark for approximately 5 minutes about 2 ft from my wife's ear which precludes conversation.

We did learn the meaning of when you are here, you're family. I think we were supposed to go in the kitchen and get it outselves.

EDIT to reflect, they had us back to try again and the food and atmosphere were all great. The server however was stand out...

Sorry, no photos today as I'm writing this a couple days after our visit and I've already devoured it all lol. Excellent experience! We've had great service at this Olive Garden several times, we will definitely return and I would highly recommend it to anyone. I don't always catch the name of our server but today's was memorable as she also spelled it during her greeting and I'm happy to say that Tilly was an excellent server, top notch! She was friendly, professional and knowledgeable. We were very pleased with her service. We went all out for this dinner since it was one of the last nights of our vacation, so when we ordered our drinks, we also ordered a spinach dip appetizer & some alfredo sauce to dip bread in. Tilly returned shortly with drinks, bread and dipping sauce and let us know our appetizer would be a few more minutes. We ordered 2 entrees and, with the thought of tomorrow's lunch in mind, added the "take home" entree option to each dine-in entree. I'm thrilled to say both of our orders were correct, punctually delivered and delicious. The Pita chips that came with the dip were a little hard fried for our preference but I found the bread made a delicious carrier option to replace the chips. The dip itself was creamy and rich, very yummy. I went for the mushroom cream sauce on the build your own pasta section and if you are a shroom fan like myself, do not miss this. It was soooo good. Hubby had the fettuccine alfredo and highly enjoyed it as always. Already stuffed but unable to resist the siren's call of dessert to take home, I splurged on the strawberry cream cake, a decadent triple layer, light white cake with vanilla cream cheese frosting and strawberries in their own sweet saucy-syrup, and asked it be ToGo. So. Worth. It. Perfect portion of strawberry to cake/vanilla for my taste and, trust me, it was no hardship to make short work of it later that night. 😁 Tilly's timing was exceptional as she brought the take out meals and my dessert out, all nicely bagged up, just as we were finishing our entrees. We asked for boxes and she brought another bag with them so we could carry our take-home bounty easily. The take home dinners were great. I love that they were packaged with the noodles and sauce separate. I would definitley recommend trying it for next-day lunch or dinner. They have 3 to choose from, so kinda limited but the portion is filling and they are...

Monday night 04/03/23, the boss, SWEET MS ASHLEY, and I traveled to Trussville just for OLIVE GARDEN. It had been a while since we had been. We went in about 7:30 after the falderal had left. The place had been cleaned top to bottom since the folks with ankle biters had been sent away. Quiet and clean. The bathroom for ladies was spotless according to my beautiful wife. The boys room was a royal flush too. Coral was our server. She was a wiz with the menu helping us make life or death decisions like shrimp or steak or chicken or all three. I got the 6 ounce steak with the fettuccine Alfredo. Ashley ordered the shrimp scampi with angel hair pasta. It came in a wonderful garlic oil sauce. Our first courses were breadsticks and salad. Yeppy we did set records on salad. Ashley had 2 plates and 2 forks going at once. Coral, our sweet server, kept the cheese grater going until it caught fire. We splashed her with water from the table and encouraged her to get back to it.

Ashley's shrimp was delicious. Many large shrimp cooked to perfection amid a mountain of noodles cooked like Mama Ranelli did back in the Ensley of my youth. My steak was tender and just as I had requested. Because of allergy issues I order a steak with only salt, pepper and garlic. The one at Olive Garden needed nothing else. The meat did the talking. The fettuccine was tender and tasted like home...

Back to our server: a consumate professional. We hope she is appreciated by the company in this role. She knew and anticipated our needs. She was by our side with fresh drinks and extra napkins which one of us desperately needs. She made a low key evening for us very enjoyable. I had been through a rough day tutoring for TWO WHOLE HOURS and was tired. She kept us going with her pleasant conversation. And she pushed dessert but we were too full of dinner. We promised to eat dessert first next time we see her. We will keep this in our close rotation of dinner places. Well done Olive Garden Bravo,...