Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Tupelo

I have been a regular at Olive Garden in the multiple states I have lived in and this was by far the worst I have ever had sadly. In college my mother and I went every single weekend to Olive Garden for lunch and then to shopping while I was attending University there. As well as going to multiple olive gardens in Oregon, Idaho, Washington, and California as I have been moving around frequently in my adult life. My mother is 50% italian and I ended up with over a third between my two parents and while Olive Garden has never been “authentic” it was still a good place to go for their number of options, the price and the quality service we have (eggplant Parmesan is my soul food item). We have never had a bad time at an Olive Garden until this one. I took my fiancé and step daughter here for lunch before a trip to the shopping mall last Saturday, and I researched ahead of time about if they served lunch on weekends which I saw on Olive Garden website they do not officially but are happy to serve it to guests who ask. I personally wanted to get a lunch menu item because I wanted something light before shopping. When I asked the young lady at the counter she had to go get a manager up to the front and she said they would serve any lunch menu item to us but she didn’t seem happy about it. The hostess then POINTED to a booth across the way and said you guys can sit there I’ll bring menus over soon. Didn’t even walk us to the table like a host (especially at a slightly nicer chain restaurant) would normally do. Our server was extremely cold and never said hi just walked up and told us she would be our server. I do not know her name but she had braces I believe. We ordered an appetizer and drinks then we ordered 3 dishes off of the dinner menu. My daughter is 11 and sometimes gets nervous ordering and this was her first time at Olive Garden and had a bit of a hard time getting out what she wanted and the waitress looked at her with the rudest look on her face as if she was dumb. An 11 year old girl mind you getting glared at for simply ordering her food. The food took incredibly long to get out, even though the restaurant was not very busy at all. Overall I was just uncomfortable in general and the server never really paid us any attention. The breadsticks were undercooked severely, not even golden brown just warm. I had hyped up the breadsticks to my daughter and I was so sad they came out like that. When we got our food my eggplant Parmesan was burnt on the edges, which I have NEVER had at an Olive Garden and this is my go to there. They literally make them ahead of time and pop them in an oven to heat as eggplant Parmesan takes a good amount of time to cook. Also when we got our food the waitress offered Parmesan to my fiancé and daughter and was heading to walk away when I piped up asking for some Parmesan for my meal, which she didn’t even ask if I wanted any. We waited after our meal for a very long time for the server to come over to ask for boxes, and she brought boxes and never offered the bill or asked how we were going to pay. She just dropped the boxes and said let us know if we can get you anything else. I asked for a bag as I wasn’t keen on carrying 4 to go boxes to the car without one after which she dropped the bag and left and never came back. Never told us to have a good day or asked if my family enjoyed the meal even after telling the staff that it was their first time and excited to try. My bill for lunch was 94$ which I gave an almost 17 dollar tip. After being to so many Olive Gardens in so many different places, and ALWAYS receiving amazing service, this was the thing that made me not want to go back to Olive Garden. Paid over 100$ dollars for a mediocre lunch and horrible service. I pray this manager/the staff start trying to uphold the standard that Olive Garden has set for its service. Hopefully the rude server appreciated me tipping 18% when in reality I wanted to tip one dollar. Get it together Olive Garden in Tupelo. We will...

This is a long review, but the drama is probably worth the read.

I'm from out of town and had a very long day getting to Tupelo. When I did arrive, it was reasonably late (~8-9pm if I recall).

The food was very standard olive garden fare: salad, bread sticks, etc. My family was interested in getting this as our late meal as they had brought back the endless pasta as a promotion.

During the meal, we had two things define our experience in this place:

The first was that my child choked on a piece of bread. My child eventually threw up after getting the bread out; this wasn't their fault. The part they do have a hand in was that when I told the server that I needed a towel to clean up the mess, I was told something approximating "No it's okay" when I had to use the black napkins. Alas, I never received any replacement napkins and they were insufficient to fully clean our mess.

That first one is a pretty serious grievance, so now I leave you with a second. Roaches.... Or at least one massive one. Crawling on the drapes. I informed the evening crew, happily chatting 10ft away within line of sight of my family tending to a child & cleaning the vomit, that they had a roach in the wall. I was fairly discreet about it, but the night manager seemed thoroughly at a loss as to what to do about it. I took a picture of it to show him, but I've deleted that photo prior to this review so I've no longer proof. The manager claimed that they don't actually have roaches and that this is a fluke. I'll let the reader decide whether that's true.

At this place, they had a roach on the wall, my kid almost died, I never received a towel to clean our mess (therefore got to sit in a booth still reeking with vomit), and I was left with the option of cleaning my face with a bile saturated napkin. Needless to say, I didn't even finish the first plate of pasta on my endless pasta. The manager comped us the first 25 dollars off our meal, but looking back I think it's unreasonable to have paid anything after that experience.

0/10 This place...

The food was really good, but the service was terrible. Our waitress was either absentminded or just plain didn't know her job. My wife ordered water to drink. The waitress misunderstood and thought she said vodka. When I corrected the waitress I said,"She wants water". The waitress said, "Oh, you want vodka and water?" I said, "No, just water...with a lemon wedge. And I'd like a water with a lime wedge". The waitress said to me, "Ok I got it. You want water with a lime, and your wife wants water and vodka". I said, "We both want water, no vodka at all. She wants a lemon wedge, I want a lime wedge". She comes back with our water. There's no lime wedge in my water. She said, "The kitchen is out of cut limes. They have to cut some, then I'll bring it to you". I never see a lime, and that's the last I hear of the lime. At this point I figure it's not worth the trouble to ask again. We ordered our appetizers. My wife's came first and we asked, "Is the other appetizer coming soon? We ordered two". He acted like he had no clue there were two appetizers for our table. He leaves my wife's and goes to get mine. He comes back several minutes later with mine. However, we still haven't been given utensils and napkins. When we ask the server to bring us utensils, he looked at us like we asked for a cement mixer and a trowel. The appetizers were very good and we ate every bite. But, as usual, we over ordered and needed a to-go box. The server offered to put my wife's into her box. She agreed, the server poured it in and in the process drips sauce all over the table. It's literally covering my wife's side of the table. The server said, "There you go, have a nice night", and walks away. My wife wipes up the mess as best she can with her napkin, which is barely enough to make it look like there's no mess. The table is still sticky while we eat our dessert. Luckily, we were using a gift card and this dinner didn't cost us much money out of...