Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Tuscaloosa

Our Olive Garden experience began one fateful Alabama game day. The Tide was playing Texas A&M (resulting in a massive victory, like always), with a 2:30 pm kickoff. This day also happened to coincide with a very special 21st birthday, so like all decent Americans we planned to celebrate at Olive Garden that evening. Knowing we would have a large party of 12, we attempted to call ahead earlier in the afternoon and were told to call back when we were “on our way.” As the game wrapped up and we began our journey to Olive Garden, I called to give another warning of our party’s arrival. I was placed on hold for several minutes, and by the time someone picked up the phone we were already in the parking lot so I hung up. Walking in, there were a few groups waiting but many empty tables. When I told the host we had a party of 12, I was greeted with a blank stare and a look of “are you kidding me” in his eyes. I told him we tried to call ahead, but were placed on hold until we got here. “Alright, we’ll get you in as soon as we can,” he said resignedly. We moved outside to wait, unaware of what lay before us. After waiting 45 minutes, we were getting a little antsy. After an hour, we asked how much longer our wait would be and were told there were only 4 parties in front of us. Twenty minutes after that, we were still not seated and fairly frustrated. The host was curt, saying our table was “being prepared,” which took another 10 minutes. In all, we waited more than an hour and a half to be seated and were treated poorly, so we arrived at our table frustrated and hungry. That was when our fates changed. Our waiter, Micah, arrived at our table and took our drink orders with pep in his voice and a smile on his face. A friendly and personable young man, we were later to learn that Micah, was a student at UA like us, studying computer engineering and math. He visited our table often, not only checking on our drink’s status, but on our personal status. He brought us baskets of breadsticks, which we greeted with thunderous applause. He even joined us when we blessed our food, telling us about the church he goes to and bible study he leads. Micah was truly a stand up guy. As the meal progressed, we realized Micah was truly someone we wanted to befriend and began to ask him questions about his own life. One of the more outgoing members of our party began an attempt to assimilate Micah into our friend group by setting him up with one of the girls at the table, who wrote her number on a receipt for him at the end of the night. Micah responded to all of our inquiries with friendly, witty banter, and by the end of our meal we wanted to box him up and take him home with our leftovers. In fact, we left pretty close to closing time, and invited Micah to come play Rockband with us after he got off work. We ended up playing Rockband with Micah into the wee hours of the night, and now have a groupme called Olive Garden Groupies with him in it. When we were seated that night, we were ready to speak to a manager about our wait time and the rude hosts, but by the time we left we had called the manager over to tell her that our new friend Micah deserved a raise. In summary, if you have 5 hours to spare on a Saturday night, it’s worth it to visit the Tuscaloosa Olive Garden just to meet Micah. I guess it’s true, when you’re here,...

To start off I enjoy eating at Olive Garden with exception of this location. I do a lot of traveling and the one thing that Olive Garden is known for is great food and even better service. Someone neglected to inform this location of the standards Olive Garden is known for. I sent corporate an email on the 19th right after the experience. it's been a week and still no response. When walking into the restaurant I noticed that there was a dirty towel sitting where some wine glasses were stored. I should of taken that as a warning and left, but unfortunately I stayed. My guest and I sat down and there were dirty wine glasses on the table with dirty utinsels. We told the waitress and she removed the glasses and brought fresh utensils. We ordered a couple of appetizers. I ordered the Shrimp scampi frita and when it came out it looked like it was just thrown together and tasted bland with hardly any seasoning at all and was at best luke warm. I brought it to the waitress attention and she took to back to fix the dish. What she brought back was the same dish refried with a few new shrimp and a bit more seasoning. I couldn't eat it. My entree was delivered (Seafood alfredo) I took pics of everything so I hope I add them to this review. The shrimp and scallops were obviously not fresh and were minature in size. The pasta wasn't cooked all the way. I mentioned it to the waitress and she asked if I wanted them to make another one and based on what they did to my appetizer i said no and asked for the check. As I was leaving I asked the hostess what the manager name was so I could put that on my complaint. She said there were two managers on duty, both are front of house managers. With all the issues neither one came to even try to fix anything. I was looking around and couldn't figure out if a manager was even there. This is one of the worst ran restaurants I have ever went to. I eat out probably 4 to 5 nights a week. I was a great fan of Olive Garden and this experience put a very sour taste in my mouth. It will be awhile before I give them another chance. Based on the other reviews from this location this review shouldn't be a surprise. I ate at the restaurant on Nov....

I walked into the restaurant and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Walt Maddox, the mayor of Tuscaloosa, sat right up front, alone, at a large wooden table. The table was old, encrusted with the sweat stains and elbow grease of a decade of long-gone visitors. The table had seen many intense events unfold at its dimly-lit place inside the American Italian restaurant: birthdays, proposals, divorces, funerals.... but it hadn’t seen anything like what was about to unfold.

Surprised that Walt Maddox would be in such a place, I walked up to him. “Hello Mr. Maddox!” I said. Maddox looked exhausted; running a large college town for the pitiful salary of $147,000 a year has to be grueling. His eyes looked sullen, and the skin around them taut. Maddox had seen many things with those eyes, but he hadn’t seen anything quite like this.

He looked up towards me, looking to see who was speaking. As he did, his eyes opened wide. His mouth twisted into a frown. As his eyes traveled up my face, he saw it: sitting upon my head was his worst nightmare, an Auburn hat.

He stumbled backwards. “Get that thing off your head young man!” he screamed. The people in the restaurant looked at him weirdly, wondering why he was screaming at an overweight, asthmatic, mentally-ill young man. They went back to their meals, letting the interaction continue without interruption.

“What’s wrong, Mr. Maddox?” I said, confused as to what he was talking about, “Are you afraid of... THIS?” I whipped my hat off my head, holding it out in front of me, taunting him. Maddox jumped backwards. “Yes! Yes I am!” he said, “That’s the hat of the enemy!”

“How pitiful, Mr. Maddox,” I chortled, “A mayor of a college town, afraid of an Auburn hat. It’s enough to make a grown asthmatic, overweight, mentally-ill man cry.”

As Maddox backed into a corner, I placed the hat on his head. He yelped, falling to the ground, unable to move. “NOOO!!! PLEASE!!! DON’T DO THIS TO ME!!!!” he said.

“It’s too late Mr. Maddox. You’re an Auburn fan now.”

Great place to eat, and a Tuscaloosa staple....