Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Vancouver

I wish I didn’t have to leave this review. But, the dining experience was so horrible that it warrants it. It was my birthday dinner and I chose the Olive Garden. All I wanted was just one nice meal with my wife when we both work tirelessly. I had just got down with a stressful week and was so excited to have a night celebrating my birthday. Well nothing went to plan.

We were seated right away which is where the great experience ended right away. There was apparently a huge party, I’m talking like forty people in the other room and it literally ruined everyone dinner who wasn’t part of the party.

Let’s recap:

Our waitress was flustered beyond belief the moment she came to us. Poor girl couldn’t even take a moment because she had to hop table to table like some juggling act. She wrote down our order, but it was no use. She came back ten minutes later to ask me if I ordered anything. I had to repeat my order.

An unknown man came to our table and dropped off waters asking us if that’s all we had. I thought he was being cheeky so I just laughed. No, he was serious. Our drinks were completely forgotten.

Our waitress returns 15 minutes later with a salad bowl and hurriedly says,”We are out of salad tongs! Sorry! Try to get more soon”. I used my fork and a knife and ended up flinging salad everywhere trying to get some on my plate.

I had the never ending soup and salad, but had one bowl and asked for another and never received it. We never received more salad.

Olive Garden is known for putting fresh Parmesan on their food, or at least asking. Not this time. I asked our waitress if we could have some Parmesan cheese and she told me that she didn’t know where it was but she’d find some. She then brings a plate of shredded cheese out. I was just completely shocked.

At this point I wanted to just get up and leave. Honestly didn’t even want to pay. But, we were strapped into this circus which was the worst. I got up and went to get a manager because my wife was practically ally in tears over how horrible my birthday had turned out.

The manager offers us free dessert as compensation. It wasn’t birthday and I was already told I was getting free dessert so that was void and pointless.

My wife begged to have the dessert to go and told them we were leaving and had enough. They still brought out our desserts in plates with forks. Didn’t listen to us once.

I asked to pay our waitress and she asked me if I knew how to use the iPad to check out.

That stupid party Olive Garden hosted literally ruined every single persons dining experience. I paid full price for my birthday dinner for the worst experience I have ever had. I should have just gotten Taco Bell off fourth plain and would have had a better experience. We are never going back there. Years of being customers and it took one night to ruin it. Thanks for making my birthday not special and adding stress to an already...

After my experience on 5/15/25, I don’t think I’ll ever return to another Olive Garden.

I hadn’t been to Olive Garden in quite some time, but decided to go last night with my kids and my mom. We were seated immediately, but unfortunately, everything went downhill from there.

The experience was so poor that even the customer at the next table commented on how ridiculous it was—and ended up complaining to management and bringing it to their attention what was going on.

Let me be blunt: our server appeared to be under the influence. He was clearly high, and while I have no personal issue with marijuana use, it’s completely unacceptable to be working in that state—especially in a customer-facing role. I’m not a smoker myself, but if I could tell, his manager and coworkers absolutely should have noticed too.

My son and I ordered soup, and my mom ordered salad. When the server brought out the salad, it was clearly meant for all of us. He started placing salad plates in front of my son and me, and I had to remind him that we ordered soup, not salad.

When my mom ordered a Dr. Pepper, the server said, “Oh, I don’t know what I poured in there—can you check if it’s Dr. Pepper?” That’s just unacceptable. How do you forget what you just poured?

My daughter ordered small shell pasta with Alfredo sauce and mashed potatoes. The mashed potatoes looked like a biscuit and were lukewarm at best—in the center completely cold as if they had been frozen. She barely touched her food because it was so unappetizing. This issue isn’t directly the server’s fault, but it added to the overall disappointment.

We ordered Alfredo dipping sauce after the appetizers but before the main course. It didn’t arrive until we were nearly done eating. I had to ask two different people about it—including a manager. It finally came out about 15 minutes later, right as I was saying “never mind.” I even told our server to cancel it, but he replied, “It’s already out.”

We asked for a soup refill that never came. Eventually, we asked if we could just get it to-go. The server initially said he couldn’t do that. I explained that we had requested the refill earlier and it was never brought. Only then did he finally bring it out.

asked for a to-go container for the Alfredo (which we received at the end of the meal and barely touched). It never came.

I’m 36 years old, and I strongly believe in tipping 20%—at a minimum. This is the first time in my life I have ever left a zero tip.

I generally try to be understanding and don’t like to complain, but this experience was beyond disappointing. There were multiple points of failure, and the lack of professionalism—especially from the server—was unacceptable.

This visit left a bad impression, and I don’t see myself returning to Olive Garden anytime soon.

If anyone at this location is interested in investigate what happened we left around 630pm on 5/15/25—total on the...

This is usually my fave place to go. Specifically for breadsticks and salad. But tonight was awful and not because of the food. We were sat in the bar area because there was no wait. While sitting, we witnessed (what we learned to be the general Manager), treat his staff poorly. He spoke down to the female staff and berated them even when one was apologizing because she couldn't stay late. Even another waitress offered to stay late in her place. He behaved intimidating and unprofessional. They were behind the counter and did not notice we could see and hear everything. After he walked away, I asked if he was the manager and was informed he was the General Manager Eric. I asked who I contact to issue a complaint and told the ladies that they did not deserve to be treated that way. They told me I could call corporate and thanked me. They actually worded a thank you to us afterwards from behind the counter. Shortly after, another female manager came to our table and apologized for our experience. I asked if it was normal for him to treat his staff that way and she said, "he's the general manager" and gave a look confirming it was his normal behavior. We thanked her and said we were fine and that we would contact corporate for our concerns. Then shortly after that, the general manager came to our table to confront us. I told him I did not like how he treated his staff and my husband told him he was rude to his staff. He wanted me to point out who he treated poorly and what he did. He was overly persistent with wanting us to explain, and tried intimidating us. He wanted to know what he specifically said and I told him to please allow us to enjoy our meal and that I do not want to discuss it with him. He walked away and then shortly came back and grabbed my husband's alcoholic beverage and said "I'll take care of that for you" and went and dumped it out in the bar area. We got up and left. I will still be calling corporate but while the food and servers are great, the general manager needs to learn how to treat employees. If you go there, please keep an eye out for this. I am not looking for any meal comps or anything like that, I just want to advocate for the staff. They already have a hard time with customers, they do not deserve it from their management.

Update 5/8/23. After making a call to corporate, I am very happy with the resolution and response from management. Upper management took my concerns seriously and were genuinly concerned about the staff at this location. I...