Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Winston-Salem

If you choose this particular Olive Garden for a date night, just know you could very well be "eating alone". You often don't see or notice the restaurant management, but tonight we realized how an experience can be soured when the people in charge fail to lead well.

The greeting staff was great. They juggled the overflow of people with skill and good attitude. It was a zoo on Valentine's night but they seemed on top of it. In addition, their waitlist app was very accurate and text communication was excellent.

Our waitress was very good. Listened to order, explained options, kept us updated. Despite being put in a bad position, she kept a great attitude and was sincerely apologetic.

However, the evening turned sour. My wife's order was prepared incorrectly - gluten free was missed, needed to be redone. But, the decision was made to send my order on out?? The waitress was sent with apologies and evolving explanations - just be a minute or two - getting closer - sorry, having to completely redo. It was unfortunate that she was put in that in that spot due to another person's decision.

It's never a good decision to send orders out separately - especially on Valentine's night. Nothing like watching each other eat for a romantic dinner. The manager did make a brief appearance to bring my wife's plate but dropped it off and left with no acknowledgement that it was separately served, would have been difficult for him to appear less concerned.

An error on an order is a mistake - we all make errors. Sending out one plate while knowing you will be redoing the other is a conscious decision. It seems to be a callous disregard for customers and their dining experience. It is hard to believe that the company allows this practice - I can only guess there was a need to keep customers moving but not sure how the staggered serving saved any time, likely just saved the cost of replacing my plate or keeping it warm until both were ready.

When you spend over $50 on a meal, you don't expect perfection - but simple consideration should not be too much to ask. We enjoy Olive Garden very much - but will choose to use other area locations that have higher opinions of customers and their...

1 server for a (birthday) party of 10. The food came out verrrrrry slow (not her fault, she was just the person delivering what the kitchen prepared). But it was slow. Agonizingly slow. Too much to explain, but we were seated a few minutes before 7 pm and left the restaurant at 9:43. By the time the server (and I assume someone in management, although a manager person never approached our table) figured out our checks, we were all angry and just ready to go. It was a good 30 minutes of waiting for our checks. Meanwhile, her tip got smaller and smaller because what in the actual hell took so long?? In the end, someone decided to comp our entire party (although, she had already ran 3 of our cards while she attempted to correct the others). Still, NO manager appeared. No apology. No nothing. Free food, yes. We appreciated that, as we had no intention of spending almost 3 hours in this restaurant. But it was too little, too late. We all left angry. And my granddaughters 16th birthday party ended on a horrible note. In OG's defense, when I called the next day to express my dissatisfaction with the whole situation, the manager was overly apologetic and offered me the moon...which I declined. I just want them to do better. A party of 10 should have 2 servers, and the server(s) should be properly trained on how to split a check. As regular visitors, this was a terrible visit that didn't have to be that way. Please do better, OG. People come to you to celebrate and have a good meal for a fair price. Train your employees, AND managers, to get it right, and/or apologize when...

Our experience started out well. Only had to wait about 5 minutes for a table. Our waitress took our order pretty quickly. The food used to be excellent, but it was just ok. The salad was dry, dressing was only on top even after trying to stir it, and only two very small slices of tomatoes for a whole bowl of green iceberg lettuce. It did have 2 peppers in it that were good. Had to wait for breadsticks to come out of the oven, which was fine because they were hot when served. My son ordered soup and received the wrong soup but ate it anyway (both tables near us got the wrong soup, but they complained, my son did not). My son ordered the chicken fettuccine, and the chicken was hot. The pasta and sauce were cold like it had been sitting for some time. My order of chicken parmigiana was flavorful but did not have enough sauce to cover the pasta, let alone the chicken. A different waitress brought our food and didn't ask if we wanted cheese or not. She just sat it down and left. We didn't see our waitress again for at least 20 minutes and had to wait for to go boxes for an additional 10 minutes. After paying our 50 some dollar bill, I realized she charged me for an ice sweet tea and a sweet tea both at 3.95 each. My son ordered sweet tea, and I ordered water. I don't plan on going back any time soon. Both tables near us complained about their drinks and food and kept sending stuff back. For the increase in prices at 20 dollars, a plate, and 4 dollars for drinks, we should have complained, but we were just ready to get out of there...