Olive Garden Italian Restaurant

Don’t know why such low reviews for this place. Minestrone soup, cheese ravioli, and the eggplant parmigiana were all delicious. The ravioli is among the best I’ve had — tender and soft, yet firm without breaking off. The eggplant was roasted to crispness quite nicely. Portion sizes incredible for the price! It’s easy to make two meals of it. Waitress was friendly and helpful. She was generous with the soup refills. The staff made triple sure to assure us of vegetarian ingredients. The chef came out and checked on all the tables. The mint-​chocolate afterwards is a nice detail on their part. Good experience.

I went to this particular location on Veterans Day. Extremely overcrowded and dysfunctional. Our waiter seemed flustered yet overwhelmed due to working multiple tables. We ordered the calamari and stuffed mushrooms appetizer which was absolutely disgusting. The calamari was shriveled and hard and crunchy like mini cracklings. When we brought it to the waiters attention he stated that «the calamari was supposed to look that way». I understand the tremendous influx of customers on such a day but the quality of food should never diminish. If anything the quality should satisfy to prevent people walking out the door. I see why OG is struggling to remain relevant and to stay afloat as a chain.

Some people say this place isn’t that good. I don’t get it, I freaking love Olive Garden. The breadsticks make me want to dance. Hell I fill up on those before I even get to my entrée. And speaking of the entrees they are fantastic. I think the food is really good and the service is always on it. This is seriously one of my favorite restaurants.

I’ve come on several occasions, not by choice. I typically don’t like chain restaurants but this one usually does great promotions that bring people in.
Is it really Italian food? Heck no! It’s more of an American-​Italian spot. Does no justice for Italian culture but I’m in the U.S. So I’ll stop.
Food wise, it’s usually the same taste, we never really have had issues. I always get spaghetti and always add salt, mind you I watch for my salt intake but it really is just bland.
Soups are good. Salad dressing is yummy. I typically just come for this.
Other dishes, they are just ok. Nothing on the menu, to me, that’s worth coming for.
Kids always get chicken parmesan. They like it.
We never do desserts, we are always too full.
Service is always spotty here.

I worked for Darden as a manager for many years and I can honestly say this is the worse experience I have had at an Olive Garden. The drinks were brought with hardly any ice, no big deal just ask for a glass of ice… once, then twice then three times, finally got ice! Dinner was as far as food but when we were about to ask for boxes, the server brings out appetizer!!! I actually forgot I ordered them!!! Ok, well box it up I suppose but I am in an RV and fried shrimp doesn’t heat up well in the microwave… then the bill comes and I was charged for the appetizers. Seriously? The kitchen had to know that app didn’t leave the kitchen, where was the manager in the kitchen that should have taken care of this? And of course there wasn’t a floor manager… so we paid out check and left.
BTW: the new check system really makes for a cheapened dining experience, in my opinion. The people playing games at the table next to us were loud and having a great time, had a chilis feel. Not a relaxing dining experience.

Food and service are pretty good but management is horrible probably not coming back after this experience waitress was trying her best to give good service and even got blamed for giving us free food I have receipts to prove she didn’t but the manager still suspended her. Horrible management

This restaurant is popular because it is franchise one. I have been other olive gardens in different states. As comparing with other one, here is really loud and food is just okay

Horrible service, slow waiting times for food, too expensive for the portion size. Never again.

My Boyfriend and I recently went to the Olive garden for their never-​ending pasta bowl. It was terrible. The pasta and the sauce were extremely bland. The food tasted like nothing. I got the shrimp fritte with my pasta and they were small defrosted shrimp that were just thrown into the fryer. They had no taste to them at all and had the texture of rubber. You’re better off buying a dollar bag of spaghetti and throwing some Ragu on top. Don’t waste your money.

My husband and I usually go to the one on the west side but since we recently moved we went ahead and came here to the one by cielo vista. I am more than happy we came the bartender was amazing she was quick on our orders and suggested great appetizers. Then once we got seated our waiter was AMAZING I had split chicken Alfredo on my shirt and his quick thinking saved my shirt from awful stains he brought out some ginger ail and worked fine. Awesome service

If I could give –2 stars I would… An Italian «chain» restaurant can’t even put out spaghetti and meat sauce??? UNACCEPTABLE. Watery sauce (that’d be better if I bought a can from grocery store and pour in noodles) and overcooked mushy noodles. My 10 year old cousin makes better dish than this :(
Icing on the cake — it’s a take out order, let’s not put butter BELOW the soup unless your plan is for me to have a melt buttery bag.
No to coming back, thank you!

This place is one of the filthiest places to eat I’m El Paso. Being an inside source I’ll let you in on something, there’s never anything the employees need so there always lacking in something. The dishes are very dirty and the servers always have to sift through the plates just to find one clean one, or wash it them selves., honestly really look at you dishes and silverware. Take a look around next time you go, the floors are filthy the wine glasses are ferocious. The food is always slacking in flavor, it’s just a disgusting place to eat. Take it from me, just plain dirty. The restrooms are a train wreck and so is the management. Did you know there’s only one employee restroom there? It’s called the phone booth of sodomy.,… Anyhow., the management has no clue as to what’s going on ever! So the next you take it out on the waiter first consider who’s leading them. Great staff just lousy management. SO DIRTY!!!

My husband and I ate here Memorial Day weekend with our 10 month old daughter. The service wasn’t bad and our server was really nice. Unfortunately our problems started after we left Olive Garden about 6 – 8 hours later. We had salad, soup and pasta with roasted garlic Alfredo. My husband and I both ended up with horrible stomach cramps and diarrhea for 2 days straight. We will never eat here again.

Chain restaurant so you basically know what to expect. I went at about 7pm and the place was 75% full. Service was surprisingly great with drinks refilled in a timely manner and the meal came out as ordered. That might not sound like a lot but considering other restaurants in El Paso this was a welcome surprise.

It’s a chain, so the food was good, however the service was awful at our table. She was slow, and we had to ask another waiter to bring out appetizer out that arrived a minute before our main meal did.
I’m sure we will be back at some point, but hopefully we get a different waitress.

I usually don’t like to eat at Olive Garden because at one point, I feel like all the entrees taste the same and they use the same taste enhancers (well, what else can be said about chain restaurants). Since I did not want I eat too much, I just had an appetizer (stuffed mushrooms) but they tastes weird like some bacon was in them. The waitress was an old lady and she was so slow and had hearing issues… Now I don’t want to discriminate against elderly people but maybe being a waitress is not the ideal job when you’re 65 years old and you constantly keep forgetting drinks or have to ask repeatedly if you heard the order correctly. Our group of five was «slightly» annoyed.

This is my 2^nd experience with an El Paso Olive Garden. Both locations to-​go service has been terrible. I’m paying the same as dining-​in so I’m not sure why there’s such a large discrepancy in the quality of food. They were not that busy & said it would be 20min but it took over 30. The pasta was overcooked and mushy. The sauce was bland. Additionally, they did not give me any bread sticks or parmesan. I guess that’s my fault for not checking the bag… At least the soup was delicious!

When I go to a chain I want the full package… I want it to be on point in every aspect so I’m a tad less than impressed with this Olive Garden. I like the idea of chains because you’re never taking a shot in the dark with experience… you know exactly what will be on the menu, what it’s supposed to taste like, and how much it’s going to cost. I only have a small list of gripes that is keeping me from giving this OG anything higher than a 3 (but with a little more consistency could total improve).
And before I get to my list I just want to know… on a national level… have the breadsticks changed in the past 5 years? I used to love them, now I find them reminiscent to public school cafeteria breadsticks. Maybe it’s just me and my tastes have changed.
Okay, let’s do this.
1. On a few occasions when I’ve ordered To-​Go, my food has been extremely bland or tasted old. Now the bland part I can excuse… I own salt so no harm no foul. But when my calamari is super rubbery and the breading is ridiculously soggy, I lose my appetite. When I lived in this neighborhood, I only lived 3 minutes away so I don’t think it has anything to do with the time it took to leave OG and get to my house. I truly believe it has more to do with the pick-​up times. I think they’re completing the meals way before the pick up times and it’s sitting in a container/​sauna sweating. We can work on that.
2. This location is almost always packed. Not really a gripe because it’s not their fault that business is good. Just worth mentioning, call ahead if you want to avoid a wait time.
3. On two separate occasions this OG has tried to make substitutions to my order without forewarning me first. Brushetta with chopped breadsticks is not appetizing at all… first of all, how am I supposed to top the inch wide piece of bread with anything more than two chopped tomatoes? There is no secondly.
What I do like about this location is all of the servers, managers, and hosts are super friendly, quick and are more than happy to fix any issues. Other than my said issues with the To-​Go food, the food ordered in house is consistently served at the right temperature and promptly. I’m a huge fan of OG’s soups and so when they have those unlimited soup, salad and breadsticks special I am one of the first ones to line up at their door. Entrée wise, I’m always drawn to the Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo sans chicken (you know I’ve never checked to see if they just offer Fettuccine Alfredo). The desserts are pretty delish too and you really can’t go wrong with any of them. I’d recommend this place to have a sit down meal in.

Slow service with Carlos as a waiter. Dirty silverware, no gnocchi in the greasy «gnocchi soup,» and we weren’t even served (the standard) breadsticks. Carlos looked at us like a calf staring at a new gate when we asked if meals still come with breadsticks. Lackluster at best.

Good ol’ Olive Garden! This location is outside of a Mall like every other cookie cutter shopping mall in the USA.
We were craving Italian and everybody else in my party hated seafood and I wanted something other than just meat.
We had a party of 15, we arrived and were seated in less than 5 minutes. Our waiter was on it as we all ordered CALAMARI and STUFFED MUSHROOMS and BRUSCHETTA w/​TOMATOE and BASIL as appetizers. I went with SHRIMP ALFREDO and the never ending salad! I love to be the one that picks the only banana pepper in the bowl and load it with black olives (the little things)!