Olive Garden Italian Restaurant

Today I had the most pleasant experience at Olive Garden. Having worked at one in the Woodlands where we were required to do a wine presentation & food pairing, I had never seen this done anywhere else but today the server surprisingly showed up with a bottle of wine & made a great presentation. I was impressed. I even went as far as letting the manager know what a good job she did. The food came out piping hot & she kept our drinks & bread basket full for the entire visit! Good job Sandra keep up the good work.

Made a Valentine’s Weekend visit on a Friday night, the restaurant was packed and wait was estimated 30 – 45 minutes in which was very accurate. We were seated after about 40 minutes in and were given our menus. Our server Patrick was very attentive and courteous, made sure our peach teas weren’t empty and the food was outstanding, I’ve ordered the Tour of Italy which included Shrimp Ravioli, Tortellini al Forno and Fettuccine Alfredo, the Shrimp Ravioli was stuffed and topped with lobster sauce, overall the meal went well. We attempted to order a new cheesecake on the menu unfortunately wasn’t available as it was partially frozen, so one less star there as my girlfriend really wanted one. Overall: Excellent food and service, definitely will return when I’m craving Italian again!

This place is a sorry excuse for an eating establishment! I should have turned around as soon as I walked in the door and noted the dingey décor and unkempt appearance of the establishment. It took 10+ minutes for our waitress to even appear and take our drink orders, another 5+ minutes to receive our drinks and then 30+ minutes to receive a child’s portion of pasta… we were there at 3:00 pm, not a busy lunch hour! All of the food was below subpar quality– the salad was browning and lacked crispness, the breadsticks were barely buttered, the calamari AND stuffed mushrooms were both so severely overcooked they had a rubbery consistency, the gnocchi in the soup was grainy and mushy and the alfredo lacked any flavor. I worked at an OG when I was a high school student, at the time it was a much nicer establishment with a decent reputation, I was proud to be part of it. However, this place is a complete embarrassment to the Darden name! Gross!

I usually try to avoid Olive Garden due to long wait times and bad service. Every time I had been going for the past two years they had been consistent with their bad service and okay food. But for the past two weeks we had been going the service has been the same but this time they have a manager that acknowledges the problem and makes sure that you are taken care of. I wish I took the time to find out who the manager was to commend her of the difference she is making in this location. I was very shocked with the service my friend and I had today because the manager recognized and noticed that our appetizer took longer than usual during lunch. Usually in Midland you are lucky if you are even able to eat your food and get out on time if you go out to a restaurant during lunch. I really appreciated this time that we did not even have to complain to the server or the manager and they took care of our problem without saying anything. The manager was nice and offered our appetizers for free because of the delay. Keep it up!

Typical midland story:
Great food awful service. They have 20 staff running around the kitchen like chickens with their head cut off. My first job was at Olive Garden in 2006 and it was equally chaotic. The managers need to hire or train a more competent staff. Ask your staff to enunciate. Ask them to write down each customers order if they cannot remember without a prompt. If I purchase Alfredo dipping sauce please bring me some dad gum breadsticks.

Our server was amazing. His name was Sean M. and he was super friendly, fast, took great care of us and did a great job. Honestly, he deserved every penny of what we tipped him.
The bread sticks were great and the food came out in nice timing. My son, who is a very picky eater, cleaned his plate. The salad was amazing. I also loved the buy one, take one home deal they had going on.
The bathroom needed cleaning but the service and food were so great that I can overlook it. I have read bad reviews on service but Sean M. was incredible.

Don’t go there!!!
The server was horrible. We ordered Alfredo dipping sauce… you get breadsticks with that. He refused to bring us breadsticks, saying management wouldn’t allow that. Then he didn’t bring them after we ordered our entrée. We sat and stared at 2 bowls of dipping sauce… Alfredo gets cold quickly. Finally he brought salad and 4 sticks. Which he never refilled.
Finally, I tried to explain. you order an appetizer of dipping sauce bread comes with it. He said «my hands were full»
Food was the frozen junk you can get at any grocery store.
Oh, oh, and he didn’t even refill our drinks! Rant over.

We had to wait even though there was hardly anyone there. There was a hair on my breadstick, which were stale anyways. Our main meal came out cold. It’s a shame because we love Olive Garden but just not here in midland, tx.

Soooo slowwwww… The trio was good but all very slow. Soup was very watery and bruschetta was not etable. Never again. OG. Take your name off this mess.

Don’t ever go on a Sunday afternoon, it takes over an hour to get your meal serve. The services was really bad we had to eat next to pile of dirty dishes, servers need proper training. The food was really good can’t say anything bad about that.

Service was good, food was good, no complaints or issues. Its a chain restaurant, thats on par with itself.
Update: went back a second time and never got to sit. Checked in, got a beacon, was told to wait 30 – 45 mins. After an hour, beacon never went off, went back to check and they somehow lost our table. Was told well get seated next, then they seated 3 more tables.

I give our server Jessica 5 stars but had to take off stars for multiple reasons:
— had to wait to sit down despite half the restaurant being empty. host said they were waiting to buss the table, while staff were visibly standing around chatting.
— two workers who looked like leads or managers bussed a table onto another table. why not get a tray and do it correctly?!
— the breadsticks were awful! cold and stale and tasted funny.
— besides Jessica, the service was poor.
It’s too bad because we love Olive Garden back home in San Diego. Would likely not come again…

The wait can be very long here, especially during the lunch hour. Our waitress was nice and friendly. The food took a while to come out, but other than that I enjoyed my meal.

Service was sooooo slowwwww! The food was okay? I mean it’s Olive Garden. I wasn’t expecting much, everything’s frozen anyway. The servers were awkward too lol

Made an online orders out 2 hours before pick up. When I got there I had to wait 20 minutes for it. Shouldn’t it already be ready! Two other people had been there longer. Apparently they ran out of a soup and they were still waiting for it when I left. It was a particularly cold day yesterday and people eat soup when it’s cold! Plus these were take out orders shouldn’t they know they need to make more soup! This place used to be s fav of mine but not any more!

Olive Garden has always been a place that my family and I could go to and have a great experience. I have always loved the ambiance and the service there. Unfortunately, however, this particular Olive Garden has gone horribly down hill. My husband and I just went there to celebrate our anniversary and we were met with a hostess who had a careless/​un-​professional attitude. When we were being seated by someone else she cursed loudly as we passed by. Sadly enough, this is not what made us leave the restaurant. We left the restaurant because the front entrance had dirt and garbage all over the floor. When we were being seated we smelled an odor that would shame any bathroom, and the tables (and floor) all around our table were trashed. There were even trays right next to us that were piled high with dirty dishes that I’m assuming couldn’t fit on the already nasty table beside it. Needless to say, we left quickly. I’m hoping that this is not the case for the whole chain, because this one on more than one occasion has been dark, dingy and a disgrace to the fine establishment we once loved.

The waiting area was filthy. Our food was cold. None of my family ate more than two bites of our appetizer salad breadsticks or main course. It was horrible. It seemed to have been cooked the day before and microwaved. I have never had worse more inedible food at a restaurant. I will ever eat there again. However, our waiter was very attentive and polite and felt horrible that although hungry we could not eat our food. We now have upset stomachs for eating what little we could stomach. It was like eating garbage.

Horrible service, food was cold, appetizers came out with the meal. Bathrooms dirty.
Don’t waste your time or money. And they were stingy with the bread sticks.
My dogs food would have tasted better than the mess they put in front of me.

This is my second time to come and get cold soup. How hard is it to keep soup hot?
The wait is ridiculous… Even for midland. They are short staffed… that tells me they:
A) need to pay more
B) need to treat their employees better
Why do I keep trying to come here? About twice a year my craving for soup and breadsticks causes me to pray that they are «better» this time.

AWFUL AWFUL STAFF. The food is good but the staff is horrid. Like seriously you can at least acknowledge me and try to pretend like you’re not pissed that you’re having to deal with me.