Olive Garden Italian Restaurant

The gift card drew me back, soup, salad and breadsticks are always good… Seating was quicker only because of less business. Service this time was average. Entrée, chicken was ok, not spoiled but a little tough as though it was old not fresh. I didn’t order any steak or seafood since they over cook it. The only manager on the floor seemed tied and lack talking with the customers as once OG had more than 1 on the floor. I guess OG doesn’t care.

It’s Olive Garden, so to get three stars it would have to be the best location on Earth. This location underperforms, though, even after you accept the corporate chain-​ness of it all.
Carpet hangs on to odors, and many years of ground in parmesan cheese have given this OG a distinct odor. The place smells like feet.
If you really need your soupsaladandbreadsticks, go anywhere but Toeblast Garden.

Regarding the food, it’s fine and predictable. I find the salad and breadsticks to be tastier and more flavorful than the entrees. I typically get the eggplant parmesan, which I recommend.
I haven’t eaten at an Olive Garden in a while, so the iPad-​like tablets on the tables were new for me. I didn’t like that feature at all, and I don’t think it fits with the family vibe they promote on their commercials. You can pay $ 1.99 to play unlimited games on the tablet (because you seriously couldn’t have thrown that in for free, Olive Garden??). And, if you’re paying with a card you have to use the tablet to pay. So I had to deduct a star because this was very off-​putting to me.
The best part was the excellent service by our waiter, Jamarco. I appreciated how he joked with us about the silly tablet and took great care of us even on a busy Saturday night!

For starters, the smell was horrendous. Like something crossed between wet dog and molded meatballs… Possibly a wet dog smeared with the molded meatballs? I’m not sure, all I know is that the smell when you first walk in doesn’t fade.
Next we received the bread sticks and salad that comes complimentary. The breadsticks (which are usually the highlight) left a lot of room for improvement. They were greasy (overly so), yet somehow still stiff and stale-​ish. Like they had leftover breadsticks and decided to dip them in a vat of oil to try and «revive» them. Please, for the love of all that is holy… Put them to rest next time.
Even the entrees were greasy and a combination of wet sloppiness. On top of everything it was crowded (yes it was a Sunday) to the point that I was bumped, jostled and I watched a poor girl get hit in the head by a waiter. I suppose however, with the local TGIF closed another big chain restaurant had to take the title of sub-​par places to eat.
We will not be eating here again.

NEVER AGAIN.
The service was terrible. It took over an hour to have a quick lunch and some of the food was cold when it got to us. I ordered a specialty iced tea, but cancelled it after it took twenty minutes and I still had no tea. She also left the tea on the bill and the whole checking out process took FOREVER because of this and the fact that she was just slow as hell. No tips were given!
The food was also really terrible. I mean I really don’t expect much from most chain restaurants, but this place has gone downhill. The salad, which took over twenty minutes to get to us, was laden with msg so much so that my mouth went a bit numb while eating it. The breadsticks were cold and chewy. Also got a sampler and the calamari was super tough. I also got the meatball breadstick sandwich that took forever to get to us, about 40 minutes, and it was kinda cold. I’m guessing it was sitting in the window a while. The meatballs from the grocery store freezer section taste gourmet compared to this load of crap.
I only went here because I had a gift certificate, but in the future I’m just going to give it someone else or try to ensure I don’t get the gift cards to here in the first place.
Basically, don’t eat at any Darden restaurants unless you want terrible food and loads of salt, msg, and God only knows what else added to your food!

We just stopped in for a quick unlimited soup, salad, and breadsticks lunch on a business trip. Very quick service and our waitress Sabra gave us extra mint chocolates when we paid. Only negative was that our 2^nd salad had a bit too much dressing on it. Otherwise a quick and easy stop.

Sabra was an excellent server. My coworker and I stopped by for a quick lunch, bottomless soup and salad. Really not a bad deal for bottomless. Same signature salad. We both got Minestrone soup. Nothing fantastic, but not bad either. The best part… the Andes mints of course!

Food was just ok. Soup and salad was better than my dry ass seafood Alfredo with hardly any shrimp. The waiter had a long day or so his face, conversation and body language said. He didn’t ask if I wanted soup or salad just brought salad (with half ripe green tomatoes) and told me I couldn’t change my choice once I got the salad. I said ok that would be fine IF YOU EVER ASKED ME WHICH ONE I WANTED. He looked at his notepad and saw he didn’t write an option down for me, didn’t apologize just brought me my soup. Stupid head. Anyway, the ambiance was ok, food was ok (bread was hard as bricks after 5 mins), service was mediocre and it’s almost at the edge of the «strip» of restaurants so they need to be happy we needed a walk and actually walked all the way down the road for them because we passed 18 restaurants that would have pleased us just as fine on the way there.

Jordan G was probably the best service we’ve ever had at this location. He knew how to talk to us and joke around, while still knowing how to make my kids happy. Very attentive, good personality and quick on his feet. My favorite part is he came back to the table after I asked for lemons, and right out admitted he forgot what I asked for (he was pretty busy). I admired that he could admit his mistake. We had a quick laugh about it, then he ran immediately and got them. I will definitely ask for him next time. Thanks Jordan! :)

If you are looking for food that tastes like nothing and terrible service, I would absolutely recommend this restaurant. I waited 15 minutes to get a to-​go cup of tea for the waiter to bring the wrong tea. He proceeded to tell me he was going to get me the correct tea twice and then he never brought it.

I had one of my best experiences at an Olive Garden while I was in town over the weekend. I went there early on a Saturday morning and the our server was very knowledgeable about the menu and made some great recommendations. The manager also assisted in making the experience a great one. Good food… great service… give them a chance if your in the area!

I had catering from this restaurant. Tried chicken alfredo, lasagna, salad, and breadsticks. Everything was bland, tasteless, breadsticks and meat from frozen, sauce from a can, etc. Do people actually think this is Italian food?

I ordered take out & the process was very easy. You go to the bar & tell whomever that you placed an online Togo order & a Togo specialist will come help you. My Togo specialist gave great service! She was very nice & took everything out the bag making sure my order was correct & I received everything I needed. The other workers I encountered greeted me & were polite, but had no emotion. Overall, the food was fantastic! The Alfredo here is amazing, so are the unlimited salad & breadsticks (which is only for dine in).

I was a fan of Olive Garden before I moved to Augusta, but this place really made me question my loyalty to this chain. I only come to this place when I’m hanging out with a family who has some kind of coupon they’d like to take advantage of here.
Like many of the reviewers said, this place is difficult to give a rating. That family seems to be a fan of this place though, not me. Our mutual friend, who also comes to those dinners had to send back her dishes at least once each time we were here. Somehow the dishes that she ordered were always undercooked. I’m pretty sure the server had also knocked down my friend’s purse from the back of her chair.
They are very generous with their breadsticks though, which is a good thing for my friend’s family who like to stick to a low budget whenever possible.

What can you say, it’s Olive Garden. Good food, good service, good value. When you have that hunger for pasta, salad, soup, and bread, swing on by and enjoy.

So, I don’t know why this place gets bad reviews. The waiters here were really attentive and the food came out very quick. The only downside was that we kept getting over cooked breadsticks that were kind of hard but the waitress explained to us that the kitchen was busy today. She was on point with everything. The food here was the same as any other Olive Garden I’ve been to.

For the first time ever I was completely disappointed with the food at Olive Garden.
I just moved to the area from Texas and I have ALWAYS loved eating at Olive Garden, but now I dont think I will be returning any time soon.
Our waitress was great and really helped out. We ordered drinks and an appetizer and that was all great. Then my plate arrived, i ordered Chicken and Shrimp Carbonara and my entrée looked extremely plain and had no chicken at all. So I informed the waitress and she went to get some chicken for me to add to my entrée. of course by the time she returned the rest of my entrée was already some what cold. Well I take the first bite and there was no flavor at all to it. A can of sauce from a grocery store has more flavor than my entrée had. I did inform my waitress again and she was wonderful enough to replace my entrée for me. I ended up having just soup and salad.
As much as the soup and salad were great, my main entrée was not. If it werent for our waitress being great I wouldnt give any stars at all.

Went here around Jan. 2014.
Wow. Order a pizza or entrée and you get unlimited salads and soup refills!
For a chain, this food is actually tasty and good.
The pizza was thin crust and toppings of pepperoni was tasty. The calamari was fried perfectly so they were tender.
I’m just not a fan of iceberg lettuce. I wish they had an option to request a fresh green nutritional salad.
The price is really good… the 3 of us for lunch was under $ 40 with tip.

This is a hard place to give a rating to… It’s not bad, and it’s not good either, but when you go to Olive Garden, you don’t expect much. The service was excellent though even if the food aside from salad and breadsticks was bland and tasteless… We went because we had a coupon for 25% off, and we will return only because the service was so great. Our kids loved it there, the staff treated them like royalty. The main negative I have is because they tried to be slick and hand out dinner menus at lunch on weekends. I was told this was policy and they would give out lunch menus to those who request them but feel this is kind of shady and reeks of trying to milk the customer for a few extra bucks for dinner prices even though it’s lunch.
Like I said, not the best of restaurants, but sometimes you don’t want fancy Italian, you just want something decent, and Olive Garden fits the bill, if only because of their salad and breadsticks!

My mother and I went to lunch. We were seated and had to wait 10 minutes before they got our drink order. Our salads came with no breadsticks. The waitress did not give us an explanation until I ask. When I asked, she got defensive and said that they are in the oven baking and would take a few minutes. Waited another 10 more minutes and got our breadsticks. By then I was finished with my salad. In 5 minutes our lunch came out and my mom asked for some breadsticks and the waitress gave her a dirty look.
I got the Raviloli de Portebello and it was kind of cold.
Our server was prompt refilling our drinks, however, the whole experience was just uncomfortable and unsatisfied.
Another chain restaurant I don’t like going to, but go because my mom likes it here so much. I wouldn’t come back alone or with friends.