Olives

On Sept. 2008, the winds of the fading Hurricane Ike made its way across the United States. Cincinnati hadn’t seen 75 MPH winds in… I can’t say how long. Power was out in the nearby neighborhoods including the then grocery store, IGA. The only place with electricity, WIFI, and food was Olives. I worked there all week enjoying the air conditioning and meeting fellow working colleagues while we waited out the repairs to our respective homes. Even though Olives is now closed for good, I wanted to leave a note to say how important it was for the community that it’s doors remained opened after that storm.

Came here for the first time because I was in the neighborhood. The server touted their pizzas, so my husband ordered a BBQ chicken pizza and I ordered the meatloaf. My Caesar salad came, and it had a dead fly in it. They were really nice about it and comped my meal — but, GROSS. Pizza was undercooked and I had already lost my appetite by then. Never again.

I really tried my best to give this place a second chance. It’s a really cute looking restaurant and the atmosphere is good. I placed an order over the phone to pick up, and asked for a simple substitution of steamed broccoli versus the normal sides. But, they decided to give me no sides at all. I was quoted a 15 minute window, but it took them 40. And, to top it all off, they forgot one of my entrées and I had to go back to go get it. This is the second time I’ve run into this scenario with this restaurant. The staff were really friendly though. The manager promptly took care of everything. If it weren’t for him, it would’ve been 2 stars.
As for the food. You have to try the Lobster Mac and Cheese, and the Ribs. The desserts are all pretty decent too. While I was sitting at the bar waiting for my order, I noticed that they have a lot of beers on tap as well.

Olives is right around the corner from my apartment, so it’s an easy place to meet for drinks or a quick bite to eat. Things are reasonably priced, but the food is definitely nothing stellar. The quesadilla was dry with hardly any cheese on it and their burgers are pretty dry and flavorless as well. They do have a good drinks menu, and a fair amount of selection for beers, which is good. The staff are nice, but that’s about it for Olives. Go for a drink, but avoid the food.

Friday night: cold bar, cold beer, and cold pizza.
Yeah…no.
The Margherita was wildly pathetic. or– the worst $ 21 frozen pizza I’ve ever had. My date and I exchanged knowing laughter throughout the rest of the evening about how astoundingly bad it was.
…while we finished our drinks with our COATS ON.

I haven’t been here since earlier in 2013 when I lived in Gaslight. The lunch/​dinner was always so hit or miss. Sometimes, you wondered if their «new chef» or «updated menu» ever helped.
Had brunch a handful of times. Food was plentiful but nothing really knocked my socks off. The guys working on the omelette/​waffle station were great, but the rest of the staff always seemed hurried.
Overall, have a beer and flip a coin. Heads says your food will be good; tails and you’ll leave hungry.

Breakfast review: Loved brunch here! Everything I tasted (I did sample the food of others in my party) was delicious and priced very fairly. Next time we are doing the breakfast buffet. It looked amazing! The service was good. The atmosphere was nice, but a bit loud and the tables are a bit small.
Dinner: The pizza is delicious and the Johnny Appleseed burger is genius!
The bar: I’ve been here for drinks several times and I’m almost always disappointed (which brings my score down to three stars) the craft beer selection seems decent, but the menu descriptions are misleading and I almost never have a beer that I like. The bartenders never seem to help much with that either. I also almost always manage to choose the most expensive one. Their drink prices are high anyway. They do make some interesting cocktails that are tasty, but will set you back. Bottom line: I never really seem to enjoy a drink here, now food on the other hand…

**I just received this email in regards to my review:
You have a new message
Hi Brandy,
scott c. has sent you a message on Unilocal:
olives
«My name is Scott Crawford, and I am the owner of Olives. Brandy, I’m sorry to here you’ve had problems at my restaurant. I just spoke with my managers, and they don’t recall talking to you, nor do I. So on that note, I would like you to call me at Olives so I can address this. When people write bad stuff about my restaurant, or any other business, it affects a lot of hard-​working people whose lively hoods depend upon the success of that business. I have 35 people working at Olives and I care about them and their jobs. If you don’t like the food some place, don’t go back. But to just bad mouth a place is irresponsible and, just not very nice. We had over 85,000 people come through our doors last year, so we must be doing something right. We are not perfect, but we try to do our best every time. We have eaten at many restaurants where we have been disappointed with the food and/​or the service. Many of these places we still return to because everyone makes mistakes. When we do have problems, we go to the management or to the owners, to fairly give them a chance to address the issue. It doesn’t even occur to us to get online and bad mouth any business, too many people have worked too hard and have too much at stake to deserve that. I guess it’s like my grandmother used to say, if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. Again, Brandy, if we did something wrong please call me and give me the opportunity to correct it. 221−4200»

This is a joint I had high hopes for. I have actually pouted when the husband wasn’t interested in coming here for brunch several times. I thought the buffet sounded great and kept prodding him. This weekend it just worked out and I was excited to try it out. We walked in and were pleasantly surprised at the décor. The bar was lovely, and there was a lot of character. We headed downstairs to the restaurant and were greeted at the bottom of the stairs by a hostess and were seated immediately. We loved the lighting, the décor, the general feel of the place. I will toss in that our server was fine and as attentive as a buffet waitress needs to be.
So, the moment I took a look at the buffet, I started offering the husband apologies. 80% of the food in the serving pans was either crusty, overcooked, or just plain gone (it was only 10am). I felt like leaving but I had been so insistent I didn’t want to admit I was wrong. Before we got our drinks ($ 2.25) a few of the pans were refilled with fresh, hot, food so that was a little better.
I will describe the buffet. At one end is some sorts of home baked breads (?), I assume because they were wrapped in plastic wrap and looked unappetizing so I didn’t try them. There was a plate with bread and an english muffin next to a toaster; no butter or jam or spread to be found though. Next came the buffet: BLUEBERRY FRENCH TOAST CASSEROLE which was visually appealing but tasted bad, I actually heard one diner advise another diner not to try it. Some sort of a BRIOCHE that I stared at for awhile, when another diner took a serving, the empty spot immediately filled with water (?), I just couldn’t try it. MAPLE BACON GRITS, sounds delicious but was absolutely flavorless. There was a tureen of CHICKEN AND WILD RICE SOUP, was tasty but I suspect it came out of a can. There was a gorgeous salad offered as well. There was some standard fare: sausage links, extremely crispy bacon, chewy fried potatoes, split biscuits with gravy that was not bad, scrambled eggs that were in turn rubbery and watery. There was a HASH BROWN CASSEROLE that was fine. I watched the HASH and not one person touched the spoon the entire time we were there. There were a few other offerings but I was pretty much done by now.
The saving grace was a very nice gentleman who was making made to order omelets, waffles, or pancakes. We each had an omelet filled with our own fixins, (lots of veggies, cheeses, and meats to choose from written on a wall hanging, you just let him know what you would like) and a waffle. The eggs were cooked perfectly, the sauteed veggies semi crisp, the cheese melty… delicious. The waffles were crisp and light, butter; his were topped with fresh, warm, tiny, blueberries. I asked for butter for the waffles and the server seemed taken aback and then brought me FROZEN butter pats. Weird that I like butter on my waffles?
So, bottom line, there is a large variety of not delicious food but the made to order foods make me feel like I did not waste the $ 28 bucks for two buffets and two drinks. I would maybe go back for a drink upstairs before a movie, but I checked out the regular menu and there was nothing that stood out to make me return for food.

Came here with a few friends. The atmosphere is pretty nice and overall* the place is rather clean and modern. The bar upstairs has a good selection at good prices. We ate downstairs where there were also televisions for watching sports or what not. The food was okay, nothing great but not bad either. I was one of the only ones that did not get a burger, but those who did had mixed reviews on them. They looked huge and plenty of toppings were with them. The sweet potato fries are a must!
The service was a little slow, but given the circumstances I think it was acceptable.
*One thing I do not like about this place was the restrooms. They’re in need of a major cleaning and makeover. I could not believe a place with such a good atmosphere would have such terrible restrooms. I literally smelled like a bad frat house.
Anyway, I would likely come back when I am in the area and the price for what you get was a great value!

Calamari appetizer was super but a little pricy. The 16″ works hand tossed pizza was great. Nice atmosphere in lower dining area and good service. What’s not to like?
PS good draft selection too

Just left restaurant. Infested with gnats in downstairs restaurant area. Manager not helpful at all. Too bad because the food is good, but not with bugs flying around & getting on food. Needs fumigating!

I met up with a few friends for a drink prior to a movie at the Esquire.
Olives had a variety of beer on tap including new local favorites of Blank Slate and Listermann’s/Triple Digit.
We were served right away, but when we needed to pay our tab to head over to the movie our server was nowhere to be found we ended up going to the bar to pay for our bill.

I was in town for the holidays, came here just for drinks. I really like the atmosphere at the bar, the waitresses and bartenders were super nice and attentive to our large group hanging out there at the high-​top tables.
The price is definitely higher than i’m used to for typical clifton/​northside bars, but it was a nice change from the usual dive bars honestly. I’ll probably go back and try some food there next time i’m in town.

Eh, not impressed. The calamari was soggy and the portion was small. BBQ burger decent, but the fries were soggy. Service was terrible– not only was it slow, they didn’t apologize when they brought the wrong order. Never going back again.

The food’s not bad. The drinks aren’t bad. In these respects Olive’s would be a decent choice, but I think a big problem for Olive’s is that there are so many other choices that can be made.
Dwelling on the Southeast corner of the Ludlow Garage, Olive’s offers an American menu. Surrounding Olive’s you have a Mexican place, a Thai place, two Indian places, a Mediterranean place, and an Italian place. There are many options for food in this area, each with a distinct identity, which is something Olive’s lacks.
The bar is upstairs, the restaurant is downstairs. Climbing down the stairs you walk past (and get a whiff of) the bathrooms to a welcoming station, adorned with over-​sized silver wear that will remind you of a Max and Erma’s.
Olive’s used to be an Uno’s pizza. I think it is interesting that they have added wood fired pizzas to the menu. This again highlights the identity crisis at Olive’s. Our «server», Billy, informed us that the menu changes fairly often, and that it had changed just a couple days ago. It sounded almost as if he was making up the menu as he went.
Olive’s doesn’t have too many menu items that have olives, other than martinis, which I found a bit curious. I ordered a Kinky Russian, I’m kinda into that. Drinks were good, but expensive.
The potato croquettes we had as an appetizer were excellent! I also ordered a Cuban sandwich, which boasted «Cajun» bread. I don’t know what Cajun bread is, or why it would exist on a «Cuban» sandwich, but when I received my $ 9 sandwich the bread appeared to be… just toasted white bread with butter. I was thinking it would maybe be spicy or something special to make it «Cajun», but it was just bread. I ordered it with sweet potato fries, which were yummy, but a $ 2 up charge. I had to ask another server for the (watery) cinnamon butter that was supposed to go with them.
I think it is important to mention here, that none of the food was particularly bad, but I’m just not sure we were getting what was described on the menu and the service was slow and a bit annoying at times. They did all the classic service no-no’s. Didn’t ask if we wanted drinks first. Didn’t ask if we wanted appetizers first. Ignored us for a bit after we made our initial orders. Would get an answer from one person in the party and promptly leave without making eye contact with the others. Asked us how are food was before anyone had taken a bite. Took our food away from us without asking if we were finished.
I’d try Olive’s again, but only if someone else really wanted to go.

Olives confuses me. I have memories of coming here when I was younger, visiting Cincinnati, and it was Uno’s Pizzeria (right?). I can get beyond that, but what gets me is the upstairs/​downstairs dynamic (when do they sit you where and why have my experiences been so different depending on the floor-​restaurant or forgotten bar?). Also. it feels a dungeon-​y down there if I’m being honest so maybe sprucing the area up, or seating more people there would be good? In addition, the décor downstairs is largely as I remember it in their prior restaurant, though their menu seems divergent from the pizza joint concept. I guess they can be the same, but I’m not sure how Olives wants to identify, as a result. Maybe it is my history, after all, that throws me off. Either way, it’s confusing.
I’d also add that the food is average and service has been varied for me. I’ve had dinner entrees and sandwich/​burger items. Nothing that blew me away, but nothing that left me totally dissatisfied.
The last time I went, the SO ordered a pizza (adding to my confusion, when did they start doing pizza? Oh… when they didn’t take out the Uno’s oven? Ugh). that was apparently burnt and ‘split in half’ so had to be remade. We were there mid-​week, mid-​day and it was NOT busy, so the fact that this was such an impediment to our service kind of bugged. I got my meal and was practically done by the time his was ‘remade’. Nothing more than blaming the cook by ways of an apology or accommodation.
Our waitress seemed like a college kid, though she also looked as if she were older than her early/​mid 20’s. I guess what I mean to say is she seemed a bit inappropriate, perhaps stoned or hung over, and while chatty… not quite on par with where a server should be or how they should interact with customers. We may at times look like college students, but are not, so if the act was intended to identify with us, it didn’t work and just seemed lame and unprofessional. Oh well.
I don’t think I’d recommend Olives, though I’ve eaten here a handful of times. If you have a group that likes something other than Thai, Indian, Italian food in Clifton, I guess they’re the game.
I read that they have a brunch, that might be worth trying. Though, if their service is mediocre with few clients I’d be concerned to see them truly busy.
This place is just ‘a-​ok’ nothing worth going out of your way for, but not the end of the world if you end up here.

Olives is a solid choice. I wouldn’t go out of my way to go there but if I was in Clifton looking for a more upscale place to get a drink, this is where I would be.
Now, to be fair, I love a good dive bar and Arlin’s is right down the street, so that’s just going to be my Ludlow Ave bar of choice. That is not for everyone though. If you want a quiet place with mood lighting, a great beer selection and a nice staff, it’s Olives you want. It’s even got two floors so if you don’t want to sit near the window where everyone walking by is looking in, you can hide out.
(Or you can sit right next to the window and people watch, which is always fun in Clifton. I lived there for years and it’s just fantastic.)
I’ve never tried their food nor their legendary brunch so I cannot comment on it, but I hear only fantastic things.
Overall, a solid bar. Not my first stop in Clifton but certainly no regrets if I wind up here.

Over the weekend my wife and I had lunch at Olives at the Ludlow Garage. Awhile ago I bought a LivingSocial coupon that was expiring this week, so we were forced to use it. We nearly went to a beer tasting months ago at Olives, and when we saw the coupon a few days later we figured it was worth a try. When we pulled up to Olives I immediately recognized the restaurant as the old Uno’s, which I guess closed a couple of years after I graduated from UC. The outside of the restaurant seems a little different, but once I stepped into the entryway with steps down to the basement and the double doors on the left into the bar, there was no denying that much of the inside of Olives in unchanged from the Uno days.
Since we arrived late in the afternoon on a Sunday, the downstairs was closed and most of the upstairs was empty. We were told to sit where we like and chose the empty loft area behind the bar, since it had low tables that we could pull a high chair up to. The bartender would also act as our server, which wasn’t a problem as there were only a couple of other tables and a few people at the bar. I did see another server running around during our visit. The bar is stocked with a large variety of draft beer selections and the menu is rather big as well.
Since this meal would serve as both our lunch and dinner, and we were really hungry, we decided to split an appetizer to start. Our server told us that the menu was recently redone and she had only tried a few of the options on the menu. After a little debate we opted for the bier cheese dip ($ 5.95) served with garlic drops, fresh made garlic dough with blended cheese and then deep-​fried golden brown. The garlic drops themselves were actually really good, and the bier cheese was pretty tasty as well. We could definitely taste the beer in the dip, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Though not an expert at the menu, our server did let us know that their burgers were all good. With that bit of advice I decided to give one of their signature burgers a chance, which can be served either with Angus ground beef, veggie burger, black bean burger, turkey burger, or chicken breast. I opted for the Johnny Appleseed ($ 11.95) which featured cheddar cheese, maple bacon, sautéed apples and red onions, with whole grain mustard on a ciabatta bun. I had this sandwich served with the black bean burger, which was a large fresh made patty that was hard to keep together. Despite the massive amount of toppings, the sandwich managed to stay together pretty well otherwise. The taste was really good with the sweetness from the apples and the spiciness of the mustard and onion.
My wife went with the South of the Border burger ($ 10.95) with guacamole, applewood smoked bacon, and fried egg, topped with pepper jack cheese on a toasted Kaiser bun. She choose to have the turkey burger on this sandwich and commented that it was very meaty. It was a thick patty which dominated this sandwich. Again I think the flavor combinations worked pretty well for her, but she did admit to preferring my sandwich more. There are quite a few other burgers on the menu with some unique topping combinations. The shoestring fries were fresh cooked perfectly and the cole slaw on the side was decent. Overall we enjoyed our visit to Olives and would return if ever in the area. It’s not worth a special trip, but if near campus it is worth a try (or retry if you’ve dined before).

Conveniently located next to the Esquire Theatre, and I hear they have a new menu, so even with all the negative reviews, I decide to give it a shot. Plus they are in the Ludlow Garage so the location sounds interesting. The décor was nice and the bar looked like a fun spot.
I have to give them credit for having a large selection of vegan and vegetarian dishes including several main courses. I wanted to try their made from scratch burgers, however, like many of the items I requested, they were out of it. I ended up with the Ginger Curry Stir Fry with tofu. I was not happy with it at all. Very light on flavor, somewhat wet and mushy. The tofu was also mushy and flavorless. The vegetables seemed decent and were probably fresh, but were over steamed. The portions here are huge, which is all well and good but I wish they would focus on flavor first.
They have an OK wine menu with prices in line with their attempt to be a fine dining restaurant. Unfortunately, they are not. Of the deserts that they actually had, I settled on one from the Bonbonerie which I enjoyed, but I had my heart already set on the other.
The restaurant was completely dead with only two other tables the entire night. Overall, the experience was not that great, so I am not inclined to go back, especially considering the cost.
They have a nice concept, so I hope they can turn it around.