Olive Tree Restaurant

Ok, so 1^st off let me correct the ignorant posters who erroneously assume that this place is «borrowing» from the Olive Garden chain. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Anyone who knows anything about OC history can tell you Olive Tree (w/it’s original 2 locations) outdates the chain. This place is truly a piece of OC history, the service may be slow (perhaps an understatement) but the food makes up for it by far!!! Excellent food at the remaining north location makes this a must for any true Marylander interested in good Italian cuisine. Chains have NOTHING on this place!

Came here for New Year’s Eve dinner and it was merely OK. The service was good, the food not so good. The waitress informed us that they would be closing down for the next couple of months, for the winter season. Decided to keep it simple and light and order the unlimited salad, soup and breadsticks — which was what I expected it to be. However the «breadsticks» were just mini loaves of bread, although with very good flavor. My mom decided to order a salad and mozzarella sticks, however they came out freezer burnt. She literally could pull them apart with one swift mood and the cheese just broke in half. The waitress was super accomodating and took them off the check but said that’s how they always are. I love me some mozzarella sticks (even the cheap ones) and these just weren’t making the cut. Don’t get me wrong, I have been to other Olive Tree’s and I love it but I probably won’t be venturing back to this particular estalishment in the near future.

It would be a zero star but Unilocal doesn’t allow below one star. Waiter was nice but absent and slow, husband’s veal parmigiana order came out chicken parmigiana first, we sent that back and then when correct order came out it was tough and had no taste, my grilled salmon with Alfredo had no taste as well, when we complained the manager still wanted to charge for the salad since we didn’t eat the meals even though we didn’t order it and it came with the meals we would have eaten. Would definitely not recommend and will never go back.

My family went here yesterday and had a wonderful experience. We were seated right away and met with the waiter right away. It appeared that there was a great deal of staff even when the restaurant was slow.
The salad and bread sticks were great. Our food came fast and was warm. The waiter always made sure our water was full and our food was great.
We are definitely going back. I was told by the waiter they redid their menu.

We went here last year, and the food was good and the Service was also good. Not sure about the other reviews saying how bad the service was. I can’t imagine anyone actually shouting out F-​You to a customer. We will probably go back again. If you have kids, it’s ok.

This was the worst Resturant that I have ever gone to in Ocean City Maryland. I would not eat here again if someone paid me.
First off the waiter was stoned out of his mind and could hardly understand basic concepts.
Both of the meals we ordered were wrong and not even good. We order chicken parm and it came out with some kind of fish!

This should honestly be a zero star review, though I know Unilocal doesn’t allow those. My family and I decided to go to the Olive Tree, after a quick online menu look up, to round off our family vacation. Incidently, be warned that there are several different Olive Tree’s in different locations that are not related to each other and the menus are all different.
Our first impression of our server should have tipped us off. Our «waitress,”(if you could call her that) Mary, made a quick stop off at our table to tell us her name and bee-​lined to another table to EAT off a patron’s fork!
Realizing my mistake with the online menu when we got there, and what I wanted to order wasn’t on the menu, I opted to have just a salad and some fries. We all (a party of 6) placed our orders, including appetizers and salad and waited… and waited. The salad and bread (that are complimentary) and one of our appetizers came out fairly quickly but the garlic bread we ordered NEVER arrived.
When our entrees came out, one in our party recieved VEAL instead of Chicken and the waitress never noticed until the manager came from the back to tell her. I never recieved my salad (which was ordered off the menu). Everyone but one of our party recieved their meals, and at best they were lukewarm. The other in our party did not recieve her fried raviolis until nearly 15-​min later.
Although the food was pretty average, the service was horrible. We flagged our waitress to have the garlic bread removed from our check while we began to eat our already cooled meals. Mary remarked that «the garlic bread had been sitting in the back and it is probably hard by now.» Figuring it would be awhile we also asked her to bring out our check. When it arrived we were charged ($ 5.50) for the salad that I never recieved. When our waitress passed again, we asked to have it removed because we never got it. Our waitress proceeded to tell us that the group (complimentary) salad was meant to be split amongst all of us and I was meant to pay for the salad, even though I never recieved my own salad. When the waitress gave us a hard time we asked to see a manager, they told us that they don’t have just a house salad (though it is on the menu). After still failing to see the logic we persisted that the salad be removed and finally the manager allowed it.
When the check was given to us, it came with a large side order of ATTITUDE, very loudly in the resturaunt and the waitress continued to chastise us, obviously unhappy that we had an issue and insisting that «things like this just happen.» The wait staff, made it seem as if we couldn’t afford our meal, which was definitely not the case!
We paid and left. Our tip was included, so we paid the money and left. When we were outside, the waitress came chasing us out and yelled loudly that we had shorted her money. She had the cash in her hand and after counting it we realized that instead of a $ 20 we had given her a $ 10, so we gave her the remainder and left. All of her behavior was unprofessional and rude, and now thinking back on the incident I wish we’d have thought to remind her that gratuity (at least in NJ) isn’t necessarily a given and that we could have refused to pay it, because of her poor service.
I will NEVER return to this business and I’ll urge all of my friends and family (and Unilocal users) to avoid it at all costs.

I won’t go back. We arrive at 8:15 and 3 other tables occupied in the entire fairly large restaurant.
Service was good. Food was below average. Go elsewhere, looks like everybody else did.

If you’re convinvced OC can’t possibly house a decent Italian place especially with a knock-​off restaurant chain name… well then you’re probably right. How silly of me to be optimistic.
Complimentary salads and breadsticks were definitely a warm welcome although as my brother pointed out the breadsticks were «breadloafs.» I thought the chickpeas in the salad were also a nice touch.
The real disappointment came with the entrees. I ordered the eggplant parmesan and ohmyy those greasy fried things with a chunky layer of mozzarella, NO sauce and NO linguini to cut the the heaviness. I asked for some marinara and my bad, I shouldn’t have. It was so sour I had to scrape the sauce back off. The rest of my family hated their meals too.
It was like they catered from Sbarros and charged us extra for delivery. They didn’t do anything utterly offensive so I’m holding no grudges of course. But trust me, save some dollars, and just order pizza.

We dropped in on the Olive Tree after eating at the nearby Blue Ox steakhouse for an after-​dinner drink. The restaurant is tucked by a nearby hotel on the bay side of Costal Highway.
First off, let me just say that if you’re going to «borrow» heavily from a national restaurant in terms of your name and sign, why borrow from a craphole chain like Olive Garden? I’ll try and post a picture of the sign later, but it’s very much an homage to the Olive Garden.
We made our way back to the bar and ordered a few drinks. They had a paltry selection of spirits, so for lack of better options, I asked a beer and a Johnny Walker black. My wife had a glass of wine and the other three in our party had beers. There were a few other people in the bar, perhaps locals, but otherwise the place was in full necrosis. I eyed the bartender curiously as he pulled a snifter off a shelf and wiped it out with a bar towel. Perhaps from lack of experience, he wrongly assumed you pour scotch in a brandy snifter, thus he decided to «clean» one out for me.
We chatted at the bit and after maybe 20 minutes, the troll pretending to be a bartender began to hint that he wanted to close up for the night. I shouldn’t call him a troll because he had a physical disability that caused him to walk funny, so I’ll call him a troll for his lack of bartending skills/​charisma/​awareness. I’m not sure exactly why he didn’t just tell us that the place was going to close in 20 minutes when we sat down, that seems to be the reasonable thing to do in most situations, instead he waited until 5 minutes before the restaurant was closing to inform us that «he needed to get paid».
I downed my beer and then tossed back what was left of my scotch and felt something unusual hit my tongue. From what I remember of scotch, it’s not supposed to come with anything that floats, so I spit the object out into my hand to examine it.
Wings.
Black body.
Yeah, that’s a dead fly I just drank.
While trying to hold back my gag reflex, I somehow managed to also hold back a tip.
One star.