Olive Garden Italian Restaurant

Came in here on Friday with my friend for some lunch. The salad and bread sticks were good as usual. I got the stuffed mushrooms and one of their Long Island iced teas. The mushrooms were really good, but their drinks are a little on the sweet side. Our server Alex was very friendly and helpful. This is a great place to go for a lunch date.

Their food is always fantastic when my husband and I go. My mother-​in-​law loves this place. They have a great assortment of hot tea, delicious ice teas, lemonades, and wines. I believe our favorite appetizer would be the 5 Italian cheese fonduta and fried ravioli (secret menu item). They have amazing bread sticks and salad as well as eggplant parmigiana and shrimp Alfredo; my husband always orders the classic lasagna which he loves. They have a limited but fantastic dessert menu; my favorite being the white chocolate raspberry cheesecake.
Their service is wonderful and the server is always attending to our needs and wants in fantastic time.
Italian like setting, usually quiet unless someone unfortunately brings noisy children to the establishment in which case they usually try to separate the two to create more harmony for others.

Love this place! Always have the best food coming out of there kitchen, i have never had to send any of my food back. I recommend this place to anyone that loves Italian food.

I was breastfeeding my baby. It wasn’t out in the open but I forgot a cover at home. Also I don’t believe I have to cover because it’s natural. Anyways, i was trying to order and the waiter kind of interrupted and said «do you have a towel or something to cover that? Just saying because of the customers» so my sister in law put her jacket on me. I felt ashamed and embarrassed for doing the most natural thing which is what breasts are for. My son couldn’t eat with the jacket over his face and I can’t blame him so I wasn’t able to feed him. Even after I was done feeding him the waiter handed me an extra cloth like «here» but in a awkward rude-​ish way. It made me feel so uncomfortable and I felt like crying. You guys sexualized breast so much that you made it weird to feed a little baby. Stop mom shame. Stop breastfeeding shame. Let babies eat in peace. Let mom’s feed in peace.
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So I got in touch with the manager and he apologized. He said he will emphasize to his staff that breastfeeding is welcomed & how olive garden is a family company. He told me he will talk to the waiter & explain to him how to handle situations. I’m so happy I was understood so I rate this 5 STAR…

Always so expensive for stuff I make at home. I can now make all my favorite dishes including breadsticks at home for less then what they charge. Over priced seemingly ritsty place to eat. The staff is always friendly enough but their food just leaves so much to be desired.

This Olive Garden should be the only Olive Garden. I understand it’s pretty much microwave Italian food, but their microwave (or whatever they do) is on point! The service is always good, the food is always hot & tasty, and it’s been like that for about 20 years. Can’t say the same thing about the other Olive Gardens.

They always forget something when we get a take out order. I guess they do have consistency… AVOID!!!

Worst service ever. Probably will never return to this location. All I ordered was a soup for my son and it took them over 20 minutes for them to give it to me. Then when it was time to pay, I had to yell at the people up front because no one was attending me they said that it was a whole different process if you were taking out so by the time I got home my soup for my son was supercold top of that I only got one breadstick. I literally cannot believe how many employees walked past me and didn’t attend or even bother asked me if I need any kind of help. I feel like I should have just left but I wasted so much time. I had to get the flipping soup.

Worst dining experience of our lives! We ordered soup salad and bread sticks, a coke and a to-​go order of Alfredo sauce… cuz when you ask them for Alfredo sauce they bring you a dish with 2 tablespoons of sauce in it… cost $ 35.00! Chicken & gnocchi soup… creamy broth with a single gnocchi in it…3 bread sticks for 2 of us. They kinda avoided having it all on the table at the same time in case we inhaled it all so we could get another serving right away. When finished with our two bowls of soup and bowl of salad, we waited for our bill… it didn’t come, so I payed on the little game thing they have on the table. As I’m finishing up, a woman approached our table and says «just so you know this won’t happen again!» With the look of disgust on her face as if we were just attempting to dine and dash. So I ask her what she’s talking about and she points at the bowl of Alfredo sauce sitting on the table that I payed seven bucks for. She says that we shouldn’t have ordered the to go bowl of Alfredo and have it here. First of all I asked the waitress for a decent sized dish of Alfredo she said they only have the small dish, so I asked for a to go sized order, no one at any time said that it was not allowed… not like I made a big deal about it or anything. All in all that manager was pretty rude and embarrassing! We will not return!

Overall the food was good for the most. Part the waiter was really friendly and quick to show up but the fondue was a utter disaster it was at room temperature and not creamy and warm like it should be and it was kind of hard and they wanted 10 dollars for it! Like seriously I could get better fondue elsewhere for a better price To. I recommend not buying the fondue ever as for if I would come back again probably not because the spaghetti was at room temperature to.

OK, first of all, let me acknowledge that I already know all the negative things that people rant about Olive Garden. Yeah, I know that it’s a chain, it’s a big corporation, it’s not authentic, sauces are pre-​made, it’s just not COOL, blah blah blah. That said, I still like it and go there once in a while.. .the service is usually friendly and efficient, the endless soup or salad you get with your entrée is nice, the food tastes OK, and they have an occasional new entrée on the menu to try (or not). Our dinner tonight was just as expected: I ordered Chicken Marsala and my friends had Eggplant Parmigiana and Citrus Chicken Sorrento, and we all liked our meals. No complaints. Our waitress was very pleasant and friendly. Maybe their prices are a bit high for what you get, but overall Olive Garden is really not a bad place as many people (fashionably) say.

OK, here it goes. I think the reason behind 4 stars and not 2 is because I am in a good mood.
I showed up at 7:25 (dinner for myself) and had to wait «5 – 10 minutes so they can clear off a table» … But the place was pretty dead. The host at the front didn’t smile one time while talking to people coming or going and was such a robot it was a bummer to see.
My server came up to me and was very nice the entire visit but seemed to be rushing around everywhere. I was completely out of my salad, bread sticks and beverage but he didn’t stop by even after making eye contact with me. He also had such a loud voice that even other tables would be startled when he laughed. I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND what it’s like having a loud voice, but it was kind of unfortunate that I could hear every conversation he had over the music.
It had been 40 minutes since I ordered and still didn’t have my meal, I ordered Shrimp Alfredo. When I made eye contact again he didn’t even walk around to me, he just asked through the plants if I was OK. I said «I would like sine more salad and bread sticks» he said he was busy packing up the other tables food and he’ll be right over. I was confused why he asked in the first place. He sent many people to go check on my food, at this point I’m full of salad and bread and didn’t really mind just hanging out waiting. Of course servers start to freak out but I really wasn’t too bothered by it.
Everyone was super nice. The kitchen manager even came out and told me my meal was on him tonight. That was sweet and unexpected. I’m grateful.
The service could have been better, but everyone was pretty nice.
As someone who has worked in the restaurant industry I totally get how chaotic it can get when the kitchen makes a mistake. I’m not worried about it and I will be back!

Holy cow. What a huge disappointment. Right from the start, I could tell this was going to be a bad experience. Took 10 min, yes 10, to have our server address us and get us started. By this time we were already ready to order. Order placed and it took 32 minutes for our food. During this 32 minute wait the server not once came to our table to refill our drinks. We were treated to stale breadsticks and a half filled boat of alfredo sauce and when the meals came, my dates meal was great. My meal was poorly put together, dried out and looked like it sat under a warming lamp.
Always have had a good experience at this location. This time was probably enough to keep me away. Really disappointing.

To all of you Olive Garden lovers: I hate to burst your bubble, but from inside information that I am privy to, I have some news that may shock you. The only thing that the kitchen staff does is boil your pasta, and toss the salad. Everything else is sent from Corporate Headquarters USA in large plastic bags. Soups… check, Marinara sauce… check. Alfredo sauce… check. Poured out of a plastic bag into a pot, heated up, and ladled onto your plate. Nothing is made in house. Nada Zilch. Pennies to produce, and armored trucks hauling away the profits.
And this is not authentic Italian food to begin with. It is to please American palates just as chop suey was invented by entrepreneur Chinese after soldiers returning from WW2. Same as Tiki bars began appearing to stimulate what they had grown to love in Polynesia.
So there you have it. Olive Garden is fleecing us every graduation, Mother’s Day, Birthday, Date night and Sunday night dinner out, the good old American way.

Great food and service… waiter was Sam and was perfect… get their gnocchi… excellent.

Steve H was a perfect server, didn’t make one mistake. He went above and beyond. I rarely leave good reviews, but this guy really cares for people.

We had about a 15 person group, waiting obviously took long, to get our drinks taken 20 minutes? To get our food order taken another 20? Too long for me. Food was okay my zupa tuschna was lacking any pepper salt, flavor, as well as my seafood Alfredo we had two waiters (big group) the women was not helpful NEVER got my drink refilled. Came to our section of the table asked two people around me if they wanted cheese on there dishes didn’t bother asking me didn’t even look at me walker away before I could ask, it’s a big group your obviously going to get tipped well doesn’t mean you get to suck at waiting us. Don’t come here very often this is why. Wait staff needs to be trained properly.

The food was good and all but our waited Steve was awesome. He have great service and he was hilarious. If I could give him more stars, I would.

We were seated right away, ordered right away. Then we never saw our waiter again… very frustrating! Three times other employees asked us how we were doing, three times we asked to have our soup refilled… three times that wss ignored. So when it came to getting the desert that came with the special. That came only after they packed our food to go. SOOOOO SERVICE WAS HORRIBLE. Food was delicious. I know this property has been here a very long time, but it needed a good cleaning… the booths were uncomfortable, I felt it slud sliding in when my tail landed smack dab into hard wood… ouch. The booth we sat in had dried marinara on the wall. So in a nut shell…
1:great food
2:great price
3:poor service
4:dirty

I would never choose Olive Garden, but my family likes to go there for a couple of gatherings a year, cause it’s easy and my Grandpa likes it cause we all just get the never-​ending soup/​salad/​breadsticks and it’s pretty cheap for a family night with no dishes to do. Sometimes one of their specials is fairly decent, and I haven’t had their stuffed mushrooms for ages but remember them being good.
Their food is not special, but their salad dressing is really good. I also love the Zuppa Toscana (sausage, kale and potato soup). So, that’s what I get. I can never really eat enough to make it worth the money. Really, good Italian is fairly lacking in Portland, so I see why a lot of people go to Olive Garden.
For a chain though-it’s decent-​you know what you’re going to get. Skip the overpriced terrible drinks. Once I had a caramel Italian soda that was quite delicious though.