Dining experience

[SunTzu]

Last night my daughter and I went to out to our local Olive Garden . Let me say I was a little disheartened when we arrived and found out the wait was well over an hour ( we were already starved ). The waiting lobby and outside the restaurant teemed with people so there we were with pager in hand . Knowing the bar was a "grab an empty table first and it's your's" enviroment , that became our gameplan . Seeking a strategic place close to a table that had just gotten their bill ... bada boom bada bing in less than 4 minutes we were in their seats before the busboy arrived . The busboy promptly cleaned our newly acquired table just as the waitress showed up and took our drink orders . I returned the pager and recieved a high five from the Host for the well played gameplan .
We weren't forced to listen to the spiel of "our specials today are ..." she simply asked what we would like . She gave us the huge bowl of salad and breadsticks to occupy us until the food came . Now I love their salad and could very well have made a meal of it but decided "when in Rome" so I ordered the Never Ending Pasta Bowl and my daughter the Fettacinni Alfredo . 10 minutes later our order arrived and we put on the feedbag . The food was great the waitress was prompt and courteous , refills on food and drink were timely . The only negative was the throng of people that chose the same restaurant but that can be contributed to the restaurant's service and quality . A pleasant experience start to finish and as they say in their ads "When your're here , you're Family"

[Ironlung]

Never had a problem with The Olive Garden. Top notch.

[NotSoSilentBob]

Contrast your experience with my last Olive Garden trip.

July 4, three or four years ago. Before the big JC fireworks crowd hit. Four adults, one child. We are seated, place our orders, then wait for an hour for any thing resembling food.

We got free food out of it, but I haven't been back to that pathetic excuse for an Italian eatery since.

[imported_elp6n]

I've had mostly good experiences at random Olive Gardens, but when something has been less than 100% they always offer a free meal or heavily discounted, voucher for another free meal, (in summary something fairly generous).