Is your Olive Garden like this?(Clarified in Post #30)

[bananiem]

DH and I go out for lunch. He suggests we try Olive Garden again because we like the soup and he likes the salad too. But getting to the eating part is TORTURE! This happens every time we go so we have to REALLY be desperate to even go in there anymore.
We walk in and say "Two" to the hostess, then today I continued the conversation we were having about our dd's meltdown last night. The hostess interrupts and asks how our day is, have we gotten her gift yet, (har dee har har ) Um, we were talking.
Then Richard appears and tells us he'll be "delighted to show you to your table." We get to the table and he tells my dh "That's a nice suit and tie you have on, sir." This happens every time we come in. Richard needs a new line.
Then Richard hands me my menu and calls me "dear." NOBODY calls me dear. I am not his dear or deer, for that matter. My dh says only he gets to call me dear and that is always preceded by Yes.
The waitress comes and manages to take our order all right. But then SHE calls me dear when she brings my soup and calls dh "sir" when she gives him his soup.
I guess it could be worse. She could call me Ma'am.
So are they like that at your Olive Garden too or just ours?

 

[TheOtherVillainess]

Your smilie looks like he's giving me the finger!

TOV

 

[chell]

Maybe it is just yours. Ours isn't like that at all.

 

[pumba]

ye gads......when they call me ma'am .......its like someone taking their finger nails and going down a chalk board.........IRKS ME.......and I am not anyone elses dear....hahaha...Like your line..only your hubby calls you dear preceded by YES......gotta love it.
I have not noticed that they do that at our Olive Garden.....but I LOVE THOSE BREAD STICKS......I could eat two helpings all by myself......thanks for reminding me that I need to take a trip to the town that has one......

 

[barbeml]

Never had an experience like that and we go to Olive Garden quite a few times each year (3 different locations). The uber-fake stuff usually comes from the kids with too much "flair" at Fridays.

 

[ziggystardust]

no, ours just usually lets us sit there for a long long while before they'll take the order. And then even longer before we get the food. This is one of the reasons that we don't go there anymore, plus the fact that DBF is Italian.

 

[kellyf2626]

No, ours isn't torture in that way....but in a different way. Anytime you go (day or night, week or weekend) there is ALWAYS over an hour wait for a table. It has gotten to the point that DH and I rarely go b/c we don't want to wait 2 hours for a table! And, they don't have call ahead, which stinks.

It's too bad - we love their food. I swear they could build another one right next to it, and it would be just as busy!!

 

[pfishgirl]

it's just you... i mean umm your olive garden dear...

serously, ours is nothing like that....

but i do hate when waiters and waitresses say "guys" umm hello I may not be all THAT beautiful but I am NOT a Guy....

 

[aprilgail2]

Nope, ours is not like that at all....though I don't mind being called dear....much much better than Ma'am...I HATE that one!!!

 

[TheOtherVillainess]

We actually won't eat at Friday's anymore. This past Jan, we went and it wasn't superbusy,but not slow either. Just kind of steady. And the only place they could find for a party of 6 was nearest the take-out door. So we froze our butts off.

We also will not eat at Spaghetti Warehouse either, or at least the one in the West End. We went there prior to seeing Stars on Ice in '04 and we were there for more than an hour before they seated our party.MIL and FIL (who'd arrived ahead of time to get us on the list so we'd be seated quickly)had been there for nearly an hour before DH and I showed up. They kept seating larger parties who weren't there as long as we'd been ahead of us,which really ticked my FIL off. By the time the DID seat us, we only had about 5 min to eat our food before scampering back to the car to get to AAC in time for Stars on Ice. We haven't been back since then.

TOV

 

[jennobrn01]

Really fleshes out, "When you're here you're family." huh?

No, our Olive Garden isn't like that. Ours just smells like urine and has become pretty shabby looking. bleh.

It's really too bad. I love the Zuppa Toscana.

 

[A4Disney]

DH and I go out for lunch. He suggests we try Olive Garden again because we like the soup and he likes the salad too. But getting to the eating part is TORTURE! This happens every time we go so we have to REALLY be desperate to even go in there anymore.
We walk in and say "Two" to the hostess, then today I continued the conversation we were having about our dd's meltdown last night. The hostess interrupts and asks how our day is, have we gotten her gift yet, (har dee har har ) Um, we were talking.
Then Richard appears and tells us he'll be "delighted to show you to your table." We get to the table and he tells my dh "That's a nice suit and tie you have on, sir." This happens every time we come in. Richard needs a new line.
Then Richard hands me my menu and calls me "dear." NOBODY calls me dear. I am not his dear or deer, for that matter. My dh says only he gets to call me dear and that is always preceded by Yes.
The waitress comes and manages to take our order all right. But then SHE calls me dear when she brings my soup and calls dh "sir" when she gives him his soup.
I guess it could be worse. She could call me Ma'am.
So are they like that at your Olive Garden too or just ours?

I think your lucky,if they seated me that quickly they can tell me anything they want! lol At the three different Olive Gardens I go to in CT I immediately ask the wait time because of all the hordes of people clogging up the inside and outside waiting areas..I'm always told 45 minutes!And this is off times..Lunch at 2 dinner at 4 still 45/1hr...It's crazy...Luckily I discovered a restaurant pretty new to CT called Vinny T's of Boston it has the best made to order italian food

 

[mommaU4]

No, our Olive Garden isn't like that. Ours just smells like urine and has become pretty shabby looking. bleh.

It's really too bad. I love the Zuppa Toscana.

Too bad yours isn't nice anymore. We have a brand new one going up in town and the outside is really beautiful. Much nicer looking than any of the ones we had in Burbank or Glendale back in CA. I can't wait to see the inside! It may not be "real" Italian food, but I still love it.

 

[shortbun]

Too bad yours isn't nice anymore. We have a brand new one going up in town and the outside is really beautiful. Much nicer looking than any of the ones we had in Burbank or Glendale back in CA. I can't wait to see the inside! It may not be "real" Italian food, but I still love it.

Kinda like saying you're going for "Italian" food and eating at the Olive Garden, eh? Well, yep...ours is loaded with well meaning rednecks as servers and so forth. We go anyway because our son loves the 5 cheese sauce and I like the gorgonzola pasta with beef tips. Last time our server called me "Hon" several times. I managed a smile and finally said in a very matronly voice, "Dear, I hate it when people call me "hon." She stopped. I called her "Dear" lol!!!!! If she only knew the words I could have substituted for it!

 

[Feralpeg]

I don't really understand why this upsets you. It sounds like they were just trying to be nice and make you feel welcome.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

Ours isn't like that, but I was laughing the last time we went because the waiter kept calling me "miss". Uh, I was probably old enough to be his mother. I told my DH that I'd take maam over miss. I guess I'll take miss over dear, though.

When we first got seated someones cell phone started ringing and it was loud! She didn't answer it for several rings, though, because she was talking to her tablemate and I guess didn't want to be interupted. Then later someone elses phone starts ringing, playing a loud song. She didn't answer heres right away, either. I happened to make eye contact with a couple other people and we started to snicker. And I almost got up to dance when that song was playing. The first one reminded me to put my phone on manner mode!

The really "funny" (not funny ha ha, but funny hmmmm...) thing that happened was a mom who reamed her daughter out for her bad report card. It was what looked like a couple moms sitting at a table with 2 teenager girls. One of the moms started reprimanding her DD for her report card. LOUD! It went on for a couple minutes and several of us at different tables almost lost it with laughter. I had to hide behind my napkin. The look of shock on our faces was priceless. I did feel bad for the teen, but she didn't look the least bit embarrassed and they all acted like they were sitting at home around their dinner table. It was the strangest thing.

A very interesting meal, to say the least.

 

[we3disneygo]

we don't go to Olive Garden anymore bad service, dirty and last time we got really crappy food and service.... so now we go out to a really nice chinese buffet!

 

[Rex Rules]

That's too funny - yes, we have had bad experiences at Olive Garden, gave up on it years ago. The worst was when our waiter QUIT during our dinner. We ordered soup and waited and waited and waited, I noticed the waiter walk briskly past us and never saw him come back that way. So finally we got a manager and he said, oh yea he just quit.

 

[minkydog]

Here in the South we like to be called Ma'am. In fact, i expect it Sorry you didn't like their manners. I wonder if the Soup Nazi serve Zuppa Toscana.

 

[pfishgirl]

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