Olive Garden Italian Restaurants Reviews

Pros

At my Olive Garden, it truly was a family atmosphere. It was my first serving job and everyone was so kind and helpful to me from the start. I was able to make great money, especially on the weekends, and you are paid right after you leave the shift. Cash will go home with you and credit tips will go straight to your bank account.

Cons

There are "Ziosks" at each table, little mini computers that guests can play games, order food, pay their tab, and then answer a guest experience survey. The survey asks things like, did you server recommend a beverage to you? Was your food tasty? Did you get enough value for your money? Many questions do not relate to the server's service, but the scoring does. Even if you ask the customers if they'd like to try a specific beverage every single table, many customers will forget and say you didn't. Or some customers will admit that they never give anyone five stars "because there's always room for improvement." These scores affect your job and management can get ridiculous about them because they affect their job too. The unlimited soup and salad makes your job so much harder. At many restaurants, you serve your guests drinks and then wait for their food. At Olive Garden, you could be visiting a table 50 times while serving unlimited soups and salads, while running around to your other 3-4 tables doing the same. When you're in the weeds, you are in the weeds. Starting out was very hard, but I did have some amazing nights that I really enjoyed.

Pros

The work is straightforward so it’s a matter of pacing yourself, for the long haul. Half priced food for all employees and dollar breadstick/soup/salad deals apply to employees. Sweet hardworking bartender Jackie was serving up smoothies/coffee drinks to fellow coworkers despite the rigorous duties of bartending in itself. Most of the already established dishwashers were great to work with. Wages can be discussed and/or renegotiated practically any time with reason. Many interesting walks of life to learn from.

Cons

You can take a 30 min dinner/lunch break at the cost of leaving your dishwashing partner alone and having piles stack on within seconds. I’ve had to close down by myself due to dishwasher teammates calling out last minute. Few employees in other department suffer from privileged-superiority-complex so always stand your ground. Never dealt with prejudice: overheard one racist remark from a gay guy, it was strange to hear in this day an age. Strange rules were set where “dead food orders” (incorrect/cancelled orders) were to be disposed of. I refuse to live in a world where we throw away perfectly edible food and have the poor cook’s effort completely go in vein. Such a waste of time energy, resource & space. I would never let that fly under my management. A waitress was fired for eating a dead food order, very strange to punish rather than discipline. Usually finished closing dishwashing shift 2 hours after closing time on average.

Pros

Good Pay Coworkers Can exchange shifts

Cons

Bad Hours offered money made in afternoon

Pros

Decent tips and quick training

Cons

Can be a pain to work for customers and servers can often treat you poorly

Pros

Family oriented Good schedule Good and fast money Easy to move up

Cons

Bad management No work balance Occasional hostile environment

Pros

Pros of working here is the family environment and if you're really social you can really make great tips. I was a trainer in ToGos so I did get a higher hourly while I was training and with my raises that I got

Cons

You have so many random tasks and the servers and managers don't realize how many random tasks we have to do that make operations run smoothly and you can get taken for granted that's why I ended up leaving because they take advantage of the people that are willing to help and don't care if the ones that don't want to help don't help because they expect you to pick up their slack.