Olive Garden Italian Restaurant, San Diego CA

4 only because it was crowded and it took extra time to be served. The waitress and service was great and, because of that I am giving you 5 stars.

In the middle of American junk food, excellent varied cuisine, always charming staff. Very favorable opinion go there without a priori

I dropped in and ordered the soup, salad, and bread sticks. I ordered a drink to bump up the price and intended on leaving a big tip, as I was alone. However, the waitress didn't check on me once and never brought my bread sticks. A manager walked past and asked if everything was alright. I had empty dishes and was just sitting there. I told her that I wanted more soup and that I was without bread sticks. She had the waitress pack up a soup, salad and bread sticks to go, which was nice. But when I got it home, my salad had peppercinis in it and I had ordered the salad without them because I have a sensitive stomach. It also had brown fluid at the bottom. Possibly olive juice. But I decided not to take any chances.

Food was ok. The service could have been better and the atmosphere wasn’t that great either. First time there and probably the last.

It's Olive garden, so don't expect top tier Italian, but it definitely hits the spot with the unlimited salad and breadsticks!

It doesn't value.
Expensive for the value.
I don't know English but for what they charge you it's not worth it.
They even charge you for breathing

Great place and very nice experience. The food was very good too. The service was excellent.

Take out orders was Excellent! My whole Family enjoyed everything. Rafael, Calvin, N Stephanie Packed N service Us so Wonderfully. Thank You All for your Professionalism Today N Everyday! Keep up the Good Work. Ms. Adams and Family.

Plenty of seating and parking, not terribly busy. Server was good and the food was good. I'd come back.

Our server, Adrian C, made my family and I experience amazing. Adrian made sure everything was good and was extremely kind. The best server we've had honestly, Thank you.

Service was a bit off. Seems like the waiter had his hands full but it wasn't that busy. Great meal though.try the mango-strawberry iced tea.nice taste!

I went out of my way to go to this location (the La Mesa restaurant is closer to me) in celebration of my birthday. I was excited to go as I do every birthday. Our host led us to a table and when we asked for a booth, we were refused as "there aren't enough servers to sit you in a booth. " That didn't really make sense to me as there was another couple already sitting in a booth directly adjacent to us. And a bit later, another guest was also sat in a booth. But I dismissed that because I've never worked in a restaurant and don't know the intricacies of seating. But I do know that it was all in the same section, and the same waitress initially served us all.

Then, as our waitress (presumably new due to her lack of knowledge) took our drink orders, we were informed that their espresso machine was down, so I couldn't get the cappuccino I'd wanted. Fine. She also misinformed my mother that they didn't carry hot tea even though 1) it's offered on the menu, and 2) we've ordered it from there plenty of times. Later on, our second server confirmed that they did indeed offer hot tea.

The two redeeming qualities of our experience were our second waiter (Brian E, according to my receipt, at least) and the piping hot freshness of all the food served. Brian made up for the aforementioned slights with his constant attention and desire to provide exceptional and helpful (providing insights to the menu and answering questions) service. He even got the team to write a sweet "Happy Birthday" message for me on my dessert plate, which we thought was a sweet touch.

Outside, we were accosted by a vagrant begging us for our leftover food, which was pretty disturbing and unusual to see just outside the restaurant (the benches where patrons wait during busier times, I'm sure). I'm sure that can't be helped completely, since as I mentioned, the store seemed to be short-handed on staff at the time we were there anyway (11 am-1 pm).

All in all, I was a little disappointed by various factors, but maybe my expectations fell short due to the limited staff availability at the time we chose to attend.

Great food as always, but the greeter and server were very rude and impatient. Our server constantly pressed us to order, which was confusing because it wasn’t busy and there were only a few patrons at the lunch hour. Additionally, unsolicited remarks about the portion sizes of the salad was made to justify why we shouldn’t order a soup which felt extremely uncomfortable.

Edit: Grammar

Great food and good service, the atmosphere is very loud unfortunately and the seats are not the most comfortable.

Just wasn't good like the old days. More garlic on the breadsticks please. The calimari wasn't fresh, it was processed from a box with too much breading on it. It will be a long time (again) before I go back.

Excellent food and very good price. If you order a plate you have unlimited 4 types of soup or salad. And you can take what's left over to your house