Employees Reveal The Hard Truth About Olive Garden

Olive Garden — is it true that when you’re there, you’re family? Some customers may feel that way, but what about employees?

Working as a server is never an easy job. You’re on your feet the whole time, and constantly on your toes to make sure everyone receives what they ordered and in a timely manner. With their bottomless offer of soup, salad, and breadsticks, you might think it’s even harder than your typical serving job. If you’ve ever wondered what servers go through at the Darden-owned chain, you’re in luck! These workers reveal what it’s really like to work at Olive Garden.

#OliveGarden #Restaurants #Foodie

Discount perks for other restaurants | 0:00
Unlimited menu items cause stress | 1:03
No more Olive Garden cravings? | 1:58
The food is made fresh | 2:33
Breadstick battle scars | 3:19
A great place to work | 4:03
Endless cheese-grating | 4:46
Culinary institute isn't exactly legit | 5:40
Discriminatory tipping policies | 6:37

[ecchiowl]

customer complains about not having enough breadsticks
hardly eats the main meal because they got filled up on breadsticks and soup

[methosmomomax]

I did the endless Soup, Salad, & Breadsticks it was amazing. I mostly used it to sample all of the Soups to know what I like. despite me clearly saying that, the waitress continued to serve me full bowls of soup. I tipped her very well when I left knowing what soups I would be ordering in the future.

[clementjoshua]

I loved working at the Olive garden. I was an older student (35) returning back to school. The Olive Garden paid my way through. First day health insurance. Meals at reasonable (Free) prices. Money in my pocket. A party almost every night (wink, wink). For me, an absolutely wonderful experience at a transitional time of my life. I still eat there. I have nothing but good things to say about working there.

[lucarioever]

Someone obviously got paid off by Olive Garden haha. Worked there for over 2 years, the food is far from fresh, they use frozen Tyson chicken.

[cyoohoos]

ANYBODY who believes their job thinks they are family is in for a HARSH awakening

[Dingomush]

I bought the set of books by Todd Wilbur “Top Secret Recipes” just to get the Alfredo dipping sauce for Olive Garden”s breadsticks. His recipes are right on point……

[heyheytaytay]

Oregon servers at OG make BANK because it's $14 minimum per hour PLUS tips. Where you work at OG matters a lot. The worst part of the job is constantly having to make your OWN salad, soup and breadsticks for customers. The kitchen staff don't do it.

[paulpuglia]

I used to work at Olive Garden it's owned by General Mills they make cereal. All the food you eat at Olive Garden is prepared, cooked and put in a vacuum package beggie and froze, what you're really eating is an expensive TV dinner, there is no chef in the kitchen they're only cooks boiling pots of water on stoves. They put the sealed frozen package food in the boiling pot of water until it's done. I would never spend my hard earned money for a expensive TV dinner at Olive Garden if you want to eat real Italian food go to a mom and pop shop restaurant.

[stevesykes]

No matter where you go to eat, someone will always have a negative attitude

[dubstepphoenix]

I have worked at Olive Garden for 4 months and got fired on my birthday. I was a busser against my wishes and as you know, Olive gardens have hundreds of tables on separate sides of the building. I was not only underpaid for the shit I was forced to clean but I was the only busser throughout most of my months. Imagine on a busy rush hour Saturday and a busy church Sunday, there’s 5 tables to clear on south side. I will work on those and as the only busser, no one could clean the other side but me. As I’m cleaning those 5 tables there will be 3 or more dirty tables on north side of the building. That’s not only stressful but near impossible. I would spends 30 min cleaning sauce and other hard to scrub meals off our carpet with my bare hands just to get yelled at in public to clean another big dirty party. A party of 50 once came in and made us all gussets and waiters life hell and for 5 hours straight. They left and didn’t leave a single tip yet they spend over 400 dollars.

[vigal]

I should try this place again. I stopped going quite a few years ago, not because it was horrible, but because I found a restaurant which is now closed but it was called tucci benuchi. And it was located at Mall of America. It was part of the lettuce entertainment group. They closed because, the mall of America got greedy and wanted more rent. This was some of the best Italian food I’ve ever had. Sorry, but that includes all of garden.

And I got this information, I thought all their stuff came frozen and in bags it was not made fresh. So, this gives me a reason to try the restaurant again.

[howymowy]

As a former line cook, it's corporate as usual. Do the job of 3 or 5 ppl. Paid minimum wage and blamed for everything by those who do 1 thing right. Tenure is paid to those doing over 30 hours AVERAGE per week on your anniversary. So they rip you off by scheduling you for 29 hours if your fast a.f and hooking up everyone else. Also don't have to pay you benefits in cali.

[SuperlativeCG]

Olive Garden has successfully created the most acceptable environment for awkward silences by asking people to tell them to stop when there's enough parmesan cheese on their food.

[thebeyer]

It’s a shame it doesn’t seem so fair to the workers, so I rarely eat there. That being said, I must say their breadsticks are delicious of course and their salad is very delicious. They used to offer a raspberry cheesecake for dessert that was awesome. Surprisingly, my favorite order of ALL there is not even pasta!!! The herb- crusted salmon dinner is, imo, just done to perfection!! Seasoned and prepared just right- better than many seafood restaurants around!! And the staff where I was each time, were great. It was a nice experience! (What I do when it’s really fabulous is not only leave a good tip, but I also ask to speak to the Manager, and tell them that the food and server were exceptional!!)

[erikcharlat]

2.13 an hour plus tips is not a living wage,

[oogaboogashooga]

Olive Garden was a lot of work for hardly any pay...I’m at a different corporation now making nearly double what I made there..and the job is much easier with better food

[rastassassin]

Absolutely the worst job I’ve ever had

[albla]

Every time I've been to Olive Garden I've felt bad for the people working at Olive Garden. Please always tip well it is not an easy job!

[chroniccrypto]

I worked at OG for years and you get a bunch of discounts throughout Darden brands, you get a 100% stock buy match so if you buy shares of Darden you get double ( up to your yearly wages maxed out ) so if you make $50k a year and put $25k in they'll match your $25k ( or at least they did this when I worked there in 2013-2014 ).

I loved eating there and the food is actually all made fresh besides a couple things.

[annieoakslee]

Our Olive Garden near me has the same wait staff for the 12 years I've been going there...We're just all older now