Olive Garden

I would probably say that Olive Garden is near the top of my "favorite restaurants" list. It could be because my absolute favorite food is ravioli. So, on Monday Josh and I went there for dinner. We sit down and are greeted by our server who goes by the name "Odd." It's on his name tag and everything. He introduces himself as the primary server and proceeds to tell us who the secondary and back up servers are (like we'll remember their names or something).

He's a little bit eccentric, older and obnoxious. Here's where the story starts. He asks our order and I tell him what I want. The same meal I order EVERY time I go there, without fail. Cheese Ravioli with 1/2 marinara and 1/2 alfredo sauce. I have probably eaten this about 50 times in my life. Then Odd says, "Ok, but that will cost extra." And I said, "What? Really? Is that new?" And he says, "It's never changed and I've been here for 25 years." So, I said, "Well, this is the only thing I ever order and I've never been charged extra for that." Then he goes, "Well then all of the servers who have helped you before have probably been fired." (Uh, doubt that).

I didn't make a big deal about it and I ordered it anyways even though I was totally bugged. He seriously pissed me off for some reason (I think it was his attitude), but we looked it up and Olive Garden started 27 years ago, so either he's lying (most likely) or the poor guy has been waiting tables for 25 years. Well, I calmed down because I realized I would just lower his tip by the amount of the charge, so whatever.

There were other things about his service that was really annoying too, but I won't go on too much about it :) So, the check comes and there is a note in there saying, "Have an 'Oddrific' Day!" Oh puhlease.

So, the next day at work I was telling my friend about this and he said sometimes if you file a complaint they will give you like a coupon or something. I figured I'd try and I was actually very polite in the response I sent (online) and just said how he could have handled it a little differently. It wasn't the fact that I had to pay but that he was trying to prove me wrong or something.

I got a response back today, apologizing for what happened and they said they would be sending me a gift certificate in the mail :) Can you believe that!!! Who knows, it'll probably be just like $5, but still! I was very pleased. So, if you ever have a problem with a restaurant and don't mind complaining, you might get something free out of it!