Olive Garden Restaurant Cary - Review of Olive Garden Restaurant Cary

About.com Rating 2 Star Rating

From Tammy Biondi, former About.com Guide

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The Bottom Line

Olive Garden is an Italian-themed chain restaurant with two locations in the Raleigh area. This review is based upon a visit to the Olive Garden Restaurant Cary Crossroads Mall location. The menu has a wide selection of entrees, priced from about $9.95 to $19.95, including unlimited soup or salad. The restaurant also has a relatively sparse kids' menu featuring selections priced from $4.50-$4.95.

Pros

Fast, efficient service and friendly restaurant staff.
All-you-can-eat soup or salad
Open for lunch and dinner daily

Cons

The food is not especially good
Long waits at peak times

Description

Olive Garden is located at 1809 Walnut St, Cary (next to Crossroads Plaza). Their phone number is (919) 233-9714.
Olive Garden is open from 11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Sun.-Thurs. and 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
Olive Garden has a second Raleigh-area location at 4805 Capital Blvd., Raleigh.
Olive Garden has a beverage menu which includes wine, beer, and specialty drinks including margaritas and frozen drinks.
Olive Garden has a wide selection of non-alcoholic specialty drinks.

Guide Review - Olive Garden Restaurant Cary - Review of Olive Garden Restaurant Cary

One of Olive Garden's claims to fame is its unlimited refills on soup (minestrone) and salad. During my visit, the salad was mostly iceberg lettuce with a smattering of tomatoes, olives, croutons and sweet onions. It was drenched in dressing (I assume that special requests of "hold the dressing" can be made). The lettuce was tired-looking, which made the salad less than appetizing.

The minestrone soup was the highlight of my meal--it was flavorful and full of veggies, including tomatoes, carrots and squash. The breadsticks that accompanied the starters were cold, not particularly fresh, and coated with garlic-flavored oil.

Our entrees arrived about two minutes after our soups and salads, making for a cluttered table. Mine, the eggplant parmesan, consisted of five small, thin slices of deep-fried eggplant swimming in a sizeable pool of oil and covered with a bit of tomato sauce and cheese. It came with a side dish of spaghetti with tomato sauce. Upon biting into the eggplant, I discovered it was slightly bitter, but otherwise just greasy and bland. I ate about a quarter of the entrée and then called it quits.

The capellini pomodoro that my fellow diner ordered was slightly better: he described it as "just some chopped canned tomatoes" on top of pasta.

Our waiter was very courteous and was more than glad to provide us with refills of soup and salad. He also did a good job of keeping our water glasses full, and checked on us several times during our meal.

The other members of the restaurant staff were also very professional and courteous. The restaurant itself was pleasantly decorated in various shades of beige, and seemed clean (despite it's relatively low inspection score of 91).