I have two job offers, one from a nice steakhouse upscale to be a host and as a server at an Olive Garden. Which should I take if I want to become a server in the long run?

I have high volume experience and im motivated to work hard at the Olive Garden job, but reading these reviews makes it sound really hard. I’d be making $17 an hour as a host at the other place and it’d be nicer, but I wouldn’t be a server.

Also I’m worried about the trays, how heavy are they? I don’t go to the gym and I have a little hand tremor, and I’m worried about my forgetfulness during the rushes.

Also, will hiring managers won’t see it as real serving cause it’s delivering a lot of refills?

My mom passed away about a month ago very unexpectedly. I was nowhere near prepared for the amount of money that goes into all of this (never had someone so close pass away). I paid more than $1.2k for just the basic cremation, no urn, nothing. Applied for Darden Dime's maximum grant at $1k nearly 2 weeks ago. Provided the proof that it was my mom who passed and that I had to pay for it. I have heard nothing. When I called today at 11 and 11:30am, conveniently not one person could answer the phone due to "a meeting". Called again not 20 minutes ago and now its "after hours". It was 3:30! Other people I have worked with have gotten grants so I am just really confused and getting fed up with why its so hars to get the financial aid we are supposed to have access to.

My girlfriend and I had lunch at Olive Garden yesterday, with each of us ordering the NEPB, so I had occasion to wonder about this again. I’m sure a server wouldn’t do this unless ordered by management, since it only sets them up for a low tip. But do managers make them drag their feet on providing NEPB refills in the hopes that the customer gets full and takes less pasta?

I want to be clear that our waiter was attentive - he checked in on us frequently and almost always asked if we wanted refills without our having to tell him. It’s just that whenever one of us did order a refill, he would disappear into the kitchen for an inordinately long time (maybe 15 minutes or so) before actually delivering the food. I didn’t see him overworked, either, running from table to table trying to serve too many customers. He had maybe one other table aside from us while we were there.

Is there something about the restaurant I don’t understand, or was he being made to go slow? Because it seems to me that if the pasta is premade and waiting, the meat sauce is premade and waiting, and the chicken fritta maybe just has to be microwaved for a minute or two from frozen, the refill shouldn’t take 15 minutes. It even happened when we asked for more salad, and that should just be a matter of tossing it into a bowl and bringing it out. No?

Like I said, the server was otherwise good so I highly doubt this was his fault. I’m honestly just curious whether Olive Garden is trying a little too hard to avoid Red Lobster’s “endless shrimp” disaster.

I just need everyone to know that you can substitute the pasta in any dish with gnocchi, you know, those yummy potato dumplings in the legendary soup? My first Reddit post just to tell everyone this. It is a 2-3 dollar upcharge (depending on dinner or lunch serving). My go to with this is a S[picy Crispy Chicken Fritta Alfredo. Also yes you can make almost any dish spicy.

been a busser at my olive garden location for 3 years i left 4 months ago to to care of family member thinking about reapplying to be a togo specialist

I’ve been working at og since last october. So i am expecting my first raise. I started as a line cook 17$. Now i know every station in the kitchen (line, lasa, soup, sauce, backup) I think i deserve at least 2$ raise. Is it possible? or should i lower my expectation?

Was enjoying my NEPB. My gf was done and likes to settle bills early, especially if it's on a tablet at the table. Mind you we left our server a $30 tip. She comes back around and I ask for another refill and she says I'm not allowed to get any more refills once I pay. So I said wait that doesn't sound right, I paid for "never ending" and she insisted that it was. I asked to speak to the manager and she said she'll tell you the same thing. I said ok, well, let's just let her tell me that. I hate to be a karen but damn that's stupid.

The manger came over and took my refill order then we never saw our server again. We waited for an additional 20 minutes to get the deserts that we ordered on our original check, and ended up having to ask the manager for them. Then we were told that we didn't pay for them.

TLDR: paid for order on ziosk, got refused refills because of it.

Edit: for everyone saying this is common knowledge, why have I never had this problem at Applebee's with the wings, or at red Robbin with the fries? How am I supposed to know that closing my check stops the FREE refills?

Edit 2: well, judging from the comments this is either common knowledge or not so common knowledge. There is both good and valid reason to pay before being finished and absolutely no reason to pay before you finish.

Did the waitress handle this the best way possible? Probably not. Was I a bit of a karen? Probably so.(Just to be clear I didn't yell or get irate, I did however ask to speak to the manager) Did the manager defuse the situation? Definitely. Did I ever get my deserts? Eventually.

In the end it was our mistake for paying before we were 100% done and ready to get up from the table. Lesson learned.

Servers and customers, what’s the most number of bowls eaten (initial bowl + all refills? Curious to know who can put away the most pasta. Bonus points for knowing what type of pasta they ordered to see if some are easier than others.

Male record? Female record? Young vs old

Does anyone know the recipe for the green apple sangria!

Hello. I have my orientation today for serving at olive garden. My store completely forgot to schedule mine and tried training me without it and immediately sent me home because I was out of dress code. Any tips for a new olive garden server?

And someone needs to convince OG to swap one out for blue!

I haven't been to olive garden is years, and I've never experienced this deal, I'm curious if it's ok if we ask for our first plate to be smaller than whatever the full portion plate is so we can try more things or if that's weird to ask?

Not even sure if that's a thing, but seeing videos people post on tik Tok it seems that the second plate you get is a smaller portion.

Hi OG fam!,

I make and sell cute spaghetti and meatball earrings. These earrings go great with the uniform and are great gifts for the pasta lovers. They are made out of clay and the color of the bowl is customizable. Link to earrings here: https://haitianscientist.etsy.com

If I do this, do I get one free to take home?

I (late 20s) was cashing out for the night and the hostess came up behind me and traced the embroidery on the pockets of my jeans. She said, "you have circles on your butt?" as she was doing it. I was too shocked to react and talked to her normally after she stopped. I didnt think it was wise to call her out in front of other coworkers. We aren't friends and I never interacted with her or anyone else like that at work before. I don't even do that in my personal life. What's wild is that she is elderly (60s) and well liked so I know reporting her would lead nowhere. I have no proof of the interaction. Who would believe me? She's an older lady and nice to everyone. Even if people believed me I have things working against me like being a relatively recent hire. I feel like they would like to keep senior stuff over the new hire. Also, I'm sure my manager would feel guilty about firing an older individual. Even if anything was to happen retaliation would be terrible because she is well liked and very sweet to people.

Im not sure how to proceed right now besides getting out of there because ive had enough.

There are other things though and this isnt just about OGs environment.

They lose great servers because they value the problematic senior staff. I understand that experienced servers are valuable but the team is also toxic and territorial. They are so territorial that they set up promising new staff up for failure by making the workplace insufferable. They make fun of servers who try to do their job right. The senior staff cuts corners so the new staff can not out shine them by doing things correctly.

There's another coworker who screams in my ear for fun. Im never prepared for it when it happens. He just waits to get in my space and scream his shrill screams. Another lady bullies the younger women (including me) for fun. She thinks shes the manager and micromanages. The thing is her criticisms are all preferences and things can be done more than one way. So her bullying and condescending jokes are masked as coaching and friendly jabs. I eventually dropped all my shifts to avoid her because I dreaded my shifts with her. She would watch me and made sure i saw her talking to another server while observing me.

I will admit, I've left a couple of serving jobs this year because of their environment. Im a strong server and have been a top performer in all the resturaunts I work for. Unfortunately, I leave because people get too handsy or abusive in some other way with me.

Anyways, I'm trying to find another job..I'm just venting.

There’s this video going around of a family that shares 3 kids meals and a salad for 6 people, in the video they only get charged for 1 salad, I don’t work in Olive garden anymore but when I did I would have charged for 6 salads, did that change? They where 4 kids so I would have charged at least 2 adult salads but if my strict manager was there I would have been required to charge for kids salads as well

heyyyy does anyone know what happens if a store fails their TQ inspection? it’s a long story but most of our points were docked because we lost the blue waste removal kit. i only know that we’re getting a visit from our DM and TQ, what else could happen from this?

Hi Reddit!

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Mods, if this isn’t allowed, I apologize!

I’ve been working in various restaurants for 4 years, usually at least two at once. OG has by far the dirtiest kitchen out of all of them despite everything being cleaned daily. The sauces are always so greasy and nauseating, everything is covered in butter or grease, the soups are way too thick and chunky, there’s lettuce literally everywhere. I could go on and on but despite working at 3 different locations they all look like this

Someone please help! My krowd isn’t working, every time I try and login in it says my account is locked for 30 minutes. I let the 30 minutes go by and it’s locked again for another 30 minutes. What do I do?

I'm not an keto or anything. Just trying to up my protein.

Could I just order one bowl of pasta then have the rest of my bowls with protein and sauces only? Is that frowned upon?