Olive Garden is Olive Garden. We go to chain restaurants because we know what we will expect from them. Will it be the best Italian meal we have ever had? Probably not. But it's solid, reasonable and reliable, through and through.
I will say today we stopped in for lunch and had amazing service. Our waitress was super sweet and attentive, not to mention she made sure we could use our free appetizer coupon and made the overall dining experience very pleasant.
Service was quick, food was hot and tasty, and there was no wait (again, lunch time but still).
I think they have a decent lunch menu with a great value. You have a variety of options that can come with either soup or salad, or of course you can just do unlimited salad and soup with breadsticks. We all left stuffed and didn't spent much. Not bad!