Olive Garden is great for the soup, salad & breadsticks.

Olive Garden certainly is not what I consider to be Italian food. Of course, I'm from Utica, New York (central New York area), where there are family-owned Italian restaurants on every corner, so I know what Italian food is suppose to be. I live in a small rural city at present, and they do not have an Olive Garden, but I know many people who are dying for one to locate here. These people, of course, are the ones who go to Ponderosa for a great steak dinner. There are a few family-owned Italian restaurants; some are okay and some aren't, but nothing like what I can get in my hometown.