For Olive Garden, the menu is worth more than new decor

Yahoo Finance ^ | July 9, 2014 | Chris Nichols

[Red Badger]

If they shut down tomorrow, I wouldn’t miss them. Wouldn’t waste a penne on them.................

[dsrtsage]

Cooking Process at Olive Garden

1) Customer Orders Food
2) Employee Travels to Local Supermarket to procure frozen Entree from frozen foods section
3) Employee Returns and places frozen entree into microwave
4) Waiter Servers still semi-frozen entree to customer

[driftless2]

Yes well, guess what....many millions of Americans don't live in or near big cities with authentic Italian restaurants. OG is just fine by me and the wife.

By the way, I have a sister who some years ago took me to an "authentic" Italian restaurant in the Chicago area for "authentic" Italian food. It didn't taste any better than the food at the OG. Might reflect on my quotidian taste buds, but that's the way it is.

[stratboy]

That's why it is known as McItaly

[Moonman62]

They sell blocks of salt poorly disguised as food so they can sell more overpriced drinks.

[P.O.E.]

introduce themselves by name (which is really tacky)

Worked at a hotel restaurant back in college days - we were supposed to wear the company name tags. We'd just grab one out of the drawer - one day I'd be "Roberto", another "Mudiwa" and so on.

[llevrok]

OG does provide a family dining experience (regardless of what thinks OG’s cuisine is or is not). Places are always busy with (mostly young) families in my area

I’ve read the concept of family dining out is passing as more and more families are opting for even faster food “dining”. (said Red Lobster exec explaining their financial troubles).

[milagro]

Great line--"quotidian taste buds"!

We have an Olive Garden not too far way in Medford (Oregon), where there are NOT a lot of good restaurants, Italian or otherwise, and it works just fine for my "q.t.b.'s"!

[TurboZamboni]

service has gone down . ate there for the first time in a year just a month ago.

food was crap, server was cluelss, staff standing around texting their friends.

[John 3_19-21]

I worked as a chef/cook in south Florida and in New York.

One of the main reasons I left the restaurant business in 1998 is because of the general public's lack of discernment between hand -crafted food and mass produced, industrial quality food.

The average American wouldn't know the difference between mortadella and Oscar Mayer.

[Responsibility2nd]

 

Penne Cat sees what you did there.

[enraged]

The cheesecake factory is even worse, last time was 2 hour wait. And no Penny either

[LadyBuck]

Your post made me laugh.

Hubby & I took a trip to the Twin Cities some years ago, stopped off at a liquor store to get directions to someplace good for lunch, the crowd there all said the same thing:

“Dooya like Italian? Oh yah, go to the Olive Garden, it’s a mighty fine restaurant. Almost as good as Quiznos.”

LOL

[MortMan]

I didn’t know that Oscar Meyer made mortadella! ;-P

[Red Badger]

[Pox]

A little over 15 years ago Olive Garden changed their recipes and that was a bad idea. They went from above average food to below average overnight.

If they really want to resurrect the chain, pull the old recipes from prior to 1999 out of the vault and see how that works.

[Gingersnap]

I’m surprised by the number of posts that are so dismissive ‘inauthentic’ food. There’s no reason the average American should be conversant with all the regional cooking styles, ingredients, and technical methods used in these cuisines.

Italians, Chinese, Irish, Vietnamese, and other groups come here and adapt their home cooking to American ingredients and eventually to American tastes (common ‘old country’ foods become holiday novelties eventually).

It’s one thing to appreciate another cuisine as a hobby or due to family influences, it’s another thing to expect that people without those interests need to bring a certain level of ‘education’ to the table when all they want is a tasty, mid-priced meal.

[driftless2]

When I was a child many moons ago, my mother used to occasionally make spaghetti for us kids. For her "sauce" she mixed ketchup with tomato soup. So when I got older I used to buy Prego or Ragu when I made spaghetti and marveled at how much better those sauces tasted than what my mother concocted, God bless her soul.

My point is the Italian food at the OG is far better than what I ttasted as a child. Again, I'm no gourmet, but after traveling the west with the wife for the last thirteen years and eating at a variety of chain and individually owned restaurants, it's a tradeoff as far as quality.

[John 3_19-21]

I attended a Research Development Chef's seminar/trade show/retreat in Savannah some years ago. It was attended by the top development technologist/chefs from all the big restaurant chains and supermarkets.

One of the break out sessions was on the future of the restaurant business. We attendees were asked to design gourmet restaurant menu for a 200-seat restaurant that could be prepared by staff with no experience and a middle school level education.

Some of the Ideas we came up with included; boil-in-bag entrees, thermal gel caps in pre-frozen entrees that would melt when the food was ready to serve.

Imagine that, a gathering of chefs helping to design their own obsolescence.

[stinkerpot65]

Could care less about Olive Garden, but snarky food snobs are annoying little twits.