Why Olive Garden Is Struggling

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When you think of free breadsticks, unlimited salad, and pounds of pasta one name comes to mind — Olive Garden. But the Italian eatery, known for its $5 take home meal, has fallen on hard times as the coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on the restaurant industry. In response, the casual dining chain trimmed its menu, pivoted to take out, and cut costs. But are those changes enough for Olive Garden to survive the pandemic and offset the overall decline of the dine-in restaurant experience?

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Why Americans Love Olive Garden

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45 COMMENTS

  1. The Olive Garden is worst employee I ever work for. I started at the Leominster 15. Years ago and in all those years I have been held back and never promoted. And I have work under the worst. GM. In all my years during. 2017. To 2020. Every time I am in hospital I am ignored and treated. Like trash.

  2. Government’s forcing people to shut their companies during covid was great for big corporate restaurants, it broke the mom-&-pop and small business competition.

    This illustrates why we need big government, it aggressively weeds out the weaklings and potentiates the strong who are smart enough to leverage State coercion for their profits and dominance.

  3. As a 24 year old I grew up feeling like Olive Garden was fancy but as I got older I realized it’s just generic Italian food. It’s good, not out of this world, but still worth it.

  4. I am calling out Olive Garden Capitola California's branch. I have been there twice since it opened and let me tell you, both times the customer service was horrible. The first time we went, it was a large group. We were 7 people of which two of our friends never got there order. They gave me a wrong order and my friends order was still frozen. We left and my other friend never got her order.

    The second time that we went, I thought of giving it a second chance. The tables were empty there was only two tables occupied. They took forever to seat us and they left us at the table. No menus, they did not come to ask if we had been helped. We were sitting for an hour and no one ever came up to us. Ge got up and left. And still the restaurant was empty. We never went back.

  5. The menu is literally the value beans and colovita noodles from Walmart.. over 20 dollars a plate and Walmart lettuce. I think they attract the simple minded crowd who want to pretend to be sophisticated but eat something very simple, they get alot of church people, country people who have never eaten out kind of people.

  6. I prefer mom/pop restaurants over chain ones any day. Why aren’t they being financed instead of these chain restaurants to keep them afloat? Never heard of Dardens restaurants and am glad I haven’t.

  7. They didn't close because of covid they closed because the government etc told them they were not allowed to open or they would get fined and arrested. They were not even allowed to try like bigger companies etc were.

  8. $20 or so for an entree?! No thanks! My friends and I love going there. That’s the only time I go, for the social gathering. Last time I was going through financial troubles. I just got a drink as part of the gathering and swore I wasn’t hungry. I had a little salad however from the table bowl and the waiter charged me for it. Rubbed me the wrong way. There were 8 of us. He was making a decent tip from our group.

Comments are closed.