Olive Garden Has Middle-Class Problems

[babylonsister]

Oh noes! The humanity!


Olive Garden Has Middle-Class Problems
By Annie Lowrey


snip//

But the visit left me convinced that Olive Garden’s problems run far deeper than its kitchen or its boardroom. What OG and other sit-down chains offer is in essence escapist kitsch. Come, eat your $14 dinner, drink your nine-ounce pour of wine, enjoy unlimited breadsticks, feel safe. But in this economy, transmitting a feeling of security through a plate of salty, reasonably priced carbohydrates seems a task far beyond any restaurant chain, no matter how well run.

None of this is to dismiss Olive Garden’s own problems, of course.

The place telegraphs a certain old-world charm, with black-and-white photographs bolted to the wall, Sinatra on the speakers, and the lights dimmed to a glow. The booths are deep. The plates and cups are heavy. In our case, the service was unfailingly attentive. You get the idea. Olive Garden wants you to feel a little pampered by the experience.

But it nevertheless feels tired, the kitsch never quite convincing. Then there is the food, which ranges from the decent if bland to the openly terrible. (There is a lot of it, though.) Fried lasagna — a riff on fried ravioli, I guess? — is off-puttingly chewy and comes in a floury smudge of Alfredo sauce. Then — sigh — the infamous pasta. The chain does not salt its cooking water, according to the hedge fund, and as house policy simmers its noodles into a submissive mush. “I think it is Alfredo sauce with sugar in it,” said one of my friends, picking at my ziti with sun-dried tomato sauce. We did not find any sun-dried tomatoes.

The hedge-fund report does a thorough job documenting the menu’s many other sins. The chain serves too many breadsticks. It offers too many fried foods. Its asparagus is too long. It undersells its wine. And beyond that, the hedge fund complains about pervasive mismanagement at Darden, including “egregious governance practices” and excessive spending.

But there’s a deeper malaise afflicting Olive Garden and its many, many competitors — among them Chili’s, Ruby Tuesday, Applebee’s, TGI Fridays, Outback, Longhorn, Bennigans, Fazoli’s, Tony Roma’s. All plaintively appeal to a thriving middle class. But that means none are thriving themselves.

For one, these chains are facing fierce competition from cheaper fast-casual chains, like Panera and Chipotle. There is also the rapidly expanding better-burger category, including Five Guys and Shake Shack. In many cases, the food is just better at these joints — I’d take a Chipotle burrito bowl over a heavy plate of ravioli any day. Combine that with their just-lower price point and they feel like a far better deal, as evidenced by the consumers flocking to them.

more...

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/09/olive-garden-has-middle-class-problems.html?mid=facebook_nymag

[Historic NY]

1. I'm Italian or at least 1/2 I learn to cook from watching my grandmother...

aunst, and uncles. Sorry Olive Garden isn't worth it, when you can learn to make it better at home.

[strawberries]

4. I am right with you on this one!

I hate when folks call it an Italian restaurant. You want Italian then go to the North End if you live in Boston. Actually there are lot's of Italian restaurants outside Boston, but the Olive Garden isn't one.

[Aerows]

19. I grew up in New Orleans

What Olive Garden serves isn't fit to to satisfy the discriminating tastes of 2nd graders, let alone adults.

[ProfessorGAC]

34. I'm Sicilian And I Think You're Wrong

Just snobbery on parade.

Happens every time here.
GAC

[Historic NY]

44. Blah.......sauce or gravy.

[Drahthaardogs]

45. Really?

I am second generation. Both parents from Canavesse of the Fiume Po. We still make risotto, agnolotti, and sautissa casalinga as well as our own salume. I would feel guilty feeding Olive Garden to barn mice.

[ProfessorGAC]

50. To Each His Own

I still think it's snobbery. There is a very good italian place just a few miles from our home and it's MUCH better but it's also pricey.

Since Kohl's and Petco and Dick's Sporting Goods and BB&B is all right there, my wife and i will go shopping and then go to lunch or early dinner at OG.

And, my wife is a very good italian cook, but she doesn't work for me, she's my wife. If she wants to go out to eat, we do.

Your last comment cements my original opinion. Faux superiority is an unattractive place from which to shoot arrows, IMO.

[Drahthaardogs]

63. Food preservation is not "work"

for Italians. It is a way of life, and a HUGE CULTURAL thing.

Food is too scarce to waste it. Everyone butchers the family hog in November and air cures their meat. Italians do not let apples rot on the ground. We make our own wine and everyone has a cantina full of tomato sauce, wine, and salume. I have a huge garden and just wrapped my cardoni for blanching last night.

It is a cultural thing. Olive Garden is about as Italian as Taco Bell is Mexican.

[nomorenomore08]

71. "Olive Garden is about as Italian as Taco Bell is Mexican."

This. I might make a late-night Taco Bell run once in a blue moon, but I have no illusions that it's anything close to real Mexican food. Fortunately, there's plenty of the real thing around where I live.

[hifiguy]

53. Oh, lordy lu,

all of that sounds delicious!!

[joeglow3]

55. I always laugh when I see food snobs.

[Drahthaardogs]

62. Italian food is peasant food.

Rice cheese and broth? It is hardly "snobbish". My mother would call Olive Garden mushy pasta"porcherie". She routinely eats offal that I bet you wouldn't touch.

It is bad food done poorly. No italian would EVER eat their pasta that overcooked. If I won't eat burnt toast does that make me a food snob?

[joeglow3]

65. There are over 800 Olive Gardens, meaning MILLIONS like it.

Your need to announce how it is garbage and you wouldn't feed it to your dog is a clear demonstration that you get off on telling everyone how much more sophisticated you are than everyone else. In other words, you are a food snob.

[Drahthaardogs]

66. Million eat Taco Bell

It does not make it good Mexican food. And the translation of porchiere is filth not garbage. Olive Garden is not italian food.

[joeglow3]

72. And you are better than those miilions as well...

Like I said, food snob.

[Drahthaardogs]

73. Oh well.

It is my ethnicity and if I want to call out poor examples of cultural dishes I will. Enjoy your mushy macaroni

[joeglow3]

75. Oh, I don't like Olive Garden

I just don't feel the need to tell other I wouldn't feed it to a dog. To each their own and who I am to say what is better? I just know what I prefer. And, since if can't cook worth shit, if I want Italian, my favorite is here:

http://www.losolemio.com

[Drahthaardogs]

77. I said it was prepared wrong.

And it is. And I have eaten at losolomio. Its okay. Go to Pasta Amore. Leo is from Sicily but lived in Piedmont as well. Try the gnocchi nor saltiboca for the real deal.

[chrisa]

76. People flock to Taco Bell for inedible horse meat tacos as well.

It's not snobbish to call out a restaurant for being terrible. Also, a lot of people liking something doesn't mean it's good.

[Cha]

95. Ouch.

[Scootaloo]

80. Critique of lackluster food isn't "snobbery," it's critique of lackluster food.

Olive Garden - or any other restaraunt - is making its business by selling you food. if you're going to buy someone else's cooking, you want that cooking to be better than your own, don't you? Or at least, better than you can achieve by buying a bag of spaghetti and a jar of ragu. I mean that's really hte expectation of any sit-down restaraunt, that you are shelling out money to put food in your mouth that is worth hte money you are shelling out.

Olive garden fails at that, generally. Now, it's a franchise so maybe out there somewhere is a really great Olive garden that lives up to the expectation. But generally, it's pretty pathetic food.

If I'm going to pay for someone else to cook pasta, I expect them to know how pasta should turn out. It's not hard, cooking pasta. All you need is hot water and a sense of timing relative to noodle shape. if I order a plate of pasta and what comes to my table is a stringy mess of mashed potatoes, then I feel I am being ripped off.

I am not obligated to praise bad food (except when grandma cooks it, bless her heart.) Nor am i obligated to keep my mouth shut about it, especially when that bad food is coming from a business. You tell people about bad movies. You tell them about bad customer service. You tell them about mechanics who overcharge. so why not tell them about a restaurant that serves frozen spaghetti heated in a fucking microwave?

[Arcanetrance]

94. Yeah biggest objection to olive garden is

That they help perpetuate the idea that all Italian food is pasta and pizza

[CTyankee]

25. We have lots of great Italian food in New Haven...it's heaven for foodies...

[brewens]

78. It was a sad day when our Italian Gardens restaraunt finally went down. It had really been great

for years. In a Idaho mill town near and area that was known as little Italy populated by Italian immigrants back in the day, it did great. By the time I was in high school, that was a seriously run down area of town. "The Gardens", was not to live much longer. The bomb at that place for me was pan fried chicken! Maybe that is not known to be an Italian thing but I loved that. They damn near killed you with the spaghetti and bread that came with every meal. You seriously could not help way overeating at that place.

Right next to the place was a Chinese restaraunt that pretty much served the best steak in town. Go figure. The old guys that ran both of those places knew what they were doing. Once they were gone, the new owners or their kids that took over couldn't cut it.

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. Yup

Italian here, too.

I first went to an Olive Garden when I went away to college. I was horrified by what they were serving. Been maybe 3 times, always grudgingly at some group's prodding.

Of course, saying that makes me "elitist" scum to people who don't know any better. Whatever. They're ignorant.

Olive Garden is garbage.

[hifiguy]

16. i am not Italian but I adore good Italian food

Like this:

Fettuccine alla Romana
A Feast Made for Laughter
(A Memoir with Recipes)
by Craig Claiborne, 1982,
Doubleday & Company, Inc.

Alibris
This recipe is included in the collection considered
by Craig Claiborne to be the 100 best – out of more
than 8000 – to have appeared during his quarter-
century tenure as New York Times Food Editor.

Yield: 2 large or 4 small servings

1/2 pound fettuccine
Salt
4 tablespoons butter, at room temperature,
cut into 8 pieces
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup hot heavy cream
1/2 cup freshly cooked peas,
preferably freshly shelled
1/3 cup finely shredded, imported or
domestic Prosciutto
Freshly ground pepper

1. The important thing about this recipe is to have all the ingredients ready. The fettuccine must be tossed and served with the other ingredients
within seconds after it is cooked. Heat a serving dish and plates for
the fettuccine and place a colander in the sink.
2. Place the fettuccine into boiling salted water to cover and cook to the desired degree of doneness. This should not require more than 8 or 9
minutes for al dente, as preferred by Italians.
3. Test the fettuccine for doneness a strand at a time. Remove the strand
with a fork, let cool briefly, then bite into it. When nearly done, add
the butter to the hot serving dish.
4. When cooked, pout the fettuccine into the colander. Drain quickly and
not too thoroughly. Pour the moist pasta into the serving dish and
toss quickly. Add the cheese, cream, peas, and Prosciutto and
continue tossing. Serve quickly on hot plates. Let the guests
season the fettuccine themselves with a pepper mill.
___

There are not words for how good this is.

[closeupready]

21. When I was laid up in bed for six weeks with a back injury,

many years ago, I'd order almost every day from this Italian place, Calo's, on Chicago's north side. Always the same thing - linguine carbonara - SO good, and even better the next day. The recipe you have here is that dish almost exactly (except linguine is thin, where fettucine is thick).

[strawberries]

24. ummmm

mouth watering. I don't typical take recipes from non Italians, but I like yours!

[hifiguy]

26. It's from Craig Claiborne, longtime NYT food writer.

His cookbooks have been one of the backbones of my kitchen for 35 years. This recipe is originally from Craig Claiborne's International Cookbook.

It's even better than it sounds.

[Aerows]

18. I am not Italian

But I know how to open a cookbook and can make many things far better than what Olive Garden dishes out.

[BlueJazz]

48. Every Italian person I have ever known has said very few nice things about Olive Garden.

There's a little modest place down the street from where I live. Owned by an Italian family.
The food is Heavenly...just Heavenly.

[Quayblue]

49. I love home-cooked Italian food.

The scrumptuous food and family always goes great together.

[cwydro]

79. I'm not Italian, but

I can STILL make it better at home!

My first girlfriend was from an Italian family though...and ohmygoodness...eating at her grandmother's is something I will remember all my life. And that was over 40 years ago, sigh.

[ebbie15644]

2. They also are horrible at responding to customer complaints

I ate there this past summer and had shrimp fettucini and my experience was awful. I posted something on their own facebook page and was paid "lip" service that someone would contact me if I private messaged them. I did and no one contacted me, after several attempts, I quit! and I quit them!

[Tree-Hugger]

64. I complained via email

about a year ago. I just noted that our waitress was rude, forgot us, and then rushed us. $50.00 gift certificate came in the mail less than a week later.

[tabasco]

3. "telegraphs a certain old-world charm"

LOL.

Yeah, I feel like I'm in Naples at Olive Garden.

[WinkyDink]

9. You would, if you were served much smaller portions and scant sauce.

[tabasco]

58. Yeah, those Italians really suck at making Italian food

LOL.

[WinkyDink]

59. Have you been? I have, several times, the length and breadth. Italians do not heap large portions of

food on their plates, nor do they smother their pasta dishes in sauce. A little research would inform you that these are strictly Italian-American approaches to food.
"Don't Drown Pasta:
Never over sauce pasta. Italians complain that Americans drown their pasta in too much sauce. The Italians way is to toss pasta with just enough sauce to coat it without leaving a big puddle on the bottom of the plate."
http://whatscookingamerica.net/Pasta_Rice_Main/pasta.htm

[kwassa]

70. There are also bad Italian restaurants in Italy.

I discovered that.

On the other hand, I mistakenly walked into an expensive restaurant in Venice, ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, spaghetti, and was horrified to receive a big plate of pasta, with a minute amount of tomato salsa on top. I thought I had been cheated.

Both were amazing, however. Fresh homemade pasta and sauce.

[Silent3]

82. And that's exactly how sauces should be applied

I often have to request "light on the sauce" because I'm disgusted by the all-too-common swimming-in-sauce approach. At one restaurant I've learned to order a particular dish with "one quarter the usual amount of sauce", because when I used to merely say "light on the sauce" I'd get incredibly variably results, probably from kitchen staff who have a hard time grasping that a customer doesn't want their pasta to come out like a soup with some pasta floating in the sauce.

[tblue37]

83. THIS! I can't stand over sauced pasta. (My grandparents were Sicilian immigrants.)

I once told someone to just "threaten my spaghetti with the rumor of sauce." No, I don't want my pasra dry, but coated in sauce is good--drowned in sauce is not.

I also find the tomato sauce in most restaurants to be too sweet. Blech!

[glowing]

84. Yeah, in Italy, the portions aren't huge, the wine is freaking awesome, and

the food is to die for. I can't eat pizza in this country without longing for the real deal abroad. If I could live in Rome, I would in a heartbeat.

[tabasco]

89. I'm sure you're the only one here who's ever been to Italy.

LOL.

[tabasco]

90. Then why were you complaining? n/t

[Scootaloo]

81. Ever seen actual bolognese sauce?

Diced beef simmered in a red wine reduction with just a dash of tomato paste, with fine-chopped or grated carrots, onions, nd celery. The result is then whipped around with some noodles and plated - usually broad noodles, more like fettuccine than spaghetti, sicnehte broad noodle collects the meat better than a narrow one.

Order spaghetti bolognese at Olive garden and you get a heap of mushy spaghetti noodles topped with a tomato slury that may or may not have meat somewhere in it... and somehow, some way, this sauce will break the #1 kitchen rule that 'there is no such thing as too much basil"

[hifiguy]

91. Making a batch of homemade bolognese

is the best possible excuse for staying inside on a miserably cold Saturday afternoon during a Minnesota winter. As long as I don't forget to pick up some wine on Friday after work.

[Ikonoklast]

12. Well....there is a Naples, Florida.

They never said what they considered "Old World".

[politicat]

39. Naples, Florida, or Naples, Utah? NT

[on point]

5. The larger problem is corp America pushes marketing over substance

From products and restaurants to political candidates and fake corporate values they think it more important to present and sell an image instead of delivering the goods. The fake just isn't selling anymore.

[Dreamer Tatum]

6. I recommend that anyone who wants to learn how to run a national chain restaurant

should read the PowerPoint. It's a LONG read with some pretty abstruse content, but
it pretty clearly shows that (a) investors do care about customers, (b) authenticity matters,
and (c) Olive Garden has wholly fucked up their business to date.

My personal opinion after going to Olive Garden recently was that it is essentially Denny's, but
with "Italian" fare instead of breakfast and burgers. They can do better, more cheaply. Italian
food isn't rocket science.

[Drahthaardogs]

46. Real italian food is peasant food.

Simple ingrdients prepared well. Italian American food is a bit more elaborate with more meat.

[oneshooter]

7. Olive Garden has more problems with it's food

Then it will ever have with it's image.

A good reputation lasts a lifetime........................ a bad one lasts one day longer.

[NightWatcher]

8. No, it feels like mall food and for about the same money you can eat at a real restaurant

They run you to your seat, fill you with frozen dinners, charge you $6 for a glass of wine or cheap bottle of beer, then run you out the door with you styrofoam to-go box where your food will go bad in the fridge a few days later.

With apps like Yelp, Around Me, and others on everyone's smartphone, you can search reviews of local joints even when you are traveling, and for the same money get a real meal prepared by real cooks and local owners.

[WinkyDink]

10. That's okay by me; I've never gone except as a travel rest-stop or a pre-concert meal.

And if it's not a town I'm going to actually visit, I don't want to search.

[Logical]

13. Waiting for the typical DU food snobs! "Low grade dog food" LOL nt

[NuclearDem]

14. But I hear it's a must-visit destination in Times Square

[closeupready]

22. Not sure it's still there, but I went there with a lady friend

in the year after it had just opened. Was REALLY average.

[peacefreak]

61. tsk tsk tsk

Don't forget to review a movie!

[greatlaurel]

15. The hedge fund report is what passes for frat boy/MBA analysis, claptrap served up in PowerPoint

There are lots of good folks who have stopped going to Darden restaurants because of the political actions of management. A lot of us have not forgotten Darden's actions against the ACA and President Obama. The author of this article has a few good points about the disappearing middle class, but seems to be selling other restaurants. Does the author own stock in Panera or Chipotle? Both of those chains are ridiculously overpriced for the quality of food they sell.

The hedge fund analysis of Olive Garden is classic MBA gobbledygook. The problem with Olive Garden bread sticks is not that there are too many of them, but that the bread sticks taste awful. The salad has been reduced to crappy bag salad and one sad pepper and two black olives, if you are lucky. The service is really bad, probably because management views their employees and customers in a contemptuous and abusive manner. Customers are marks to scalp. Employees are there to run into the ground and then fire when they are no longer useful.

Olive Garden is being run into the ground by people with the same mindset of the frat boy/MBA's who work at the hedge fund. They have no clue how to provide a quality service or product to the general public. It is all gimmicks or marginally legal stock and property manipulation.

Here is the plan to save Olive Garden for free: Serve quality whole wheat pasta and good freshly made salad (not bagged salad that is only fit for the compost pile), make good bread sticks (not the ones that leave a foul after taste) and serve them generously, pay your employees a living wage and provide decent benefits like sick leave for when they have a cold or flu so they do not make the customers sick. Treat your customers nicely and not charge a ridiculous amount of money for a spaghetti dinner. Problem solved.

[Dreamer Tatum]

20. You obviously didn't read the report. Or perhaps you WROTE IT

because...guess what...they make most if not all of the same points you do.

So...are you a frat boy/MBA?


Seriously: read it before you critique it. If you think you already read it, try standing closer to the page.

[greatlaurel]

43. Nowhere in the entire power point silliness did I see them suggesting paying a living wage

There was lots of the typical frat boy/MBA nonsense about team building and "efficiencies". There were no mentions of providing decent benefits for the people working in the restaurants. Of course, the writers of all that balderdash contradict themselves. My favorite was where they whine about the need to increase the use of fresh foods while in the same document claiming they can cut costs by buying more already prepared foods from third party suppliers, the antithesis of "fresh". "Efficiencies" is just a code word for cutting back on staff. They freely admit that they plan on making the wait staff do more food prep. That will go well (not).

The hedge fund nitwits shining example in their report is Chilis, whose food and service is even worse than Olive Garden.

You seem a trifle defensive about the hedge fund. That report is very typical MBA think, with lots of colorful pictures, nifty charts, bullet points and graphs that say absolutely nothing. Anyone with a bit of reading comprehension can tear that silly hedge fund report apart in short order. It is total crap and if the stockholders vote for that bunch of idiots, then Darden will go down even quicker. Glad I don't work for Darden. I feel bad for all the people who are going to loose their jobs.

[Dreamer Tatum]

56. You didn't read it, and if you did, you're not equipped to understand it.

It is difficult to operate a national restaurant chain, to say the very least. It's also difficult to understand the array of concepts and metrics used to gauge success and performance. Evidently, it is also difficult to spell "lose" correctly.

You've presented no information that Olive Garden doesn't pay a living wage. In any event, the problems of complacency,
inauthentic food, overspending, lack of employee engagement, and inconsistency are all documented in the powerpoint, yet you are loathe to acknowledge that fact because it runs against your strange, crumbling narrative.

I have no dog in the hunt, other than to point out that someone cares about the company, its employees, its product, and its performance. I personally think Olive Garden is an awful, depressing place to eat, but it doesn't have to be.

I have been trained to be fair and to analyze with an open mind, and in particular to not bring biases and opinions into the analysis. To the degree that your retort employs "frat boy" as a rhetorical device, you evidently have not been so trained. If you are capable if "tear(ing) that silly hedge fund report apart," then let's see you do it. Millions of dollars are likely yours if you can present a compelling alternative to the current shareholders. Oh, but wait. Then you'd be working instead of ridiculing and complaining.

[KG]

17. way too many mom and pop places in my corner of the world to go to the chains

either the sit downs or fast casual.

also, its seems there's fewer dollars flowing around in the economy, and you can't just shovel shit at consumers anymore

[KamaAina]

23. Breastfeeding and pit bulls are middle-class problems?

[Sparhawk60]

28. Yes!!

Yes, all the women breastfeeding Pitbulls at Olive Garden ruined the meal for me.


Sparhawk

[KamaAina]

30. Welcome to DU!

Breastfeeding and pit bulls, along with Olive Garden, believe it or not, are flamewar bait around here. The OG thing started when someone asked for restaurant recommendations around Times Square -- and someone piped up with Olive Garden!

[Man from Pickens]

27. part Italian here

Olive Garden is what you get when you douse Italian food in buckets of Americana.

Their sauces are way too sugary and the pasta is way overcooked. They need to learn the meaning of the phrase "al dente".

At least this was the case last time I went to one, which was years ago.

[The2ndWheel]

29. Don't lie, you know you go all the time

It's ok to admit it. Even if simply catching a glimpse of an Olive Garden sign out of the corner of your eye while looking for a real mom and pop place is enough to banish someone from civilized society.

It's ok.

[Man from Pickens]

32. LOL

I can even remember what year it was I last went to one (2007), and who I went with (a lovely woman I was dating at the time). It is only that the story of Olive Garden's problems today so closely matches my own criticisms back then that I feel confident repeating them now.

[tblue37]

85. Almost every restaurant I have eaten pasta in makes their sauce way too sweet. It's nice to see that

someone else is bothered by sweet tomato sauce.

[Man from Pickens]

88. Sugar is the American way

of making bad food palatable to the masses

It's too bad, because it's really not all that much effort to actually cook food properly. Once I got out of the big cities, the first thing I noticed is that nobody seems to know how to cook anything that isn't fried or sugared to death.

[tularetom]

31. You get what you pay for

I don't get all the Olive Garden hate here at DU. The food is bland and not very nutritious. The atmosphere is classic plastic American mall. The servers are surly teenagers. But the portions are ample and the prices are reasonable.

If you want good Italian cuisine, don't go there. But if you just want to be full and not pay a lot, it's as good as any of the other lower tier chain sit down places (Red Lobster, Chili's, Applebee's etc).

If you pay ten bucks for a meal you're going to get a ten dollar meal.

Do I eat there? No, I live half an hour from the nearest restaurant of any kind, and at least 90 minutes from the nearest OG. I wouldn't drive that far for any restaurant.

[xfundy]

33. I see what you're saying.

The food sucks but there's plenty of it.

[JI7]

35. i don't think it's all about money, things like Yelp and other internet sites

are allowing people to find out about other places .

before this ,especially for people not familiar with an area they would probably go to chains because of familiarity. but now people can check out menus, see pics, reviews etc of other places also.

if i'm going to be in an area that is kind of away or i never usually go to i will often check out places around there on the internet before going .

[zappaman]

36. Best Italian food you can get outside Italy, IMO.

Headed to Italy next year and can't wait to go to the original in Florence!!!
Although I do plan on hitting the ones in Venice and Rome too!

[JI7]

37. the problem with olive garden is they are too expensive for the type of food they serve

[Xolodno]

38. There was a time...

...when they were semi-decent. Now, I would rather go to a Dennys.

But they really over-saturated the market. And when you add stockholders demanding increased revenues and profits...you're left with limited options.

1. Increase the price.

2. Lower the quality of food.

3. Reduce expenses (which often reduces service, training, etc.).

Which using those options to often, eventually does long term damage.

[alarimer]

40. Maybe I'm a snob, but I avoid chains at all cost.

In most places (but sadly not all in this increasingly homogenized world we live in) there are plenty of good, local eateries that don't serve pre-cooked crap.

OG is shit, as are all those others.

[Rhinodawg]

41. Best.Salad.Anywhere.

food is passable.

I could eat their salad everyday.

[Dirty Socialist]

47. Meh

It's okay. There is a lack of good Italian restaurants in my area, so I go to The Olive Garden about once per year.
I make better linguine.
Local Mexican-American restaurants are way better than Chipotle.
Panera is not very good. Overrated.

[William769]

52. I take it the libraries are closed today?

[Arugula Latte]

54. Another factor: the rise of home semi-gourmet cooking

In the 70s and 80s it was a different story, but for years many Americans have been exposed to top-notch food and cooking techniques either through nouveau-type restaurants, gourmet foodie friends, the cooking networks, the Internet, etc., and we know how to whip up some delicious and relatively inexpensive food using fresh ingredients and herbs and spices. So it makes sense to visit either cheaper, fast places for the convenience or higher-end restaurants for a special meal that we couldn't easily replicate at home. For the middle-of-the-road places like Olive Garden we think: "Why should I spend a fair chunk of cash on mediocre-to-terrible food in a lame-o corporate-fake environment?"

[hifiguy]

92. This. I can make better and more authentic

Sichuan and Hunan food in my kitchen for peanuts that is served in all but the best - read more expensive - Chinese restaurants.

[Enrique]

57. "the asparagus is too long"

that's why I stopped going there.

[steve2470]

60. I'm really glad my palate is so unrefined

I can eat most anywhere and be happy.

[Union Scribe]

68. I completely agree.

I'd almost feel sorry for those who find everything they encounter to be so far below their standards, if they didn't always feel it necessary to tell us about how everything is so far below their standards.

[markpkessinger]

67. A "floury smudge of Alfredo sauce?" Flour in an Alfredo sauce????

Alfredo sauce has three ingredients, and is arguably the easiest of the traditional Italian sauces to make. The ingredients: cream, egg yolk and Parmesan cheese. The egg yolk provides all the thickening one needs; why anyone would adulterate it by using flour is simply beyond me!

[Kingofalldems]

69. Meatballs and spaghetti--my favorite meal.

Just like Flub-a-dub.

[Dirty Socialist]

74. A Point Missing Here

Is that the middle class is getting clobbered, so we can't afford to go to middle class restaurants like Olive Garden. We are having to go to cheaper restaurants, or we don't go out at all. With less disposable income for us customers, the middle class restaurants are struggling. Maybe if companies get us jobs and pay us what we are truly worth, we could support these businesses.

[tblue37]

86. HenrycFord's business plan included paying his workers enough that

they could afford to buy the cars they were making.

It was a wise move, but today's captains of business know only how to dismantle the ship and sell off its parts as scrap to make a quick profit before moving on to scavenge the next one.

[SheilaT]

87. Any restaurant chain that

extends to even a few dozen locations, let alone hundreds, is probably relying on pre-packaged foods some where along the way. After all, the chain concept promises you'll get the very same food, no matter what location you go to. So they're not going to be cooking from scratch.

I suppose it's possible to mass-produce excellent food, but I sort of doubt it.

As someone who generally likes to cook, I more and more find that I can do a better job than a lot of restaurants. And I know that my ingredients are fresh, and I can control the portion size.

[Arcanetrance]

93. I'm Italian and honesty my biggest objection to olive garden

Is that it helps perpetuates the idea that all Italian food is pasta.