Olive Garden
$$ - average
Italian
Olive Garden is a popular American restaurant chain specializing in Italian food.
Olive Garden is a popular American restaurant chain specializing in Italian food. Generally billing itself as a traditional family restaurant with Old World-inspired dishes, Olive Garden is popular among business groups, as well as non-family social functions. Founded in 1982, today there are over 667 Olive Garden locations throughout the United States and Canada.
Olive Garden restaurants have a stereotyped generic Italian-American atmosphere, utilizing wine bottles, bright colors, lots of foliage in their decor, and background music consisting of "Italian" standards such as "That's Amore" and "Volare"
One Olive Garden signature is their breadsticks. The number of breadsticks brought to a table is exactly one more than the number in the party, the reasoning being that no one in the group will want to seem selfish and take the remaining breadstick, even though breadstick refills are free and unlimited. Meals are served with a choice of soup or salad, both unlimited. Three soup choices are generally available, including minestrone and pasta fazool. The large house salad is brought to table with serving utensils, allowing guests to portion it out among themselves. It generally contains lettuce, onions, tomato, olives, pepperoncinis, and croutons, and is served with vinaigrette.
- Large Group-Friendly
Added by Suz on Dec 14 05 (updated Oct 9 07)
Sadly, Olive Garden is extremely Vegan Unfriendly. When a Vegan group contacted Olive Garden Headquarters about Vegan options, the reply was that their ingredients are subject to change at any time and vary from supplier to supplier. The staff at the store in Fridley, could not find anything that could be made Vegan. All the pasta and all the sauces contain animal stuff.