Observations at Olive Garden

While definitely late to the game I went to Olive Garden for the first time in my life this past weekend.

There are many reasons this has not yet happened in my life, a few of which are:

1. My father has Celiac and so can't eat pasta, taking him to a restaurant where 90% of the menu is pasta based could be considered cruel and unusual by some.
2. I have always been a fat kid at heart, which concerned my parents, so I'm pretty sure there was a conscious effort to steer clear of any place that advertised "unlimited" anything.
3. Aversion to commercial marketing, I'm pretty sure that if they've seen it on a tv commercial my family assumes its not a place they want to be, whether that is driven by snobbery, dislike of crowds or just assumption that the commercial is lying about how good a restaurant is so it must be awful.

The result is the same - I was an Olive Garden virgin.

It's a lot to take in at once.  The "Italian" decor, the multitude of fake walls, the overly large bottles of wine... At the one we went to there was a wall that ended in the middle of a window...why?  The next shock was the menu, they are offering what I thought at first was a "deal" of buy one get one meals.  However, upon closer inspection there is no discount on the second meal, they are really just letting you know its ok if you want to order two whole meals!  That is some incredible marketing - establishing that this is something your customers may already do and instead of offering a discount just make it acceptable to keep doing what they already do.  Genius and it works!  There was a couple behind us who went home with 3 large doggy bags - for themselves!  I know this because they talked about it specifically being for themselves with their server.

There is just an immense amount of food being purchased and consumed at this place!  I am not a supporter of "California Cuisine" with an entree the size of a coaster but this is ridiculous. Even the after dinner coffee was enough to float you away!  We were just two people and thought we ordered a cup of coffee - and this is what we got, which only begs the question: If you are going to give two people this much coffee, how can you give them so little cream!?

So, I'm not sure I'll be returning to Olive Garden soon but it was definitely an experience I won't forget.