Posted on 10/13/2011 5:36:30 AM PDT by IbJensen
ANNISTON, Ala. -- Officials with the parent company of Olive Garden restaurants say they're sorry if a decision regarding an Alabama Kiwanis club's desire to display the American flag caused any concern.
The comments come after 80-year-old Marti Warren of Anniston said she wasn't allowed to bring an American flag into an Olive Garden for a planned Kiwanis Club banquet in the east Alabama town of Oxford.
Warren learned the night of the banquet that she wouldn't be allowed to display the flag or the Kiwanis banner in the restaurant, she said.
"I was so angry," she told WBRC-TV. "I felt like I had been slapped in the face."
Orlando-based parent firm Darden restaurants said in a statement that "like all Americans we have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for the American flag and everything it symbolizes."
The Oxford Olive Garden lacks a private dining area, which led to the decision, company officials said.
"To be fair to everyone and avoid disrupting the dining experience for all other guests, they're unable to accommodate flags or banners of any type in the dining room," according to the statement.
Without a flag at the Kiwanis banquet, Warren said she asked club members to close their eyes and picture the flag waving in the wind as they said the pledge of allegiance.
Take a look at the link in #27.
Check the link in #27.
What Taco Bell is to Mexican cuisine, Olive Garden is to Italian.
They’re probably not Coptic Christians either.
Yeah I saw that article a while ago.
I have been known to go for their soup salad and breadsticks.
Guess I’ll pass on that in the future too.
Morning Red, Hope the Lord is shining on your little spot in the world.
Yeah, Taco Bell. I don’t even bother with them. Every time I’ve tried them I have been grossly disappointed. Never again.
Disrupt ???? How about the banquet itself with a group having a meeting? A flag would be the least disruptive think in the room.
I quit going ot OG years ago. Show up WAIT 20 -30 minutes while more than half the dining area is vacant. This was not at 2 in the afternoon, but 6PM. Had better things to do with my time than to wait and eat cheap immitation Italian food.
Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance is not a chant."Chant" is an appropriate word for a group of people all standing up and reciting the same thing in unison.
Even if it is the Pledge of Allegiance, it is inappropriate in this context. The group should have arranged for a private dining room for their event, or they could have rented out the entire restaurant for the evening if they really wanted to have their event there.
But, what they did was inconsiderate and disruptive to the rest of the restaurant's customers.
Ah a true gourmet! A connoisseur extraordinaire!
Viva Italia.
(Of course most are run by middle-eastern and Mexican types who know as much about Italian food as a pig knows about lipstick.)
This family will by pass their chain of Restaurants..
hurry up 2012 we can't take much more of Obama........
Olive Garden never complained about them saying the Pledge.
Your bringing it up in this context is just a "red Herring."
I use the dictionary to determine whether a word is appropriate in the context of an article and there is no way these people were chanting anything.
I think Olive Garden food sucks and wouldn’t eat there anyway, but then again I think most restaurant food sucks and rarely eat out anyway.
However, I would be most unhappy as a diner if I had to put up with some private party in the main dining room putting up and/or waving flags or banners of any type. That’s why most restaurants that host these kinds of events have private dining rooms, namely so that partiers can have fun without disturbing the rest of the patrons.
I don’t blame any restaurant that lacks a private dining room from banning crowd activities that would potentially annoy their other patrons.
This family will by pass their chain of Restaurants..
hurry up 2012 we can't take much more of Obama........
no banners for banquets?
BS
No American Flag? Disruptive? LOL
Don’t ever go back.
I’ll never go. Food sux.
Darden received a pass from the White House. No Obamacare for them.
I quit ALL Darden restaurants a couple months ago when they did a “praise Hussein’s wife” event. We didn’t frequent Olive Garden often, but we would occasionally go to Red Lobster. Not any more.
“Olive Garden bans American Flag, would disrupt dining experience”
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However... A Mexican flag would be just fine... Especially with the employees.
Oh sorry.. I forgot.. They all just left.. HAHAHAH!!!
It would be better to just display a big picture of Judge Sharon Blackburn..... HAAAAAAAA!!!
What dining experience????????? A tasteful ‘salad’??????? that sucks??? Cheap pasta and bad sauce??????? Oh yeah, you get a breadstick!! Whoopee! Do not frequent this dump and never will! My kids hate it!
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