Posted on 09/22/2023 7:08:43 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Retirees have lost their appetite for Cracker Barrel and Olive Garden since the pandemic — and it’s not clear when they’ll come back, according to the chains’ top brass.
No amount of biscuits and gravy or unlimited pasta refills seems to be enough to entice the 65-and-older crowd as they continue to pinch pennies amid high inflation and duck the coronavirus, according to Rick Cardenas, chief executive of Darden Restaurants, which owns Olive Garden.
“I do believe that they were a little bit more spooked on the COVID side,” Cardenas told analysts on a Thursday conference call. “We’d love to see them come back more frequently.” Indeed, seniors are heading to the budget-friendly pasta chain less often than they had before the pandemic, added chief financial officer Raj Vennam on a conference call on Thursday with Wall Street analysts.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
They chintz out on their salad dressing. You get this huge salad with a small cap full of dressing. Ask for extra, you get two tiny cap fulls of dressing. They’re likely saving three cents on your salad, but you’re losing $40 of me and my wife’s business. They’re so dumb. And their cutting corners doesn’t go unnoticed.
I 100% agree with everything you said about Cracker Barrel.
Never mind that their prices are up 20% or much more
The stock market is stuck on stupid going nowhere
Fuel prices are back up in the stratosphere making travel difficult
Everyone has taken at least a 20% haircut even if their assets had not gone down thanks to wild inflation
Anything else?
Never mind that none of us need an endless carbohydrate bowl and bread sticks all swimming in butter.
I’ve already had a say on CB.
The place is always packed when I go by there
Even evenings
But I’m one of those who has to limit the times a month for restaurants and carry out
That’s great to hear.😀
Is there someone around to monitor his driving skills?
Absolutely right but includes many other restaurants. A beef tenderloin dinner in our area averages about $45.00, salad not included and not that great. We can buy four very nice tenderloins for about the same amount as one and is delicious.
My wife and I enjoy Olive Gardens unlimited Soup Salad and breadstick specials. We avoid the pricy wine and have the Peach iced tea instead.
I just live my life like always, except that since my son died 3 months ago, I’m actually looking forward to death, so I really don’t GAF anymore, which is kind of liberating.
Liberal crap.
I live in middle Tennessee. Cracker Barrell’s are always busy and lots of seniors like me.
My little pizza joint looks like an old folks hoke at 4 pm. A medium supreme is $22.
In the case of Olive Garden...in the early 1990s, I probably ate there ten times a year, then I went overseas for a number of years. Around 2010, I returned and tried one. Crappy food, 1-star salad bar, and marginal staff. Now? If the prices have inflated 30-percent? It’s absolute crap.
In the case of cracker barrel...I’ve been there twice in the past decade. Just a high amount of sodium in their food...pretty greasy, and it’s taking me a whole day to get over the food ingested.
I either cook at home or splurge on high quality restaurants every now and then. Mid and low tier chains are avoided by me - not worth it.
Olive Garden is crap? No way.
Their pepperoncinis in the salads I could eat like popcorn.
Maybe it’s because people realize Olive Garden is swill. And CB is worse.
This. And ordinary foods
When I was 16, I tried to kill myself. When I was 17, I worked in EMS and watched people die while I tried to save them. That broke my GAF switch. I almost lost my son 2 years ago but got him back and I retire next week. I have friends that lost their children. I sit on the porch in the morning with my coffee and think “I have been given a great gift that I must appreciate” every single day.
So when I read what you wrote, I thought “I must be even more appreciative”.
I’ve eaten at the Olive Garden twice in my life, both times at the invitation of other people.
NEVER AGAIN, the food was CRAP and the prices they charge for their CRAP are outrageous!
“Both of these restaurants are CRAP and overpriced.”
indeed ... which is why this senior never ate at those places in the first place, both covid AND no covid ...
I like Panera food. And I can see them working in the kitchen.
To each his own, I guess. You got some serious negative waves for OG there. What do you consider as a good place that doesn’t serve crap and doesn’t charge too much?
Butter has lots of concentrated calories. However, there is a difference between pasta calories and butter calories. Which is, butter calories are from fat which take longer to digest and therefore you will get hungry slower than from pasta which is mostly carbs.
Another benefit of fat is that it does not require insulin to process digestion. Pasta and sugars will quickly release insulin. Eating carbs frequently causes frequent release of insulin. That leads to insulin resistance in muscle cells. Which then causes diabetes type 2.
But definitely watch quantity of fat, because it has lots of calories.
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