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OLIVE GARDEN INVESTOR: BACK OFF ON THE BREADSTICKS
AP ^ | September 12, 2014 | Candice Choi

Posted on 09/12/2014 8:26:26 AM PDT by C19fan

Olive Garden is hurting itself by piling on too many breadsticks, according to an investor that's disputing how the restaurant chain is run.

In a nearly 300-page critique, the hedge fund Starboard Value says Olive Garden restaurants lack training and discipline and that servers bring too many breadsticks to tables at a time. That leads to waste — and cold breadsticks, Starboard says.

(Excerpt) Read more at bigstory.ap.org ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: garden; olive; restaurant
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To: plain talk

Soup and salad, skip the breadsticks, keep that soup coming


21 posted on 09/12/2014 8:41:12 AM PDT by Ray76 (Disgusted)
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To: lacrew
"They sell sauces to dip those breadsticks in now…clever."

In the old days before they went 'boil in bag', they would GIVE bowls of marinara or alfredo sauce.

22 posted on 09/12/2014 8:41:31 AM PDT by moehoward
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To: C19fan

Anyone who goes to Olive Garden to eat has no idea what Italian food tastes like. They get what they go for. Mediocre food, prepared in a way that middle America will chow down, if for no other reason than they have no idea what the hell they’re eating.


23 posted on 09/12/2014 8:41:46 AM PDT by TangledUpInBlue (I have no home. I'm the wind.)
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To: C19fan
I've only been there a few times.The first time I absolutely *loved* the breadsticks.But my second visit was a long time after the first...hated the breadsticks!
24 posted on 09/12/2014 8:42:36 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Islamopobia:The Irrational Fear Of Being Beheaded)
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To: C19fan

This chain has a hate America attitude- why any FReepers would support this place is beyond me. Search Olive Garden unAmerican.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2792083/posts


25 posted on 09/12/2014 8:44:05 AM PDT by matthew fuller (Barak Hussein Obama- the first step into a thousand years of darkness.)
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To: C19fan

Let’s not forget the service. Surly teenagers and pi**ed off single mothers whose lengthy disappearances into the kitchen are actually forays out the back door for yet another smoke break while fiddling with their phones. And these are the people dipping thumbs in soup and laying hands on entree plates!

Somewhere along the way the words ‘thank you’ became impossible to say. Now we get ‘have a good one/day/night’ which is hardly the same thing.

But you are correct about the food not just at Olive Garden but everywhere else. First they all dropped recipes and ingredients in favor of prepared items, usually from Sysco, which is why so many restaurants have similar-tasting food or even the same damn things on their menus.

Forget labor costs...quality beef costs too much which is why the product at most restaurants has nosedived.

Outback, bless their hearts, though that a salad bowl was too generous (despite the already hefty cost) so they began serving so-called salads on little flat plates that resemble ashtrays.

Foodservice is committing suicide. Two people at a casual restaurant can’t get out the door for less than $50-60.

It’s easy to say FReepers are stuck on politics but while everyone notices the price of raw ingredients going up, nobody wants to admit that the various Orwellian federal agencies along with idiotic states of production like California with its partially man-made drought.

I’m sure that a majority of workers and even many restauranteurs thought Obama was just ducky. I wonder how they like his economy now?


26 posted on 09/12/2014 8:47:36 AM PDT by relictele (Principiis obsta & Finem respice - Resist The Beginnings & Consider The Ends)
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To: C19fan
How about sales are falling at Olive Garden because the food sucks.

All food everywhere sucks to somebody. You can not post the name of a restaurant where there will not be those that say the food sucks. My wife loves Olive Garden where I can take it or leave it. That being said we go to Olive Garden enough to keep her happy, which is 3 or 4 times a year.

27 posted on 09/12/2014 8:48:51 AM PDT by Starstruck (If my reply offends, you probably don't understand sarcasm or criticism...or do.)
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To: MeganC
You wrote: " Businesses do not exist to make profits. They exist to provide services and products and if they do those things right then the business can be profitable."

I reply: You go girl!! Stop those mean business people from making nasty evil dirty profits!!!

/sarc

28 posted on 09/12/2014 8:48:57 AM PDT by fishtank (The denial of original sin is the root of liberalism.)
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To: C19fan

Yea. It’s the breadsticks.

It’s a chain restaurant where the food is intentionally made to taste mediocre so it can be the same wherever a location springs up.


29 posted on 09/12/2014 8:49:04 AM PDT by dmz
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To: C19fan

breadsticks and salad are awesome. Food is ok, but certainly not great Italian.

This is not a crazy comment though. I am always blown away with the numbers from large businesses like airlines...like when they cut from two to one bag of peanuts and the company saves 800 million annually. the numbers are staggering.


30 posted on 09/12/2014 8:49:48 AM PDT by ilgipper
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To: matthew fuller

Yeah, but if we boycotted each and every place that was unconservative in some way...

We’d all be living as hermits in a cave; buying nothing and going nowhere.


31 posted on 09/12/2014 8:52:04 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd (NO LIBS. This Means Liberals and (L)libertarians! Same Thing. NO LIBS!!)
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To: C19fan
How about sales are falling at Olive Garden because the food sucks

What about their food "sucks?" Have you actually eaten there? Their food is OK In fact I kind of like it.

32 posted on 09/12/2014 8:53:06 AM PDT by from occupied ga (Your government is your most dangerous enemy)
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To: MeganC

33 posted on 09/12/2014 8:54:24 AM PDT by fishtank (The denial of original sin is the root of liberalism.)
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To: TangledUpInBlue
Anyone who goes to Olive Garden to eat has no idea what Italian food tastes like.

Horse hockey! I have lived in Italy and been to a variety of restaurants there. Olive Garden is above average compared to most of the locations along the Dolomites down to Venice.

I have also been to Carrabba's and find that a bit closer to local fare but prefer the Garden. Both have been Americanized but are comparable to what I have had in Italia.

34 posted on 09/12/2014 8:54:36 AM PDT by rjsimmon (The Tree of Liberty Thirsts)
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To: C19fan

The last time I ate there, I had chicken fettuccine alfredo—in which there was a whole lot of fettuccine and very little chicken. And the bread sticks, we got a whole basket of them which were cold and tough, in fact I’d say downright stale.


35 posted on 09/12/2014 8:54:39 AM PDT by Patriot777 (Imagine....that we could see Obama being hauled out of the White House kicking and screaming?)
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To: C19fan

The Olive Garden Experiment:

How Much Will People Pay For A Pile Of Cheap Crap?


36 posted on 09/12/2014 8:55:00 AM PDT by hsrazorback1 (Seek truth.)
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To: MeganC

-——Businesses do not exist to make profits. ——

Spoken like a good union member communist


37 posted on 09/12/2014 8:58:31 AM PDT by bert ((K.E.; N.P.; GOPc.;+12 ..... Obama is public enemy #1)
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To: TangledUpInBlue
"Anyone who goes to Olive Garden to eat has no idea what Italian food tastes like. They get what they go for. Mediocre food, prepared in a way that middle America will chow down, if for no other reason than they have no idea what the hell they’re eating."

Yes, because flyover country is full of hicks who don't know good food; only the East & West coasts are so enlightened. /S

I have no use for snobs of any stripe, including food snobs.

38 posted on 09/12/2014 8:59:46 AM PDT by CatherineofAragon ((Support Christian white males---the architects of the jewel known as Western Civilization.))
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To: CatherineofAragon

A-freakin-men


39 posted on 09/12/2014 9:00:38 AM PDT by Hegewisch Dupa
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To: TangledUpInBlue

The first time I went to Olive Garden, I noticed that the food was much more authentic than Italian food in a small restaurant in Firenza or Roma. Real Italians could learn a thing or too about Italian cuisine from Olive Garden.


40 posted on 09/12/2014 9:02:55 AM PDT by Lazamataz (First we beat the Soviet Union. Then we became them.)
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