OLIVE GARDEN INVESTOR: BACK OFF ON THE BREADSTICKS

AP ^ | September 12, 2014 | Candice Choi

[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.

[Ray76]

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

[moehoward]

"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.

[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.

[Gay State Conservative]

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!

[matthew fuller]

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

[relictele]

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?

[Starstruck]

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.

[fishtank]

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

[dmz]

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.

[ilgipper]

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.

[Responsibility2nd]

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.

[from occupied ga]

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.

[fishtank]

[rjsimmon]

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.

[Patriot777]

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.

[hsrazorback1]

The Olive Garden Experiment:

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

[bert]

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

Spoken like a good union member communist

[CatherineofAragon]

"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.

[Hegewisch Dupa]

A-freakin-men

[Lazamataz]

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.