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Around here there is an authentic Italian restaurant on every corner. People I know laugh at the thought of eating at the OG. (and we have tons of "yuppies" in Ct., lol-who definitely wouldn't be caught dead in OG) We don't care for Italian food ourselves, but our dd loves pasta dishes. She ate at the OG once and thought it was terrible compared to "real" Italian food.
Back in 1980 or 1981 I was in one of the original market research focus groups that previewed the concepts for a restaurant concept that General Mills Restaurant Group was developing. That restaurant eventually opened on International Drive in Orlando in the former location of one of their other concepts, The Green Frog. The buidling itself was a test bed, multi-level, and a lot less like the farmhouse style that Olive Garden generally uses today. The idea was to have family-friendly Italian food served in a casual and inviting location...one that would invoke the idea of being in a somewhat rustic garden setting. The food was intended to be Italian without being overly seasoned, respresenting various styles and regions. It was intended to be affordable and a desitination for special occasions as well as for everyday dining. A place for family, friends, children, and adults was the goal, where everyone would feel at ease and not intimidated by the menu. Did they succeed? Yes. Is the menu fairly diverse? Yes. Is it affordable? Well, that depends on one's definition of the term. Is the food authentic...whatever THAT means? No, but then who really expects that in this. Is the food consistent? Yes, for the most part...it should be for the main dishes, etc., since the food is largely prepared in commisaries and shipped to the restaurants to be reheated. Is the food bad or unpleasant? No, there is generally something on the menu that would be at the very least tolerable by most potential guests. It is not fine dining, but then it is what it is, semi-institutional food served in a reasonably pleasant location. The only variables tend to be the level/quality of service and the ability of the kitchen personnel to reheat the prepared items shipped in to the restaurant. There are plenty of worse chain restaurants and some that are better.
What I like about my local Olive Garden is that everytime I go there they are always playing a song by either Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra, to give it a real Italian American feel.
I have found them to be variable. Some are excellent, others are so-so. I would put all of them I know in the range of 6-10 (Ten being in Ann Arbor MI).
I do have a special place for Olive Garden as being a class act. My wife once left her cashmere sweater (bought at Goodwill for $2) on her chair, and we phoned to ask them to send it to us. When we got home (several days later) it was waiting on our doorstep---they overnighted it!!!
Olive Garden is not intended to be (at least for me) an alternative to a genuine Italian restaurant. But if Im passing through an unfamiliar place, what are my chances of finding better Italian, instead of worse? Most restaurants, to me, are a disappointment. And most medium-sized cities do not have a decent Italian restaurant at all. Local inquiry will not help---you'll be sent to the Pizza Hut.
IBut if Im passing through an unfamiliar place, what are my chances of finding better Italian, instead of worse? Most restaurants, to me, are a disappointment. And most medium-sized cities do not have a decent Italian restaurant at all. Local inquiry will not help---you'll be sent to the Pizza Hut.
Some years ago, while in San Francisco, discovering that all of the restaurants that we had planned to visit were closed down (this was pre-internet), we came upon a technique that works reliably in this situation, since we do NOT, when traveling, want to go to a restaurant that we could just as easily go to in our own town - that defeats the entire point of traveling, might as well stay home.
We stop someone walking down the street that looks local and ask them, "If you could eat at any restaurant within six blocks, where would it be?" If they rattle off a list of restaurants, or give us the name of a chain restaurant, we thank them politely and move on to another person. If their eyes light up and they enthusiastically tell us of a place, we try it. (We actually had one person in Berkeley tell us of a place with such obvious joy that we drove 75 miles up the coast, only to discover that it was closed for the season. However, the menu posted beside the door made us weep that we had missed it and acknowledge that if it had been open, it would have been more than worth the drive.)
So far, we haven't been disappointed with the results. And I AM a foodie, as is my husband.
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