Oh, Good God, America. Gird your Pastachetti loins, the Olive Garden is in trouble.
Whelp. It looks like the lure of “all you can eat” salad and breadsticks until your pants explode off your bodies in some sort of iceberg lettuce and carbohydrate mediocre-meal-tornado isn’t really doing much for the sales of everyone’s favorite Pasta-by-the-Highway restaurant, The Olive Garden, and its sibling in Atherosclerosis, the Red Lobster Fondue and Bread Bowl Engorged Heart Sack seafood chain.
The owner of both establishments report poor sales for the latest quarter and without some big changes, a rather dismal profit forecast going forward. The culprit, as Darden Restaurants Inc. reports to The Huffington Post, is in part due to the poor reception of the “Taste of Tuscany” promotion’s cost — which for a food chain that specializes in real authentic cuisine shipped direct from Tuscany by way of a freezer in Elizabeth, New Jersey — isn’t any wonder. So in effect, the Olive Garden’s food just isn’t cheap enough or interesting enough in the current economic climate no matter how much “Tuscany” they try and dump on it. Not surprising given the repertoire is limited to the same four sauces and pasta dishes just renamed, Pastaolli, Orcachetti, or Snottobelchi. What that sounds like to us is, yeah, THE JIG IS UP! The American public is on to you, Olive Garden! We told you! We were honest, and we told you!
“Olive Garden’s menu failed to keep pace with guest expectations that started to evolve much faster than they had in the past, said Andrew Madsen, Darden’s president and chief operating officer.”
No matter. Executives at the Olive Garden, whom we believe are really just unimaginative dudes in matching jean shorts named Josh and Tom who say things like, “Put some tomatoes on the Pastacrapanoochi so it looks different than the Pastafartascratchi,” will introduce a new promotion next week. Yay! You’ll now be able to get two meals for just $25 and we bet instead of being called the “Taste of Tuscany” it’ll be something like the “Taste of Venice: The Sinking City,” but that won’t stop them from trying to persuade the dollars from your hands using all the tricks in their arsenal. They’ve got plans for new menu options, along with new advertising, all in hopes of hooking customers once again. Hoo-boy. That sounds dangerous. Like bath salts in the Carbonara dangerous, or like a full on butter and cream Fettucini assault. We’re thinking a Lipitor Tiramisu on the menu and heart paddles doubling as pepper shakers would be a good idea, yes? Yes.
For its part, Red Lobster is also in a bit of trouble. A $1 price hike for its popular “Festival of Shrimp” wasn’t well received. And just naturally! No one goes to Red Lobster for shrimp delicacies. No, you go to Red Lobster for fried shrimp, piled high, and without judgment. They found that the hike “turned out to be too aggressive.” Surely, as if the shrimp were cold-calling former customers at home during the dinner hour and asking just to “get coffee” and “talk things over.” At any rate, you can’t hike the prices for shrimp at a place that often has never-ending shrimp promotions. Seems crazy contradictory. “Like, for real, Red Lobster. My whole family is here dressed in denim and we’ve made plans not to spend more than $11.00 each for our shrimp dinners. GTFO with your $12.99! There’s no telling what we’d do if you started charging for cheddar bay biscuits. We’d burn this place to the motherfucking ground.”
Somewhere artwork and/or a slogan exists that says, “From my cold, dead hands…cheddar bay biscuits.” Or maybe two guys will just do this with Photoshop.
The American public won’t be fooled forever, Darden Restaurants Inc. You’ve got to earn that $12.99. Slop on a plate and named after some sort of made-up Italian pigeon language won’t cut it.
