When you think of Olive Garden, you think of pasta. Maybe you think of unlimited soup, salad, and breadsticks. But it's mostly pasta. It's an Italian restaurant, after all. They don't necessarily have the best pasta, but for a lot of people in a lot of suburban areas, Olive Garden is where you go for pasta.
Which makes it particularly puzzling that this week they revealed, with much fanfare, their new… cheeseburger.
This is what the marketing gurus call "repositioning," and what the rest of us call "a complete waste of time." I have never heard someone say "I would love Olive Garden, if only they served a big sloppy cheeseburger." You want a big sloppy cheeseburger, you go to Red Robin. That's how specialization works in the restaurant industry.
But no, someone in Olive Garden's marketing department got it in their head that Olive Garden should start branching out. Like, "This is a great pasta restaurant, which is why it should start serving cheeseburgers."
I'm sure it will not surprise you to learn that the Olive Garden's new cheeseburger is, by all accounts, not very good. Just like all of their food, it's not exactly horrible, either. The only thing truly horrifying about Olive Garden food is its mediocrity (and its fat content). Thrillist said it was basically a meatball sub without the sauce; dry and bland, but with ample cheese.
The continued popularity of Olive Garden has always confused me. It's an okay place to go if your parents are in town and they are not adventurous eaters. But the Olive Garden near the mall is so busy that they have a line out the door on Friday and Saturday nights, and they recently added a bunch of "15 minute only" parking spots, for people who order take-out. It's madness!
Image courtesy Flickr/sjsharktank
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