WE actually enjoy Olive Garden... especially when they have their endless pasta special... chance to try many different combinations at a low price.

I personally love the salad.

I agree. I was in the snobby "OG is crap" camp for a while, until a friend took me (he had to bribe me by paying for it.) a few months ago, and it's not bad at all. I think that it doesn't have to be the best, most authentic Italian food around, as long as you like it. Granted, I probably won't go back for quite some time, as I don't have any apparent craving for OG food, but it was fairly tasty, cheap, and convenient to go with friends at the time.

Boulder is the last OG I ate at. It was early for dinner but: We were tired. We were hungry. We were depressed that our vacation week was coming to an end. And we had just gotten clobbered with an inch of hail (in May!). The building was slightly hidden from view, but that didn't keep it from being crowded with noisy families and the service was barely acceptable.

But the food and wine were predictably tasty and I ate 3 bowls of salad all by myself.

And the lemon cream cake is still on the menu. Mmmmmmm.

The last time I checked it was $5.95 in PHX. Did we stack some libations in? :)

Soft drinks are probably $2.50 or $3/each, plus tax and tip, I'd guess.

I never eat at OG as my Italian side of the family would disown me, but I must admit, it's probably not a bad deal if you're going skiing all day the next day or something. The carb-loading would be preposterous, but when you're burning 2000 calories per hour, it's okay.

I can't understand the attraction of OG.
For what it is, WAY too expensive. The soup, salad, breadsticks "special" is about $8 each.
Pasta entrees hover in the $10 range.

A 16 ounce bag of pasta at the grocery store: 99 cents.

You've failed to include the cost of chilling those salad plates - I think we need to add a plate-chiller to our kitchen reno. :D

The scariest part about this thread is that there was more than one, and they had to be merged! :eek:

Not to mention Johnny Carinos and Romano's.

Still, they serve a purpose. ^

If we look at the base material prices, we would never eat outside of home.

Each OG meal also includes unlimited breadsticks, soup or salad. I prefer the soup over the salad.

For us, it's got to be special to merit eating out, which is probably why we avoid OG. It's just ordinary, and we can do it better at home for a lot less.

Mind you, we are not gourmet chefs . . . more like lazy cooks.
So, if we eat out, it has to be someplace that specializes in foods we don't make at home, like Thai or Indian curries.

Maybe we also have a really lousy OG in our hometown. The last time we ate there, "unlimited" meant begging the waiter to bring more bread, or hoping the ginormous salad bowl would be more than 1/4 full when brought to us. Also, once the waiter figured out we weren't drinking any wine (smaller tab), he ignored us.

+1. :p

Um, it's called a fridge.

Does your family treat you the same way? If so, they lived up to their advertising promise!