Well, the postscript to the original post is that Olive Garden announced last week that they will build in Oxford, Al. No further details were available at the time, but a location and schedule will be announced at a later date.

Whatever your opinion of Olive Garden, you will agree that the citizens will have what they want, and deserve. I project no near-term weight losses for the average Oxford-Anniston resident.

Well, good for you. ^

buon appetito!

I am certain you can find 1000 year eggs (leather/skin egg if translated literally) in all three of the Chinese/Asian neighborhoods in New York (Chinatown, Flushing and 8th Avenue in Brooklyn).

Maybe so for the average resident, how's your own personal weight loss project? Better than mine I hope.

If you live on Long Island or in the city and think that Olive garden is good there is something very wrong with you. The one time I went there was in Arizona, and I thought that I was going to throw up!. The food is nasty!!!!!!!

For me I will never eat Italian out of Little Italy, Italy, or Long Island.

thank you very much :-)

I agree with your sentiments regarding OG. But don't forget South Philly either. Great Italian food there as well.

Bet you can believe Waffle House didn't pass up either one of those exits.

There's some flashbacks I could have done without.

The waitress dropping ashes from her cigarette while taking my order in Columbia, SC. :barf: :gag:

Couldn't agree more, deltajfk. But I would also add Arthur Avenue in the Bronx to your list of places at which to eat Italian.

Why, thanks for asking. I dropped 38 pounds as of this morning, going from 209 to 171. The loss has dropped off after the first 6 months and I've only lost about 5 in the last 3 months. All well and good, as I have replaced most of my wardrobe and cannot afford to do that again soon. My blood pressure is back within normal limits and I feel good; better than James Brown.

I don't mean to be harsh, but if you've already got a large number of unremarkable chain restaurants, is it really worth putting in effort to beg one more to come to town?

Why not go support some of your locally owned businesses? They're almost always better.

That's not harsh (for OMNI). I ask the locals all the time how they can allow good local establishments to go belly-up while they line up nightly to partake of such standard fare, often waiting over an hour on a Friday or Saturday night for Logan's Roadhouse or O'Charley's. Part of it is location: the chains have the deep pockets to afford the primo spots on the busy highways while the independents are stuck with the old buildings in a deteriorating, dangerous after dark, downtown. They are also forced to charge a premium because their volume is lower. They also cannot guarantee comparable incomes to servers while they get established. And, unfortunately many here are seduced by the quantity of food as opposed to quality. Ryan's and the asian buffet equivalent restaurants will never fail for lack of business here.

I do support local independent restuarants and I'm always pleased when another opens, but they're usually out of business in under 2 years. This entire story has really been about giving the people what they want, not what I want. Oh well, if fine dining was all I cared about, I'd have left here for another place 3 years ago.

And to all the posters whose contribution here is to paint OG as the foulest curse ever perpetuated on the American public, you are either incredible snobs, liars or given to hyperbole. It is simply bland food in an italian-american style served in large quantities at reasonable prices. You jetsetters need to stop searching for the ultimate experience on a daily basis, come back to earth for a while where we peons have to occasionally plunge our toilets, wash dishes and help the kids with homework. Then you can appreciate that an occasional night out at a mediocre restaurant with friends or family can be an enjoyable event.

Thanks, I will give it a try. :-)

If your talking about Bucca di Beppo (and maybe there are two chains with similar names, i dont' know), that certainly is a place to find the It. Am. stereotypes that the tri staters claim so desperately to have monopolied.

The strangest part about the place is that its not only the hard-to-take-after-awhile pastas with cheese and tomato sauce, but they've got marginally insulting pictures of enormous southern Italians as their main decor theme.

I would feel uncomfortable if i went to an Alabamian restaurant and found pictures of fat people with nascar hats on, Bucca di Beppo makes me feel a similar way.

The reason that we quit going to OG was the service was so bad on more than one occasion I do like their salad, soup and breadsticks the best of most others. Johnny Carinos, IMHO, is better and more enjoyable. I agree with the statements that all of these places ( OG, JC, MG, PFCh, etc.) are americanized both in taste and in quanity. BTW, do love those cheese biscuits at RL .