Olive Garden: serving fake Italian food across North America for decades

It's not that hard to make good restaurant food if you are a trained chef. My wife, who's a good amateur cook, will often imitate something we had at a restaurant and through a little research will exceed it in quality. And after she does it, she brags on how easy it was (because it IS easy in a lot of cases...not talking about fine french pastries, but your typical pasta dish, soup, etc.).

But you have to be a chef who has the final say, meaning he/she has to basically run the place. And not many chefs are also savvy business people. And not many business people understand the chef.

That's why so few restaurants are really good, IMO.

I can think of many a good establishment I've enjoyed over the years shut down not because of lack of business, but because of poor business decisions. I can think of one Tapas place that was very good, but there was a divorce and it resulted in money getting split and the restaurant got lost in the shuffle in the deal and almost overnight, it was gone. I can think of a Viet place that I loved that was devastated by a hurricane and never re-opened because the landlord decided to clear the lot to sell to the car dealership next door to expand their lot and the restaurant had no recourse even though it was doing well because it didn't work out details in the lease. So they just shut down.

And I can think of 2-3 other places off the top of my head that were doing well, but they were stumped by the whole IRS thing.

For every one of those, I can think of 10 that had the business model down to a science, but the food was absolute crap and they wondered why their place was so empty on a Tuesday night. I mean, if you spend $1.50 to make a dish you'll sell for $10, shouldn't you make money? Yeah, you should Donald Trump, but it's going to come across as a dish that cost you $1.50 to make.

 

This thread cracks me up. My mom will not eat at anyplace that she has not seen advertised on TV. That's not an exaggeration. A few weeks ago, we (me, dad, sister) tried to get her to go to some small Italian place that a friend of my sister's recommended. My mom refused to go. She said if it was good, she'd have seen it on TV. Where did we end up going instead? Olive Garden.

Personally, I prefer local spots over chains. But chains aren't evil. Olive Garden is fine. I like it, though I like other Italian places better. Sucks trying to go out to dinner with my mom though. With her it's always Olive Garden, or Applebees, or Outback Steakhouse, or Cracker Barrel, or for fine dining, Red Lobster. Not even joking on that last part - our Christmas Eve meal for years was Red Lobster, because that was the finest-dining chain in my mom's eyes. High class. She grew up in a small, chain-filled town, but she lives in a major metro now and still refuses to try anyplace that doesn't have a sign you can see from the highway.

 

I freakin love Cracker Barrel. We don't have them in Canada so every time I am in Florida I drag the family there.

I don't think chains are evil, as many have pointed out, good when you have kids and you know you will be getting something consistent.

 

I like CPK, it's not pizza like I grew up with in Northern NJ, but it is good for what it is.

Restuarants, especially chains, are like cruise ship vacations, as long as you understanbd their limitations and adjust your expectations, you'll enjoy yourself.
Red Robin is better than Fuddruckers and CheeburgerCheeburger.
Carrabas and Macaroni Grill is pretty good chain Italian.

Houlihans, Bennigans, Chillis, TGIF, Applebees... are terrible. I miss the old Hambuger Hamlets.

 

Welcome to New York! The $9 beer is meant to go with your $34 large pizza and your $11 pack of cigarettes.

Then we tow your car.

 

I love that I'm looking at a Ruby Tuesday strip ad above the box I'm typing in. The magic of online advertising always amazes me.

Having said that, let me put Ruby Tuesday at the top of the list of AWFUL chains - although the salad bar is decent.

Awful chains
Ruby Tuesday
Applebees (used to like it)
Bennigans (now out of business)
Joe's Crab Shack
TGI Friday

Chains that aren't good, but have redeeming qualities
Olive Garden
Chile's
IHOP
Red Lobster (I mean, the biscuits, right?)
Cracker Barrel (love me some CB sometimes)
PF Changs
Mugshots
BJ's

Chains I like
Carrabba's (sort of borders being in the group above...it ain't great, but it's good)
Outback
UNO's

Having a hard time thinking of others I truly like. Maybe Five Guys, but that's pretty much moving into fast food territory.
List above is far from comprehensive, by the way. Just a few off the top of my head.

 

Chipotle?

 

New York is a hellhole. And you know how I feel about hellholes.

 

It's the consistency thing that YF said. You know what you're getting. David Halberstam's "The Fifties" had a chapter on McDonald's, and if I recall, that was a huge part of the innovation and appeal. At least I think that was the book.

Anyway, to wit, one year for Christmas we bought wings from a local establishment. Feathers sticking out all over the place. Absolutely disgusting. So now we go with Buffalo Wild Wings every time. I like Buffalo Wild Wings. I know exactly what I'm getting, both food-wise and atmosphere-wise.

As much as I agree with most of this thread, I don't think we should operate under the assumption that all mom and pops are better than Olive Garden (or Applebee's or Chili's or Bennigan's, etc., etc.). Some of them are really bad. Or wildly inconsistent. For people who don't eat out very often, or people who have kids, the risk-reward of trying something new just isn't worth it.

Same reasoning that prompts the same people to go see "The Change-Up" instead of "The Tree of Life."

 

I LOVE Chipotle. I don't have one in my market because there is a very popular local chain and I think Chipotle is hesitant to go head-to-head with it. But Chipotle is way better. That's one chain I'll gladly go to when I'm out of town. Of course, part of that is not having one where I live. If we had one, I wouldn't bother.

But I can think of being in NYC near the Garden and coming across a Chipotle and my wife and I ducked in for a quick bite and we were both glad we did. Can't think of any other chain I could have said that about.

We don't have UNO's where I am either. I suspect if we did, I would probably not have it under the chains I like. I don't get to go there often, so the absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?

 

Chipotle is fast food, no?