Olive Garden pushing the wine not the food.

Hola!

I was reading about the problems with Olive Garden restaurants as of late, and decided to do a Google search to see if their corporation has done any "spin" about their situation. I did not really find anything, what I did see was this website...........

http://www.dougshaw.com/essays/olive.html

Basically it says that Olive Garden pushes their house wine, because of its large profit margin. The writer says that the whole restaurant is decorated with bottles. Just read the article and see.

I live outside the USA and have not been home in several years. I do agree with many that corporations, to squeeze a few more pennies of profit per unit, tend to eventully screw up on the side of customer wants.

Does Olive Garden push the wine like a used car dealer pushes truecoat? Since it seems that their food sucks at best and is poisonous at worse, the wine is truly the only thing safe that they can sell.......

Senor

This concept is par for the course in the restaurant industry. Essentially, alcohol is where you make your money. In my market, people won't pay for what the food is worth in a larger city. Fortunately for us, this means high quality food at reasonable prices. Unfortunately, for the restaurants, it means little profit off food.

Woodbridge, Ecco Domini, Beringer, Kendall-Jackson, Cavit, Turning Leaf, Columbia Crest, Black Swan, Yellow Tail, etc etc.
Similar to the food, these are not very distinctive wines. I'm not saying they're bad wines necessarily (drink what you like IMO), but they're not very distinctive for a place that is touting its wine.

O.G. is good for the salad and soup lunch. I might pair that with the Kendall-Jackson Vitner's Reserve Chardonnay.

I'm not sure the waiter asking if you want wine when you first sit down is "pushing". Yeah, they have bottles all of the place but I have NEVER felt uncomfortablely pushed to drink it.

I don't think that they are exactly pushing the wine on customers but every time I've been there they do ask if I'd like to sample their new wine and when I say no they ask if I'd like a taste test of various other wines that might be more to my liking. I personally think it gets a little annoying. If I wanted to drink wine Olive Garden wouldn't be the place I went for it.

Hey...I'm Italian...and we cook our own Italian food at home..I make a great Gravy from scratch, as my Grandma taught me..so we don't eat "regular" common Italian food..I look for something different..not Lasagna,penne, veal scallopini and the regular Italian fair so many order out. It's got to be a little different and a lot good.
Having said that, on the road an Olive Garden is a welcome treat...great soups and different pasta dishes..and the wines,especially from the Tuscany area are fine! No one has ever "pushed" a wine list on us.....and for the price the food beats Carrabba's or any other chain...
leethebard

When I managed at OG, the emphasis was on the food, not the wine.

That was in the the early 90's, now they are emphasizing the wines more. They have tried to go back to their "roots" too. When I went through training everything was based in Orlando, FL. Now some of their cookinf training is done in Italy.

the OG's new dishes are more Italian than american/italian that they were for a long time.

personally, after working for OG I would/could not eat ANYTHING Italian for several years. I am finally working my way back to alfredo/fontina sauce.

I actually like Olive Garden. I think their salad is awesome and their Chicken Marsala is my favorite. I always ask for extra marsala sauce.

hey, ate in the Toms River NJ Olive Garden just yesterday with my Wife....I"m Italian and a BIG eater> The $8.96 all you can eat pasta with soup and salad, may not be Gourmet, but add the Stracatta(SP?) Chianti from Tuscany and it was a great afternoon. Hey good wine, breadsticks,nice Italian music....as close to heaven as I get!!
leethebard