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Weird History Food is getting the family together and going down to get the History of Olive Garden. Originally called "The" Olive Garden, everyone's favorite destination for unlimited breadsticks and salads was actually a creation of corporate behemoth General Mills. So how has Olive Garden stayed so popular and relevant for decades? Let's carb-load this video on the OG
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Today, we're carb-loading the history of Olive Garden
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Way back in the 1960s and 70s, General Mills was looking to break away from their weedy-filled past
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and to make their way into all sorts of other industries. They bought up both Rainbow Crafts along with Kenner Products
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There seemed to be only one place left for General Mills to turn, the restaurant industry
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It started with Red Lobster, a restaurant that first opened its doors in 1968
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grew to five locations in the two years that followed, and was bought up by General Mills in 1970
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General Mills found quick success with Red Lobster, and by the 1980s, they'd managed to grow it into a nationwide shrimp-slinging enterprise
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And so they devised an all-new restaurant to tap into the Italian food market, Olive Garden
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Between 1982 and the end of the 1980s, General Mills had established 145 locations across America
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Back then, Olive Garden hadn't yet wowed the world with its unlimited breadsticks or never-ending pasta
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Instead, they relied entirely on their bottomless salads to lure customers in
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In 1995, General Mills spun off its entire restaurant division in order to create a standalone publicly traded company
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They called it Darden Restaurants. But as restaurant revenue fell in the latter half of the 90s
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Darden had to get its act together quickly if the company wanted to show it could make it on its own
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So in 1998 Olive Garden got a makeover The company changed its logo to include a bunch of grapes And it changed its slogan to When you here you family All the while they updated their restaurants to look more rustic
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even going so far as to model their tables after ones found in Florentine farmhouses
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Along with these changes, Olive Garden introduced unlimited soups, and more importantly, unlimited breadsticks
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The world would never be the same. These breadsticks alone may have saved Darden from the brink
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as customers began to flock to Olive Garden en masse. In the new millennium, Olive Garden continued to find success
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even as other competitors rose up to try and take its pasta crown. It was at this time that Olive Garden's slogan changed to
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we're all family here. And then President Dave George went on late night with Jimmy Fallon
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to sign the rights of, when you're here, you're family, over to the TV talk show host
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Olive Garden then ran their first ever never-ending pasta promotion. Starting at just $9.99, customers could eat all the pasta they wanted
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which totaled for the restaurant chain a whopping 13 million bowls of pasta over the course of the promotion
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The promotion was so successful that they continued to bring it back year after year
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Today, Olive Garden has over 900 locations that span every single U.S. state
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much of both North and South America, and parts of both East Asia and the Middle East
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While the exact number of breadsticks served fluctuates year to year, the entire chain collectively serves well over half a billion breadsticks annually
Entertainment Industry
Food Service
Food
Fast Food