Olive Garden’s menu of pastas and endless breadsticks failed to keep customers coming back this summer, with sales plummeting at the Italian restaurant chain. Now, the company is planning to bring back some of the dishes it discontinued during the pandemic in a bid to entice diners to come back.
The chain is bringing back its steak gorgonzola alfredo and stuffed chicken marsala, two dishes it hasn’t served during the pandemic, according to Ricardo Cardenas, the CEO of Olive Garden parent company Darden Restaurants. It’s also expanding its Never Ending Pasta Bowl offerings by adding a new sauce — garlic herb — as an option.
Cardenas, speaking during an earnings presentation on Sept. 19, said the returning dishes “will give guests an additional reason to come back in the second half of this fiscal year.”
Olive Garden blamed the sales decline on “the weak sales that hit the industry in July,” Darden Chief Financial Officer Raj Vennam said on the call. Several restaurant chains have said they’re struggling to attract inflation-weary customers this year, especially as restaurant prices have risen 28% since January 2020, before the pandemic, prompting some, such as McDonald’s, to launch cost-cutting measures $5 Meal.
“We always want to offer our guests more of what they love when they come to Olive Garden, which is why we are bringing back our Steak Gorgonzola Alfredo and Stuffed Chicken Marsala later in our fiscal year,” Olive Garden spokeswoman Brittany Baron told CBS MoneyWatch in an email.
She added that the company also saw a recovery in the first three weeks of September.
Olive Garden’s comparable-restaurant sales fell 2.9% in its fiscal first quarter, which ended Aug. 25. Vennam, Darden’s CFO, noted that the company was “surprised by the significant decline in foot traffic since the Fourth of July holiday” but added that sales rebounded in August.
New additions to Olive Garden’s menu
The Italian chain added the garlic herb sauce as of Sept. 23, Baron said, adding that the $13.99 price of the Never Ending Pasta Bowl has not changed since 2022.
The company had discontinued the steak gorgonzola alfredo and stuffed chicken marsala dishes during the pandemic as it “streamlined our menus to simplify operations and ensure the highest quality of execution for our guests,” she added.
According to Darden CEO Cardenas, the return of the two dishes will allow the restaurant to offer more protein-based main courses.
“Both have been recast with higher quality ingredients and simpler execution for their restaurant teams,” Cardenas said on the conference call. “This announcement received a huge round of applause from their general managers at their GM Conference in August.”
Darden also announced last week that Olive Garden is partnering with Uber to offer a third-party delivery service for the first time. Individual orders will be picked up and delivered by Uber Direct, a premium delivery service. Olive Garden is not listed on the broader Uber Eats platform.
If the initial trial is successful, the delivery option will be expanded nationwide by May 2025, Darden said at the time.
