Olive Garden
American restaurant chain
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| 2022 | Open Wing Alliance criticized Darden and Olive Garden for insufficient progress toward their cage-free egg commitment. |
| June 21 2022 | Opened first and only restaurant in Aruba at the Gloria complex, which is also technically the only location in a European sovereign state. |
| March 22 2022 | Opened first restaurant in Ecuador, located in Riocentro Los Ceibos in Guayaquil. |
| 2020 | Opened first restaurant in the Philippines at Ayala Malls Manila Bay. |
| 2019 | Darden announced a commitment to stop sourcing meat from chickens treated with medically important antibiotics by 2023. |
| 2019 | Olive Garden launched the 'Lifetime Pasta Pass', offering the first fifty diners a unique unlimited pasta dining opportunity, with a follow-up signup option. |
| August 2019 | Darden responded to false claims about Olive Garden financing Donald Trump's 2020 presidential campaign, stating they do not donate to presidential candidates. |
| 2018 | Became the largest casual-dining restaurant chain in the United States in terms of system-wide sales. |
| 2016 | Olive Garden and Darden faced protests from environmental, labor, and animal welfare groups for sourcing meat and dairy products from animals raised in intensive conditions with routine antibiotic use. |
| 2016 | Darden announced a plan to phase out battery cage eggs in its U.S. locations by 2018 and crated pork by 2025, addressing animal welfare concerns. |
| 2014 | Opened first restaurant in Brazil, located in terminal 3 of the Guarulhos International Airport in São Paulo. |
| 2014 | Olive Garden introduced the 'Never Ending Pasta Pass', allowing the first 1,000 customers to purchase a $99 pass for unlimited pasta during a seven-week period. |
| October 2014 | Shareholders voted to replace Darden's entire board of directors with Starboard Value's proposed slate, following the activist investor's critical presentation about the company's management. |
| September 2014 | Starboard Value, an activist investor, released a comprehensive 294-slide presentation critiquing Darden's management and Olive Garden's operational practices, focusing on menu inefficiencies, breadstick waste, and poor dish execution. |
| July 9 2014 | Olive Garden launched a new logo and restaurant design, which included adding online ordering and introducing smaller lunch portions. |
| 2013 | Olive Garden changed its slogan to 'We're all family here' after previously using 'When you're here, you're family'. |
| September 2013 | Olive Garden launched the 'Never Ending Pasta Bowl' promotion, where customers could eat unlimited pasta starting at $9.99, serving over 13 million pasta bowls during the event. |
| 2011 | Olive Garden began co-locating with Red Lobster in smaller markets, with separate dining areas but unified kitchen support. |
| 2011 | Olive Garden implemented a mandatory tip-out program, reducing employee hourly wages to $2.13 per hour. |
| October 2011 | Olive Garden became one of the first national restaurant chains to convert most of its staff to part-time to limit healthcare benefit costs. |
| February 2011 | Darden announced plans to add more than 200 Olive Garden locations and explore international markets in the Middle East and Asia. |
| 2010 | Olive Garden generated $3.3 billion in sales, significantly outperforming its closest competitor, Carrabba's Italian Grill. |
| June 2010 | Olive Garden began importing menu formats from Seasons 52, introducing smaller 'dolcini' dessert portions modeled after Season 52's 'mini-indulgences' product line. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia article Olive Garden, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.