“One thing I love in the world is genuine, real A5 Japanese Wagyu,” Christian Simmons, 29, tells me. “Oh, my God, it’s nothing like American steak. So buttery. It’s incredible. Have you ever had that?”
I have.
“I feel like I could just pound it forever,” he says. “But I also love going to McDonald’s.”
I advise him against the Wagyu crushfest, should the opportunity arise. I have eaten too much of this in a sitting before.
That said, his point is clear.
Because Simmons and I are sitting inside an Olive Garden in Orlando’s Waterford Lakes neighborhood. And for the first time ever, I am partaking of their long-standing and beloved Never-Ending Pasta Bowl promotion, running this year from Aug. 31 to Nov. 22.
Olive Garden is Simmons’ favorite restaurant, a fact about which he is unapologetic.
Olive Garden superfan Christian Simmons, 29, tucks into his favorite dish: fettuccine Alfredo with chicken. (Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel)
“It’s shocking in some ways how quickly I can work it into a conversation,” he tells me.
He waves his black cloth napkin and waxes poetic about the olive green ones they had when he was a child. And the chairs, which back then, he says, had wheels on them.
“I thought it was the coolest thing in the world,” he says dreamily.
In ways, his love of Olive Garden seems to define him. Except it doesn’t.
Simmons likes “better” restaurants, too. Ones I have recommended and continue to recommend.
I heard lots about Olive Garden’s pasta fagioli, but I preferred their take on minestrone. (Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel)
This includes Palm Beach Meats, where I consumed too much Wagyu at once.
“I can eat that. And love that. And I could love it somewhere else, in a more upscale atmosphere. But I also love getting a McDouble. It all just exists on a spectrum to me.”
I had not been inside an Olive Garden since 1994, when a friend of mine got a job waiting tables at the still-open Westbury, New York, location.
In the heart of Nassau County, Long Island, a place with what could be hundreds of reasonably good, approachably priced, independently owned Italian restaurants, this Olive Garden was slammed. Like they were giving away drugs. Or gold bars. Even in my early 20s, way before I’d written a single word in the restaurant or dining space, I was gobsmacked.
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Thirty-one years later, members of the Orlando Sentinel’s Let’s Eat, Orlando Facebook group seemed equally surprised to see me ask a question about it in the forum.
Some had fond memories of reasonably priced food they enjoyed as cash-strapped college students. Others said they’d cut off a finger rather than eat there.
One not only appreciated their extensive menu options — “Grew up vegetarian and always loved the minestrone soup, breadsticks, salad, and mushroom ravioli. It was one of the few restaurants when I was a kid that had a decent amount of options” — but like Simmons, harbored feelings that had stuck with her ever since: “Also, I would stick the black olives on my fingers and pretend they were marching British soldiers.”
“Say when?” the grater-wielding servers ask. Better be fast, or they’ll give you the whole block. (Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel)
Jaime Bunker, Olive Garden’s senior vice president of marketing, says this is a privilege they never take for granted.
“We’re grateful to have iconic fans who have really become a part of the Olive Garden family,” Bunker told the Orlando Sentinel, citing diehards like Justin and Jordan Garton, a couple from Arkansas who named their daughter Olivia after the brand or Samantha and Jeff Gilleland who had an Olive Garden-themed wedding after getting engaged on Olive Garden’s limited Pasta Passport to Italy trip, or Braden Sinclair, who ate solely at Olive Garden for one month straight and boasts a tattoo of their famous cheese grater.
Speaking of which, I decided to take a “Super Size Me” approach to the question of whether I wanted cheese on my [insert basically any menu item here, save dessert]. If the server asked, I said yes. What I learned: they *always* ask.
Also, say “when” quickly or your bucatini will disappear beneath a bomb cyclone of Romano cheese.
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I give points, by the way, for the Romano-over-Parmesan distinction. There’s a block of Locatelli in my fridge right now. Neither of my kids has been to an Olive Garden to my knowledge, but they do ask if we have “the good cheese” when they’re looking for something to shred on their tinned fish pasta at home.
“It’s not Italian food!” people cry. No, Alfredo sauce is not actually Italian.
Simmons, whose grandfather emigrated from Italy, doesn’t care. It’s been his favorite (with chicken, please) since he graduated from Olive Garden’s chicken nuggets as a child.
“It’s like going to Taco Bell and looking for authentic Mexican food. That’s not why we’re here.”
It is a pain point for his Italian mother, he says.
At the Winter Park Village Olive Garden, eggplant Parmesan was fresh, hot and crispy. My dining companion was very happy with it. (Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel)
“My dad’s kind of ‘whatever’ about it, but my mom is so much like ‘How can you like this restaurant?’ And what I say to her, over and over, is that when I was three years old, I did not, of my own volition, walk into this restaurant. You guys took me here at some point.”
Their explanation, he says (and I confirmed this with his mother), was that at the time, Waterford Lakes was still developing. Olive Garden was one of only a few nearby restaurants they could take him to.
It is at this point that I realize we have met at the original spot for his original love.
After trying a multitude of pasta-sauce-topping combinations, I hand my personal crown to the rigatoni with meat sauce. (Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel)
Here, we share breadsticks and salad, Simmons’ favorite fettuccine, along with angel hair in mushroom cream sauce (a sleeper hit, my Darden contact tells me; Simmons agrees, and it is pretty mushroomy), rigatoni with four-cheese marinara and fettuccine with Olive Garden’s brand-new spicy Alfredo sauce. It has a decent kick, though to me it tastes a little like Alfredo and salsa had a baby.
Like fettuccine al queso fundido. But not in a bad way.
I go home stuffed, but not at the A5 Wagyu level. I do a Guatemalan iFit hike on the treadmill. And I make plans to go again tomorrow. This time, in Winter Park.
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I text Simmons from the restaurant, wondering if the food might be better here.
The service was excellent at both. (I was suspicious, at first, that Darden marketing might have leaked my Waterford visit when the manager greeted me enthusiastically at the door, but the same exact thing happened at Winter Park, including an extra table touch during the meal, and I’d told no one I’d even be going again, let alone where.)
“That’s one of my favorite locations!” he shot back. Laugh emojis all around.
Bunker says Olive Garden was never trying to recreate a specific region of Italy.
“Our goal has always been to bring the spirit of Italian hospitality and generosity to our guests,” she says when I bring up the haters.
Chocolate lasagna, our server’s recommended dessert. Tres decadent. (Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel)
“People are passionate about food, and that’s okay. We are, too. What matters most to us are the millions of guests who choose to celebrate life’s everyday moments with us. Our teams work incredibly hard to create great guest experiences, and it’s resulted in fans that have built strong connections with Olive Garden.”
Nearly a decade ago, a Reddit thread about the Times Square location went viral as participants discussed why anyone would go here in a city with an abundance of “authentic” experiences. There were the requisite complainers, but many, many stories that uphold Bunker’s assessment.
One, from a New York City police officer, was incredibly moving, describing how for weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, the restaurant was open only to the first responders, police officers, firefighters, EMS, Con-Ed and construction staff working at Ground Zero.
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“The full menu was available, for free, no charge. We tried to tip the wait staff; they wouldn’t accept it. Honestly, it was … amazing. You would be working 12-, 14-, or 18-hour shifts, and you could go here to eat and relax. I’ll never forget the hospitality we received … Unfortunately, for that same reason, I have never been able to return.”
This makes sense, of course, but Simmons and the brand’s other superfans do so in droves, looking forward to the Never-Ending Pasta Bowl promotion, which starts at $14.99. As someone whose eyes continue to bulge at the checks I often receive on work dines, I cannot for a moment argue the value-driven arguments for Olive Garden.
My dinner with Simmons, during which I ordered a 6-ounce glass of wine and used a Pasta Pass, while he dined on the regular menu, totaled $37 and change before tip. He went home with four takeout containers. I left with one.
Say what you want, but I’ve had plenty of mid- or worse meatballs in this city that you’ll never hear about. For $4.99, Olive Garden gives you three generous orbs. (Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel)
Snarks attack places like Olive Garden, though even many of them will relent when it comes to the restaurant’s breadsticks. Several on the Facebook page listed these among “the precisely three edible things” they deem available here.
The chain’s generosity with these warm, salty batons began in 1982, when its first location opened right here on International Drive.
“The restaurant was far busier than anyone expected, and the food wasn’t getting out of the kitchen fast enough,” Bunker tells me. “On the second day, which was just as busy, the restaurant team decided to give guests refills on breadsticks so they didn’t stay hungry. When that wasn’t enough, they offered soup and salad — as much as the guests wanted.”
MCCLAIN / The Washington Post
A basket of complimentary breadsticks is served at the Olive Garden in Falls Church, Virginia. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Anthony Bourdain was well known for his own snark, but famously rushed to the defense of North Dakota-based food writer Marilyn Hagerty when the rabid keyboard warriors began flinging their barbs after she wrote an article singing the praises of Olive Garden.
There were dishes here I enjoyed as much as, and more than, some of this city’s small indie Italian joints that you’ll never hear me write about. Just because I don’t love them doesn’t mean someone else can’t.
Top picks for me amid the Never-Ending Pasta roster: the salad, the hearty minestrone and sausagey zuppa Toscana, the meat sauce (I thought the rigatoni was the best match), and for toppings: sausage and/or meatballs for the win. For those of you who are all about the dipping, that spicy Alfredo, even if it reads more Del Taco than Delmonico’s, would be a winner.
Those breadsticks you all rave about, though? You can have mine.
Find me on Facebook, TikTok, Twitter or Instagram @amydroo or on the OSFoodie Instagram account @orlando.foodie. Email: amthompson@orlandosentinel.com, For more foodie fun, join the Let’s Eat, Orlando Facebook group.