This Is What Happens When You Go To Olive Garden And Only Order Breadsticks
Ah, Olive Garden. Land of never-ending bounty, or at least never-ending pasta, soup and salad, and of course, breadsticks. If there's one thing behind the Italian-ish chain's rise to prominence, it's those mouthwatering, garlicky breadsticks. But what happens if a particularly bread-driven customer wants to feast upon basket upon basket of free breadsticks, never ordering anything else?
As Reader's Digest reveals, Olive Garden breadsticks get a lot less endless if you're not actually paying for a meal. When a party first sits down, RD explains, they'll receive a basket of breadsticks equal to the number of people in their party plus one. But until an entree or appetizer is ordered, that's all they'll get.
Thankfully, as long as you purchase some food (say, the Tour of Italy or the unlimited soup and salad), you'll be treated to as many breadsticks as your carb-loving heart desires. However, after the first basket's been polished off, RD notes that patrons must ask for more. But ask and you shall receive!
A lot of thought goes into Olive Garden breadsticks
Considering how integral breadsticks are to the Olive Garden brand, it's no surprise they've had to consider the logistics behind the sticks. Logi-sticks, if you will. Per 2014 data, the chain doles out anywhere from 675 to 700 million breadsticks in just one year (via Insider)!
That massive amount of breadsticks was almost enough to worry higher-ups at the chain. In fact, Vox reveals that the reason customers have to ask for more breadsticks after the first basket is because investors in their parent company Darden were concerned about potential breadstick waste — aka, potential money waste. While this wasn't enough for Darden to nix unlimited breadsticks altogether, requiring customers to ask for more presumably brought breadstick numbers down slightly.
Even with these (somewhat mild) limitations in place, some customers have still found a way to take things too far. A 2018 Vice article collected some of the most outlandish claims made on Reddit related to Olive Garden's unlimited food options. One user claimed to witness a table of women who stuffed dozens of breadsticks into their purses before their food even arrived. Unsurprisingly, they were asked to stop.