The Big Problem With Olive Garden's Never Ending Pasta Bowl
Last year was a blockbuster success story for Olive Garden, with customers coming in droves. In November 2023, America's largest Italian chain surpassed $5 billion in sales over 52 weeks for the first time in its entire red sauce-stained history, following yet another prosperous run of its most popular promotion: the Never Ending Pasta Bowl. The limited-time, all-you-can-eat pasta deal—which offers diners unlimited refills of soup or salad, breadsticks, and a select range of noodles and sauces, all for one set price—is the chain's signature annual event and a proven money maker.
"Guest demand was higher this year," Rick Cardenas, the president and CEO of Olive Garden's parent company Darden Restaurants, told investors during a December earnings call. He added that the bottomless pasta promo even achieved its "highest refill rate ever."
First launched in 1995, the Never Ending Pasta Bowl has been a huge boon to Olive Garden's bottom line since its triumphant return in 2022 after a two-year hiatus. Same-store sales shot up 7.6% amid the pasta deal's first comeback run and spiked another 4.1% during its encore last fall. Cardenas credited the "iconic promotion" with fulfilling the brand's marketing objectives: "It elevates brand equity, it's simple to execute, and it's not at a deep discount."
But here's the problem with Olive Garden's Never Ending Pasta Bowl—it ends.
Since the deal expired last year, the breadsticks and red sauce business has been sluggish. Comparable sales were down 1.8% in the first quarter after the promotion ended and dipped another 1.5% during the next quarter. The back-to-back slumps prompted a lot of questions when Darden execs reported the company's latest earnings this past June.
One Wall Street analyst even asked whether Olive Garden might be losing customers due to "the ease of trading down to at-home pasta," citing the "very strong growth" of Rao's Homemade jarred sauces in particular.
An unusual position for an industry leader
The sudden drop in sales was somewhat abnormal for the chain, which saw its business grow by more than 12% immediately following the previous Never Ending Pasta Bowl promo in 2022. But this year, restaurants face a much different and arguably more challenging economic environment.
Operators across the industry have been competing to lure price-wary consumers with cut-rate deals of all kinds—a tactic that Olive Garden and other Darden-owned restaurants generally try to avoid. "We're not gonna do things to buy sales, even with the increasing discounting our competitors are doing," Darden CEO Cardenas told analysts in June.
Instead, the company was sticking to its "long game" strategy, as Cardenas described it: "Our best way to drive sales is our focus on a back-to-basics operating philosophy and in our guests telling others what a great value they have when it comes to our restaurants."
At the time, Olive Garden was airing television commercials to promote its Create Your Own Pasta special, starting at $12.99. This option allowed customers to choose their own noodles, sauce, and toppings, in addition to the chain's usual unlimited breadsticks and salad or soup—essentially the same concept as the Never Ending Pasta Bowl, but notably without the endless pasta refills.
During the June earnings call, Cardenas described the DIY pasta as "an amazing value," though patrons accustomed to the more generous deal would probably disagree, especially amid the flurry of bargains happening at other restaurants.
A new twist on the old playbook
As the summer of deals dragged on, Olive Garden would eventually resort to its old silver-bullet solution. In August, the company announced that Never Ending Pasta Bowl was coming back—this time, the promo would begin even earlier than usual (starting Aug. 26) and continue for a much longer amount of time (ending Nov. 17).
In the past, customers would have to wait until mid-September or even October to gorge themselves on repeated servings of fettuccine, rigatoni, and spaghetti. But this year, they could dig in before Labor Day and keep binging right up to the week before Thanksgiving—a full 12 weeks, compared to the standard seven or eight.
While the timeframe has grown, Olive Garden stressed that the pricing would stay the same. The advertised price this year is $13.99, with add-ons like meatballs and sausage costing an extra $4.99. Of course, those prices vary depending on location. Where I live in Brooklyn, N.Y., the deal costs $1 more than last year, starting at $15.99. And in New York City's Times Square? Fuggedaboutit. The deal starts at $19.99 and proteins are an added $5.99.
When contacted for comment, Olive Garden provided the following statement from Jaime Bunker, the brand's senior vice president of marketing.
"Never Ending Pasta Bowl began in September 1995, and this marks the 27th year that Olive Garden has offered it. It's more than a limited-time offer for our guests—it's one of their favorite annual events," Bunker said. "We understand that guests are continuing to look for a great deal when eating out, and in the spirit of treating our guests like family, we're excited to offer them the chance to enjoy Never Ending Pasta Bowl as much as they'd like from August 26 to November 17—while keeping the price the same as the last two years. It's the ultimate value."
The relaunch of Never Ending Pasta Bowl before the final days of summer came on the heels of Olive Garden's worst month, traffic-wise, so far in 2024. According to data provided by industry tracker Placer.ai, guest counts at Olive Garden restaurants dropped by 6.8% in July. To be fair, it was a bad month for the industry in general, with every brand under Darden's vast restaurant umbrella posting some decline, but Olive Garden had the lowest numbers of the whole group.
Given these unfavorable conditions, the chain's preemptive pasta-deal maneuvering came as little surprise. "Right now, people are looking for deals, deals, deals, when it comes to dining out and overall food purchases," says R.J. Hottovy, head of analytical research at Placer.ai, citing several high-profile promotions across casual-dining chains, fast-food joints, and even grocery stores.
If history is any indication, then you can expect improved sales numbers at Olive Garden once the months-long promotion wraps up in November. But then what? If deals and discounts continue to rule the day, then Olive Garden may find itself facing the same problem.
Could Never Ending Pasta Bowl return even earlier in 2025, or could the company possibly consider the bold step of making it a permanent year-round draw? Just imagine: a bottomless pasta deal that truly never ends!
Placer.ai's Hottovy, for one, thinks that's unlikely. "It's not like they could just run this promotion in perpetuity because that would disrupt their suppliers, especially for an organization as large as Darden," he says.
The true test of a successful promotion is whether customers still come back again once the deal is done.
"That repeat visit is so key on these promotions," Hottovy says. In the past, he notes that "Darden has done a pretty good job of bringing in those visitors for subsequent visits." But, he adds, "it's too early to tell."
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