What Was It Like Eating At The First Olive Garden?

There are over 900 Olive Garden locations across America. It all began in Orlando, Florida where the first Olive Garden opened in 1982. Things were run a little differently back then and some of the Olive Garden staples customers expect were not in place yet. There was no all-you-can-eat soup and salad, but the pasta was made in-house, as were many of the desserts. By 1986, the restaurant even offered an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet.

The Orlando location had two floors, which meant servers had to carry trays loaded with pasta up and down stairs. Original servers described the staircase as steep, making the job even more precarious. The average bill for an Olive Garden customer through the end of 1980s was just $9 per person; these days, a number of entrees will cost you over $20.

The original look of the Olive Garden was a Tuscan-inspired Italian garden. Murals of the Italian countryside, table umbrellas, and hanging plants helped the restaurant's garden-like theme hit home. The menu was meant to offer a mix of Northern and Southern Italian dishes.

Current appetizers at Olive Garden include dishes such as fried mozzarella, calamari, toasted ravioli, and meatballs. Past menus included more uncommon fare like mussels di Napoli, escargot, and smoked mozzarella fonduta. The restaurant also featured a line of pizzas in the '90s.

While endless breadsticks were part of Olive Garden right from the start, the name wasn't. The Green Frog was the working name before the restaurant opened. That sounds strange now, but there's a historical reason for it. General Mills, the cereal company behind Cheerios, started Olive Garden. This was after they acquired Red Lobster in 1970. Red Lobster was founded by Bill Darden, whose first restaurant in 1938 was called The Green Frog. General Mills just brought everything full circle.

General Mills had a plan to do for Italian food what Red Lobster had done for seafood. The plan worked better than they probably expected. When the first Olive Garden branch in Minnesota opened in 1988, it seated 300 guests, but wait times still reached 45 minutes even a month after opening

Olive Garden has become a lot more streamlined since it first opened. Unlimited soup and salad became a major selling point, while many of the traditional Italian-American dishes were removed. Today's offerings are more family-friendly and accessible than they once were. The company has focused on consistency, no longer making pasta and desserts in-house, and ensuring all 900 locations offer the same experience. Whether that's a good thing or not is debatable, but there's no denying that Olive Garden has cemented its place in restaurant culture.