Did Thousands Of Bots Take Over Olive Garden's Pasta Pass? Fans Are Skeptical — And Frustrated

Olive Garden customers ran into a major snag today while trying to buy the company's Never-Ending Pasta Pass, and many think that robot activity might be to blame. "Everyone I've seen online or any of my friends are 10-200k in line with no real Pasta Pass purchased. Has anyone actually gotten one?" asked one Reddit user. Numerous users on the social media platform claimed that bot activity kept them from pasta paradise.

The Never-Ending Pasta Pass is a card that costs $100 and entitles the holder to 13 weeks of the franchise's Never-Ending Pasta Bowl — a deal that lets you mix up Olive Garden's most popular sauces, pastas, and toppings and eat until your sides ache. Each usage of the Pasta Pass comes with unlimited soup, salad and breadsticks as well, and runs from August 31 to November 22 of this year. It's a bargain that hasn't seen the light of day in six years, and that scarcity had many O.G. devotees climbing over each other to get ahold of the vaunted golden ticket.

Customers reported waiting in a digital line for hours to try to get their hands on a Pasta Pass, noting that there were thousands of users ahead of them. "I clicked the second it started but only got 'joining queue' that says to not refresh," wrote one Redditor. "So, here I sit, 41 minutes in..." Another admitted to creating a Python script that allowed them to skip the line entirely.

Plenty of Olive Garden customers complain about the pasta, but many worked hard to outdo each other to secure that coveted Never-Ending Pasta Pass — and some actually succeeded in their quest. "I was at 40k to start and just got my pass!!! Stay hungry my friends...," boasted one Reddit user. Some even went to some rather extreme lengths to nail their own spot in the Tuscan-inspired sun. "I got it! Me, my brother, and my girlfriend all had three devices open and went with the best queue spot," explained another Redditor. "I went from 20k to get it, and my girlfriend went from 10k and got it!"

Even still, Olive Garden has gone on record to note that its Pasta Pass system is fair. "We've built safeguards into the process to help ensure a fair experience," the chain noted on Instagram. "The system is designed to manage traffic, limit purchase quantities, and prevent behaviors like repeated refreshing from impacting access." But there's one fly in the ointment regarding all that happiness. Olive Garden will be running its Never-Ending Pasta Bowl promotion from August to November, during the same active period as the pass itself.

Since the promotion also offers a similar pasta deal that begins at $14.99, that almost makes the Never-Ending Pasta Pass worthless, especially if you visit Olive Garden only a handful of times in that limited window. If you missed out on the Never-Ending Pasta Pass, you could always buy Olive Garden's Lifetime Pasta Pass, but competition for a lifetime pass may be even more fierce if the company ever brings it back. The last time the promotion ran, back in 2019, there were only 50 offered at $500 a pop.