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Tag: Olive Garden

  • ‘I’m traumatized’: Man sneaks out mid-date at Olive Garden. Then the server does something unexpected

    First dates in 2025 are already a gamble, but no one expects their breadstick companion to pull a full Irish goodbye smack in the middle of eating. At an Olive Garden, of all places, one man “went to the bathroom” and instead exited the building. What stayed behind was his date, the dish of salad, and the entire main course. Luckily, while modern dating continues to spiral, the servers stepped in and proved that while chivalry may be dead for some men, it’s still alive in Olive Garden.

    Lila’s Disastrous First Date

    As the 2025 dating scene comes to a close, Lila (@48.lila) throws a new hat into the ring. Apparently, it can get worse before the year ends. Her short 11-second clip with 5.1 million views proves it. Even more telling, it has over 3,000 comments. The clip begins with Lila’s face overtaking most of the view until she switches the camera and shows her current status. In front of her shows a table in the midst of dining. Except, it also shows that the other side of the booth is completely empty. 

    One can tell someone is missing because the entrée looks half-eaten. Lila shows all the food, including breadsticks and salads, then switches the camera again and puts her hand to her forehead. The text overlay reads: “Was on a first date. Said he had to use the bathroom as I watched him walk out the front door…I’m traumatized I never thought this happened in real life.” Part of her caption also states, “And to top it off he was so odd and rude to the server from the beginning.” 

    What did Olive Garden Server Do?

    Luckily for Lila, Olive Garden stepped up to the task. While some would view Lila with pity, the Olive Garden employees saw someone to protect. The other half of the caption says, “Thank you Olive Garden for not making me pay for his food and my server being so sweet and another one for walking me to my car. What a Sunday night.” 

    In a more interesting turn of events, one of those alleged employees viewed the TikTok and commented. Bryna Mullis wrote, “Girl I was literally bartending that night and the whole staff was talking sh-t about him and hyping you up. I’m glad you got home safe! That’s all that matters. As I said, we all love you here girl!”

    Lila replies, “Omg this means the world to me everyone was so sweet and thank you to every one of you. truly just gotta laugh about it.”

    @48.lila And to top it off he was so odd and rude to the server from the beginning. Thank you Olive Garden for not making me pay for his food and my server being so sweet and another one for walking me to my car. What a Sunday night #stoodup #feverdream #fyp #datingishard ♬ I’ve Seen It – Olivia Dean

    Viewers Rally Against the Guy…Or Do They?

    Lila’s viewers leave a mixed bag of opinions in the comments section. Some, for example, criticize the man’s manner of leaving. One of the top comments says, “Who is raising these men??!! Because I have questions!!!!”  Another says, “WTF!!!!! You are so beautiful, he is a [expletive] loser.”

    A third viewer states, “He ordered food then left you with the bill too?! ….wow.”

    Others come and judge Lila for how she dressed on the date. One viewer says, “Why’d you wear a hoodie on a first date to Olive Garden.” To which another viewer replies, “Because it’s olive garden… y’all acting like she went to a michelin star restaurant.”

    In a slightly different tangent, other viewers give their own speculations about the situation. One viewer says, “He prob had no money to pay. Lol.” A second one says, “REJECTION IS PROTECTION AND REDIRECTION THANK THE UNIVERSE.”

    Lastly, some viewers commend Olive Garden for their service that night. One viewer shares, “solidifying olive garden as the superior chain.” Another adds, “They walked you to your car?! They truly wanted to make sure you were safe!”

    The Mary Sue has covered similar stories where first dates have gone awry. For example, the time a man made his first date pay for all the drinks, even if they weren’t hers. We reached out to Lila via TikTok direct message.

    Have a tip we should know? [email protected]

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    Gisselle Hernandez

    Gisselle Hernandez-Gomez is a contributing reporter to the Mary Sue. Her work has appeared in the Daily Dot, Business Insider, Fodor’s Travel and more. You can follow her on X at @GisselleHern. You can email her at [email protected].

    Gisselle Hernandez

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  • ‘If you can’t afford it don’t go’: Group goes to Olive Garden for never-ending pasta. Then they start ‘finessing’ meals by putting them inside Ziploc bags

    Olive Garden’s Never-Ending Pasta has been all the rage across social media. Whenever this deal launches every year, people rush to their nearest location to take advantage of it. After all, who doesn’t love unlimited pasta breadsticks, soup, and salad for $13.99? While dining in at an Olive Garden, one group of friends documented an unorthodox method for enjoying the unlimited promotion to-go: by stuffing as much pasta as possible inside Ziploc bags.

    Olive Garden hack in action

    “How much pasta we can finesse at Olive Garden’s endless pasta deal,” TikTok creator Bridgitte (@halfevil___333) writes in the text overlay.

    First, her female friend attempts to cram her full plate of spaghetti into a bag, laughing at her unsuccessful attempt. Then, she pulls out another bag, hovers it over a plate, and slides the pasta into it, creating a small mess. When the content creator pans the camera over to her male friend, he hands a bag full of breadsticks to the female friend, who shoves it into her bag.

    Next, the same female friend tries to cram a full plate of rigatoni into another bag. This time, all of the pasta fell in with ease. As Brigitte shifts the camera back to the male friend, he dumps his plateful of penne into a bag on his lap.

    Once the trio walks into the parking lot, the content creator proclaims, “Olive Garden haul!” One by one, each member reveals what they snuck off with.

    “Fresh mints,” Bridgitte says, dumping a handful of complimentary chocolate mints onto the ground.

    “Penne,” the male friend says, unveiling his bag of penne.

    “A bag of soup,” the female friend adds, showing off the Zupa Toscana.

    “Breadsticks,” Bridgitte chimes in, showing off the breadsticks.

    “Pasta,” the female friend states, holding spaghetti and rigatoni in separate bags, followed by meatballs in another one.

    What did viewers say?

    The original clip amassed over 407,000 views, where Bridgitte turned off her comments. But this didn’t stop her and her friends from confronting them. In the next video, she and her female friend ‘thanked’ an insulting commenter. However, some negative remarks managed to slip into this comments section.

    “Thieves in action. if you can’t afford it don’t go,” one viewer remarked.

    “Y’all should just take it down anyways before Olive Garden sees it,” another stated.

    On the flip side, many defended the trio and applauded their hack.

    “All I saw was baddies on a budget and as a fellow budget baddie I salute your service,” one commenter wrote.

    “I just wanted to say I thought the Olive Garden idea was genius,” a second praised.

    “I’m going to do this the next time I go, thank you,” a third said.

    The content creator explained this in response to a viewer.

    “Well first off, that’s my friend, [this] isn’t her account. And second, I was more annoyed w all the comments saying [‘just get boxes’ or ‘use bigger bags.]’ Like everyone just [complains] no matter what so I turned it off,” she replied in the comments section.

    Can you take home the Never-Ending Pasta while dining at Olive Garden?

    No, you cannot. This promotion and the refills are exclusive to dine-in only. On the other hand, you can take whatever leftovers you have on your plate home, depending on your server, according to Yahoo. Because servers have complained about how taxing and with little reward these promotions are, consider tipping them nicely if they allow you to do this.

    @halfevil___333

    Ayyee Olive Garden hack ?? wait till the end to see all what we got ‼️

    ♬ original sound – halfevil___333

    The Mary Sue reached out to Bridgitte via Instagram direct message and TikTok comment as well as Olive Garden via press email.

    Have a tip we should know? [email protected]

    Image of Melody Heald

    Melody Heald

    Melody Heald is a culture writer. Her work can be found in Glitter Magazine, BUST Magazine, The Daily Dot, and more. You can email her at: [email protected]

    Melody Heald

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  • ‘Is this mandatory?‘: Olive Garden customer warns against sitting in the ‘corner’ at the restaurant after her experience

    Going out to eat can be an exquisite experience. It can also be atrocious. Your enjoyment level depends on mood, food, and more.

    As one family at Olive Garden recently learned, even the location of your table can directly impact the quality of your experience.

    The issue that Krystal Griffith (@griffith1023) had with their table wasn’t something many people outside the restaurant industry may be aware of. As they dined at the spot known for unlimited salad and breadsticks on a recent summer day, they kept hearing the same refrain from waitstaff passing by: “corner.”

    In Griffith’s one-minute, 15-second TikTok, servers can be heard saying “corner” at least 19 times.

    Her caption says there were “soooo many more.” She also asks, “Is this a mandatory thing to say?” and warns in the text overlay, “Your reminder to never sit next to the ‘corner’ at Olive Garden.”

    86-ing the corner at Olive Garden

    Griffith can be forgiven for not being aware of this bit of restaurant lingo. If you’ve never worked in one, you may have never heard it.

    As many pointed out in the comments, restaurant workers are required to say “corner” when going around one for safety reasons. Wait staff, busboys, bartenders, and others are often moving extremely fast and carrying heavy trays full of hot food and fragile dishware. Slam into someone one time and you too will loudly proclaim “corner” each time you go around one.

    “Coming from a server… this SAVES US,” wrote a user with the screen name Peyton. “Don’t know many times I’ve ran into someone because they didn’t say it!”

    Another explained it’s “so we don’t crash into each other.”

    “There’s many accidents that can happen,” wrote a third, prompting Griffith to respond, “I get why they do it…still made us giggle. They could add a mirror though.”

    Two people disagreed with her suggestion about mirrors. One said that checking the mirror is a distraction and opined that reaction times are better when someone says “corner.” Another, who apparently works in a house of corners, said they’d have to buy dozens of mirrors for their restaurant.

    “Corner” isn’t the only lingo specific to restaurants. As others shared in response to Griffith’s post, industry terminology includes 86, behind, on the fly, and heard.

    “Eighty-six” means something is no longer available. “Behind” means someone is behind you. “On the fly” is said to indicate that an item needs to be prepared quickly, in which case a cook or bartender may reply “heard” so you know the message was received.

    Griffith didn’t immediately respond to a direct message sent via TikTok.

    @griffith1023 ??? there were sooooo many more. Is this a mandatory thing to say? @Olive Garden #foryoupage #fyp #eating ♬ original sound – Griffith1023

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    Claire Goforth

    Claire Goforth is a contributing writer to The Mary Sue. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, Al Jazeera America, the Miami New Times, Folio Weekly, the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, the Florida Times-Union, the Daily Dot, and Grace Ormonde Wedding Style. Find her online at bsky.app/profile/clairegoforth.bsky.social and x.com/claire_goforth.

    Claire Goforth

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  • Olive Garden CFO: Lettuce Shortages Cost Company $5 Million

    Olive Garden CFO: Lettuce Shortages Cost Company $5 Million

    A lettuce shortage cost Olive Garden’s parent company a lot of green this past quarter.


    UCG / Contributor

    A Chik-fil-A in New York letting customers know about a romaine shortage.

    Since the fall, lettuce production issues (particularly concerning the romaine and iceberg varieties) have led to lettuce shortages across North America, mostly due to a disease that hit the Salinas Valley in California where half of the lettuce eaten in the U.S. is produced. Now, lettuce shortages are affecting businesses in the restaurant industry of all sizes, including Olive Garden, a company executive said Friday.

    In an earnings call Friday, Raj Vennam, CFO of Olive Garden’s parent Darden Restaurants, said that shortages of the salad staple cost the company $4 million to $5 million in the second quarter.

    The unlimited salad (and soup and breadsticks) chain is hardly the only restaurant struggling with this issue. Taco Bell and Chick-fil-A have recently let customers know about lettuce shortages. Small businesses from local delis to Sweetgreen are reportedly paying more for lettuce while also making changes to menu items based on availability.

    According to Restaurant Business Online, the average price of a box of iceberg lettuce was $14 in October 2019. In October of this year, it cost $67 — an increase of some 379%.

    One restaurant owner is certainly feeling the pinch. Donald Minerva of Scottadito Osteria Toscana in Brooklyn, New York, told Entrepreneur the price of a unit of lettuce, which typically contains a couple of romaine hearts, has gone up by 60% since last year.

    It’s difficult because the romaine lettuce is crucial for one of their dishes, a charred, deconstructed caesar salad. “We’re just going absorb the increase because it was very well received by our customers,” Minerva said.

    However, the restaurant did raise prices in September. “We held the line… We should have raised them again, but we didn’t,” he added.

    Darden said it raised prices in its various restaurant chains by about 6.5% compared to the same period last year, per CNN.

    Darden, which owns titles including LongHorn Steakhouse and The Capital Grille, reported $2.49 billion in revenue in Q2 and beat analysts’ expectations (but the company’s stock dropped slightly amid a larger rout last week).

    The lettuce shortage has been primarily caused by viruses, including the INSV Virus, which is also known as the Impatiens Necrotic Spot Virus and is often fatal to plants. It has wrecked the lettuce yield of California’s Salinas Valley, known as the “Salad Bowl” of America, per New Hampshire outlet Valley News and Ag Alert.

    The industry also typically struggles in the fall because production transitions to being produced from the valley to Arizona, one expert told the outlet.

    Related: ‘If You’re Sick, You Need to Come Prove It’: Olive Garden Manager Fired Over Disturbing Memo to Employees Asking for Time Off

    The shortage could go until January, Stephanie Corda of Peddler’s Son, a wholesaler, told a CBS Arizona affiliate.

    In addition to the virus, lettuce has become more costly since the pandemic. Volatile market conditions led to farmers planting less lettuce, per Restaurant Business Online.

    Restaurants have already been rocked by food shortages this year on everything from eggs to potatoes, in addition to general inflation.

    “Everything takes away from your bottom line today,” Minerva added. “Lettuce seems to be the one people are focusing in on, but everything is going up.”

    Gabrielle Bienasz

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  • Olive Garden Fired Manager Who Told Employees to Come in Sick

    Olive Garden Fired Manager Who Told Employees to Come in Sick

    Olive Garden is known for its unlimited soup, salad, and breadsticks deal — but according to one former manager, taking time off should be extremely limited.


    UCG I Getty Images

    An Olive Garden sign.

    “From now on, if you call off, you might as well go out and look for another job,” the manager wrote in a memo obtained by local news outlet KCTV.

    The now-former manager worked at an Olive Garden location in Overland Park, which is close to Kansas City.

    “We are no longer tolerating ANY excuse for calling off. If you’re sick, you need to come prove it to us. If your dog died, you need to bring him in and prove it to us. If it’s a ‘family emergency’ and you can’t say, too bad. Go work somewhere else,” the manager wrote.

    The memo went on to say the manager also did not want to be at the restaurant late at night on Fridays or Saturdays but is “dedicated to being here. As should you. No more excuses or complaints.”

    The manager was fired, the outlet added.

    “We strive to provide a caring and respectful work environment for our team members. This message is not aligned with our company’s values. We can confirm we have parted ways with this manager,” a spokesperson for Olive Garden told Entrepreneur via email.

    The Kansas-area debacle comes as workers face an uncertain labor market. While many companies are gearing up for a recession and have implemented hiring freezes, the economy also added 260,000 jobs in October, which exceeded expectations and defied some economic anxieties.

    At the same time, there have been layoffs at major companies from Twitter to Morgan Stanley to Amazon and as NBC noted, mostly in white-collar industries. Restaurants, on the other hand, faced an enormous labor shortage during the pandemic that is reportedly still ongoing.

    There were over 10 million reported open jobs in October, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

    The now-fired manager also recounted an anecdote where she claimed she had been in a car accident and still made it to work.

    “Do you know in my 11.5 years at Darden how many days I called off? Zero. I came in sick. I got in a wreck literally on my to work one time, airbags went off and my car was totaled, but you know what, I made it to work, ON TIME!”

    (Darden is the parent company of Olive Garden, as well as others including LongHorn Steakhouse.)

    When called, someone on the phone at the Overland Park store declined to comment.

    Read the whole memo obtained by KCTV.

    Our call offs are occurring at a staggering rate. From now on, if you call off, you might as well go out and look for another job. We are no longer tolerating ANY excuse for calling off. If you’re sick, you need to come prove it to us. If your dog died, you need to bring him in and prove it to us. If its a “family emergency” and you can’t say, too bad. Go work somewhere else. If you only want morning shifts, too bad go work at a bank. If anyone from here on out calls out more than ONCE in the next 30 days you will not have a job. Do you know in my 11.5 years at Darden how many days I called off? Zero. I came in sick. I got in a wreck literally on my to work one time, airbags went off and my car was totaled, but you know what, I made it to work, ON TIME! There are no more excuses. Us, collectively as a management team have had enough. If you don’t want to work here, don’t. It’s as simple as that. If you’re here and want to work, then work. No more complaigning [sic] about not being cut or not being able to leave early. You’re in the restaurant business. Do you think I want to be here until midnight on Friday and Saturday? No. I’d much rather be at home with my husband and dog, going to the movies or seeing family. But I don’t, I’m dedicated to being here. As should you. No more excuses or complaints.

    I hope you choose to continue to work here and I think we (management) make it as easy as we can on ya’ll. Thank you for your time and thank you to those who come in every day on time and work hard. I wish there were more like you.

    Gabrielle Bienasz

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