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Olive Garden’s sales are dropping as customers cut back. Now, it’s revamping its menu.
Olive Garden’s menu of pastas and endless breadsticks failed to keep customers coming back this summer, with sales wilting at the Italian-restaurant chain. Now, the company plans to bring back some dishes it discontinued during the pandemic to convince diners to return.
The chain is bringing back its steak gorgonzola alfredo and stuffed chicken marsala, two dishes that it stopped serving during the pandemic, according to Ricardo Cardenas, the CEO of Olive Garden parent company Darden Restaurants. It’s also expanding its Never Ending Pasta Bowl offer by adding a new sauce — garlic herb — as an option.
Cardenas, who spoke during a September 19 earnings call, said the returning dishes will give “guests another reason to visit in the back half of this fiscal year.”
Olive Garden blamed its sales slump on “the sales softness that impacted the industry in July,” according to Darden Chief Financial Officer Raj Vennam on the call. Several restaurant chains have reported struggling to attract inflation-weary customers this year, especially as restaurant prices have surged 28% since January 2020, prior to the pandemic, prompting some to roll out savings promotions, such as McDonald’s $5 value meal.
“We always want to give our guests more of what they love when they come to Olive Garden, which is why we’re bringing back our Steak Gorgonzola Alfredo and Stuffed Chicken Marsala later in our fiscal year,” said Olive Garden spokeswoman Brittany Baron in an email to CBS MoneyWatch.
The company has also seen a rebound in the first three weeks of September, she added.
Olive Garden’s same-restaurant sales dropped 2.9% in its fiscal first quarter, which ended August 25. Darden CFO Vennam noted the company was “surprised by the significant step down in traffic beginning with the 4th of July holiday,” but also added that sales picked up in August.
Olive Garden’s new menu additions
The Italian chain added the garlic herb sauce as of September 23, Baron said. She added that the $13.99 price of the Never Ending Pasta Bowl hasn’t changed since 2022.
The company had discontinued the steak gorgonzola alfredo and stuffed chicken marsala dishes during the pandemic because it “streamlined our menus to help simplify operations and ensure the highest level of execution for our guests,” she added.
Darden CEO Cardenas said bringing back the two dishes will help the restaurant add more protein-based main courses.
“Both have been recast with higher-quality ingredients and easier execution for their restaurant teams,” Cardenas said on the conference call. “This announcement received tremendous applause from their general managers at their GM Conference in August.”
Darden last week also announced that Olive Garden is teaming up with Uber to offer third-party delivery service for the first time. Individual orders will be picked up and delivered by Uber Direct, a premium delivery service. Olive Garden won’t be listed on the broader Uber Eats platform.
If the initial pilot is successful, the delivery option will expand nationwide by May 2025, Darden said at the time.
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Invitation Homes has agreed to pay $48 million to settle federal claims that the nation’s biggest landlord for single-family homes deceived renters about lease fees and other costs, while unfairly pocketing tenants’ security deposits, the Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday.
The Dallas-based company charged tens of millions of dollars in “junk fees” between 2021 and 2023, the FTC said in a statement. The mandatory monthly fees covered services such as smart-home technology and air filter delivery that could cost up to $1,700 a year, but that weren’t disclosed until renters received their lease or sometimes not until after they’d signed it, according to the agency.
“No American should pay more for rent or be kicked out of their home because of illegal tactics by corporate landlords,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement.
“Visible rodent feces”
Invitation Homes, which owns or manages more than 100,000 homes around the U.S., “will be refunding $48 million to residents and changing its practices,” said Larissa Bungo, a senior attorney at the FTC, said in a post on the agency’s website.
The company also made deceptive claims about the condition of the properties it listed for rent, withheld security deposits without cause and failed to let tenants know about federal eviction protections during the pandemic, the agency alleged.
Marketing a “worry-free leasing lifestyle” and promising pre-inspected homes before move in and 24/7 maintenance, new residents instead faced issues like “sewage backup, broken appliances and visible rodent feces,” Bungo wrote.
In a statement, Invitation Homes said its agreement with the FTC doesn’t admit any wrongdoing by the company, which is publicly traded and valued at nearly $22 billion.
“Today’s agreement brings the FTC’s three-year investigation to a close and puts this matter behind the company, which will, as always, move forward with its continuous efforts to better serve its customers,” Invitation Homes said.
The proposed settlement, which must be approved by a federal judge, requires Invitation Homes to disclose fees in advertised rental prices. It also stipulates that the company cannot withhold security deposits to fix things not caused by tenants.
The enforcement action is the first by the FTC since the agency formed a working group to examine unfair, deceptive and anticompetitive practices affecting renters.
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