No More Olive Garden
I am never eating at The Olive Garden again. Ever. For the rest of my life. Mark it down, January 10, 2006, the day that Andrew Teman officially denounced the Olive Garden and vowed never to walk through those faux Italian doors ever again. Now you might be asking yourself “Why? Why no Olive Garden? How can you resist the never ending pasta bowl? When you are there, you are FAMILY! What did The Olive Garden do to hurt you?”. All fair questions, and the short answer is that I can very easily resist never ending pasta, and no the Olive Garden never did anything specifically to hurt me. Unlike Cingular, who crammed the bad service stick up my backside and pushed me across the street to T-Mobile, The Olive Garden ban came about slowly and with far less of a dramatic back-story. I think it all started when I last ate at The Olive Garden in Natick some 2 years ago. We were waiting for a table, which we were told would take about 2 hours (reason number one that I hate the Olive Garden. You cannot get a table there, regardless of time or day, in less than an hour. Ever.), and I began to think about what I was waiting for. I was waiting for pasta. For two hours. This infuriated me. Those who know me well, know that I rarely order pasta when out to dinner, unless the restaurant and the dish, are just top notch. I guess I just have a hard time ordering something that a four year old could make, and that costs roughly 89 cents at the grocery store. From there it just sort of meat balled (get it…meatballed) and I just became increasingly irritated with all of the fucking hullabaloo that people made over The Olive Garden. They began to spring up on every street corner, and within 5 minutes of opening, there was a 400 person line out the door. People would sit around, gabbing over never ending pasta bowls, and sucking down crappy table wine out of salad dressing containers, and be loving every second of it. I just didn’t get it. I don’t get it. But I know I don’t like it, and therefore I am done with The Olive Garden. This might be tough. I mean, clearly people like this place, so it is certainly possible that at some point during the remaining course of my life, that I may be part of a large and hungry group that insists on going to The Olive Garden. They will say things like “I love The Olive Garden” and “Man, do I really enjoy The Olive Garden” , and I will cringe. It will be a test of my mettle, but I am up for the challenge.
