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| "Mangia! Mangia!" It's something my Italian grandmother used to say when I was a kid. It means "Eat!" And apparently, that's just what pasta-loving diners are doing a lot of at Olive Garden lately. Darden Restaurants, the owner of the popular Italian restaurant chain, reported a healthy jump in sales in its most recent quarter. Earnings topped forecasts, too. Shares of Darden (DRI) rose more than 5% to an all-time high. Darden also owns LongHorn Steakhouse, Bahama Breeze and several other casual dining chains. But it's Olive Garden -- home to those unlimited breadsticks and never ending pasta bowls -- that has made Darden famous. Olive Garden accounts for more than half of Darden's overall sales. The company sold the Red Lobster chain a few years ago in order to focus more on the Italian eateries. That move has clearly paid off. Same-store sales, which measure how well stores open at least a year are doing, rose 4.4% in the latest quarter. The increase came with a big, 2% jump in traffic -- i.e. the number of customers going to the restaurants. |
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it is the better chain - if you cant find a good local place in a given city I would go to carrabbas
'Merica, I guess.
BWW used to be ok - and in some cases, good. Then they started serving these small, obviously frozen, over sauced, overpriced wings. It was like they blew up as a franchise and started to skimp on the thing that they rely on - wings. But you can get them in 400 different flavors! Puke.
The BWW by me is just awful. But the mouthbreathers keep going for the beer and tvs so it stays in business. I refuse to go anymore. Horrible. Gimme a locally-owned joint that actually cares about their product.
A dominos just recently opened up in town literally in between 2 delicious mom and pop pizzerias ... when I see people in there, I just shake my head.
I will never understand why anyone goes to places like this unless there are literally no other options.