From Aug. 25 through Nov. 16, Olive Garden’s Never Ending Pasta Bowl is back. For $15, you get endless soup, salad, breadsticks, and all the pasta you can eat. For pasta lovers, like myself, this is the deal of the year. But for such a beloved dish, it is only around for a short time. And that just should not be the case.
The Never Ending Pasta Bowls should never end.
With cozy red booths, classic Italian restaurant style menus, and the smell of delicious food, Olive Garden is somewhere one could sit for hours. And some do, during this season.
One might imagine this all you can eat style dining only being detrimental to a restaurant’s profit margins. However, Olive Garden has figured out the cheat code. Your first bowl of pasta is in one of their regularly sized dishes. Then, every subsequent bowl is in a much smaller “side-sized” bowl, meaning you are getting a much smaller portion with each refill.
Contrary to popular opinion, I think the smaller sized bowls are great. They give you a chance to try new pasta shape and sauce combinations without the pressure of finishing a full portion. Now, with this downsizing hack in mind, profit margins are even less at risk, so Olive Garden truly has no financial reason to limit the Never Ending Pasta.
Though financial concern about pasta profit is not a valid limiting factor, customer demand raises a stronger case. This whole concept is clearly a marketing gimmick to draw customers inwith low prices, reminding them how good the Olive Garden experience is. At this point, the restaurant likely relies on the yearly big boom in customers, so it makes sense that they are more hesitant to bring it year round.
This year, Olive Garden added a new sauce, the Spicy 3 Meat Marinara, to their Never Ending rotation. This type of innovation is great to see from a once a year special. In fact, if Olive Garden were to implement a year round Never Ending Pasta Bowl, they could continue with this vein of innovation. Instead of having this bowl be the seasonal special, they could add seasonal sauces or pasta shapes to keep things interesting, and have a way to test-pilot items for their main menu.
We have gone through profit, customer demand, and staying special. The last thing to mention is the bowl’s paradoxical name, the Never Ending Pasta Bowl, as this specialty does in fact end. I understand the name is meant to refer to the never ending status of the pasta you can eat. However, it stands to reason that this name could mean more. Why would you call something that ends “never ending”? It makes no sense.
By naming their menu item the Never Ending Pasta Bowl, Olive Garden has put themselves in a tough spot. This name sets the precedent that this bowl never ends, continuing to be available year-round. And that is exactly how it should be. The Never Ending Pasta Bowl should never end.
