Restaurant and Food Blog May Archive

Olive Garden Commercials Beyond Insulting

By Brian White at 05/28/07 09:54

I saw the most insulting commercial for Olive Garden Italian Restaurant the other night, and it's stuck with me. Mind you, I was a waiter for Olive Garden for almost four years, and sold almost $200,000 worth of trademark soup, salad and breadsticks, and I know it because the corporate system tracks it, but I worked so long I couldn't actually watch television. Have they always been this bad?

The commercial showed a traditional Italian-American family, and the guys said, "My 'Ma' wanted dinner, so we took her to Olive Garden."

Wait, what? I've got Italians in the family, and I'll tell you straight up those people would lynch me if I took them to a mega-corporate chain for dinner.

Am I the only one offended by this sort of thing?