Amy Edelman

27 July 2011 | Food | randy

Italian-style food is popular in America, on family dinner tables and in restaurant chains from coast to coast. For many Americans, Italian food is comfort food, often served family-style and enjoyed with a bottle or two of wine and family conversation. Other Americans celebrate special occasions with Italian food, heading to their local Italian chain restaurant after graduations, weddings, or other family celebrations.

The Olive Garden is the most popular Italian-American restaurant chain, with over 700 restaurants in forty-eight American states. General Mills opened the first Olive Garden restaurant in the early 80s to test the market for Italian food in the United States. Within five years, there were more than 100 Olive Garden restaurants in the country, making the chain General Mills second most popular restaurant franchise after Red Lobster.

Part of the appeal of Olive Garden is the value. The national average ticket price is just $15 as of 2010–compared to Olive Garden’s sister restaurant Capital Grille, that’s an average of over $70 less per ticket. Menu items like “endless soup, salad, and breadsticks” and their huge list of inexpensive wines means you can have a full Italian-style meal at Olive Garden for a lot less than their competition. The low cost of menu items is one reason you don’t often find Olive Garden coupons–their parent company prefers to reduce the price of menu items rather than print coupons good for a single meal.

Speaking of their competition, the second-largest chain of Italian-style restaurants in America is Carrabba’s Italian Grill. Though they don’t have nearly as many units as Olive Garden (about 200 compared to 700+ for Olive Garden), Carrabba’s has had fifteen fewer years to develop their chain. Carrabba’s started franchising the restaurant in 1995, long after Olive Garden.

Carrabba’s doesn’t pride itself on low prices like Olive Garden–for that reason the two restaurants aren’t really in competition with each other. Carrabba’s menu items are more expensive, the wine list longer and featuring more expensive wines, and the average ticket price about $35 higher than at Olive Garden.

In the early 2000s, Olive Garden restaurants underwent a major rebranding in an attempt to compete with the rising popularity of Carrabba’s restaurants. Since Carrabba’s menu is created by an actual Italian-American family (who still work together at one of the original Carrabba’s restaurants in Houston), Olive Garden went out of their way to identify their new menu as “authentic.” Olive Garden restaurants got makeovers and now look a lot like Carrabba’s restaurant interiors.