Olive Garden

By tmayfield

  • Opening Day

    Opening Day
    The first Olive Garden was opened by General Mills.

  • First Winery

    First Winery
    They first started a winery and sold in the restaurant also.

  • Restraurants

    Restraurants
    By 1989, General Mills had opened 145 restaurants.

  • New Name

    New Name
    General Mills broke off and Olive Garden became owned by Darden Restaurants.

  • The Building

    The Building
    The farmhouse is home to the Riserva di Fizzano restaurant adjoining the company's Culinary Institute of Tuscany which was founded in 1999.

  • Imports

    Imports
    Olive Garden began to import parts of menu formats from its sibling chain Season-52; it began selling smaller desserts portions which is called "dolcini".

  • Recent Restaurant Count

    Recent Restaurant Count
    The compnay operates over 730 restraurants globally.

  • More Restaurants

    More Restaurants
    As part of a February 2011 Darden analyst conference, the parent group annouce it intended to add more than 200 Olive Garden locations in the following few years.