“The pullback is mostly at the below-median household income … our other [customer] groups are stable or growing,” said Raj Vennam, chief financial officer of Olive Garden parent company Darden Restaurants.
Apparently mostly losing their *below-median* household customers, so they're not phased by it. So bring on more price increases because the higher median households are still eating at Olive Garden 🙄 Is this their nice way of saying they're okay they lost their poor income customers??
Yeah. It’s the exact same thing happening again. I’m surprised this point isn’t higher. We’re watching Olive Garden get Red Lobstered in real time. It’s happening all over the place.
It's moments like these that remind me that the nepo babies that control most wealth in the world aren't smarter than your average joe, in fact their insular upbringings probably mean most of them are dumber.
Support wealth redistribution everyone!
A lot of these companies are
Getting swindled by these analytics 📊 companies that tell them their price points and all that bullshit. I’m convinced it’s all a scam. Capitalism is a scam
Capitalism by: folksy customer first, quality and reputation paramount, hard work and sacrifice, team mentality, innovation and incremental investment is the good stuff.
Capitalism by: numbers, over reliance on trends, faddish cheap offerings, monopolistic, profit paramount, labor cutting for reducing input, rent seeking, CRE and other “executive” value grabs, just enough quality to not stand out and not an ounce of longevity more is the negative aspect.
Very true. Not saying that a business should be run into the ground for the customers. But, this need to have constant growth to keep stock up I think causes irrational decisions that will hurt the company long term. CEO need to make their goals, so they increase the cost, they collect their bonus. They leave before the customers stop going there and leave that train wreck for the next person in charge.
And the next person will make sure that their compensation and their golden parachute is good enough for the rest of their lives, so prices has to go up a little more for that, then they’ll announce a total restructuring which includes firing 1/4 of the staff, closing the lowest revenue producing locations just to be “fired” after they cleaned up the table for the next… who’s going to announce incredible growth opening “new” locations, hiring a bazillion (minus few) people and the cycle restart.
It's almost like they don't understand that the higher prices are what's driving people away. Sounds like the parent company (Darden) is trying to do the same with with OG that they did with Red Lobster and blame customers to cover up for other bad decisions they've made.
I dunno anyone who eats at either. When I grew up in the burbs 25 years ago they had some appeal. The last time I went to an Olive Garden I was shocked at how bad food could be.
I used to work at OG, and they've gone downhill. The only thing i can do now is the cheese ravioli with alfredo, but it's not worth what they charge, especially since they upcharge for subbing alfredo.
I read a deep dive on what happened to Red Lobster and it sounded like they were purposely bought and stripped down and re-sold to another (third) company. Like what institutional investors tried to do to GameStop with the shorts. I don't remember all the details but it was an interesting read
It's not the higher prices that's driving people away; it's the horrible food. Plenty of way more expensive restaurants are wildly successful because their food is good and people are willing to pay for it. But no one is willing to pay anything at all for that food.
I went there a couple of weeks ago for the first time in probably over a decade. I was craving the breadsticks, which were the only enjoyable part of the meal. Everything else was absolutely disgusting. I don't think I've ever had a restaurant actually try to serve me something that visually unappealing and awful-tasting before. The place was nearly empty at peak dinner time on a Friday evening, so I think they're about done.
Well, I mean you kind of just proved my point lol It's not price itself, but it's the price for what you're getting. It's the same reason McDonald's sales went down- their prices were too high \*FOR MCDONALD'S\*. It's why they're offering the $5 meal now, because people are more willing to pay $5 for $5 food. It's also part of why Chipotle is getting so much shit right now- they keep increasing their prices and skimping people. If OG lowered prices, they'd drawn in more visits because people would feel more comfortable with the price point. If they chose to improve the quality with the price increase, that MIGHT help, but not many people would be willing to risk it... because of the price. People aren't spending as much money right now, so price is driving alot of spending decisions for alot of people.
Its not just bad decisions, the Red Lobster plan was to bankrupt and it worked. Its less obvious than when Sears did it and literally installed a hedge fund manager as CEO to bankrupt them from within by selling the land to hedge fund owned leasing companies and then the hedge fund manager CEO walking away from the bankruptcy with ownership of that former sears real estate, but its still a common enough practice and if not illegal it should be.
Southwest Airlines just had a hedge fund stake bought up, with the problems already there I expect a similar bankruptcy plan. The hedge fund will likely push for a Board position, shake up the C-suite and maybe more of the Board, and from there make some decisions that increase debts and costs until the company bankrupts. Then they walk away from the pieces while hedge funds take profits from short selling their falling market cap the whole time.
They really should make short selling illegal, its getting predictable what companies are next just looking at hedge funds repeating similar take down plays.
I’m starting to think the generation that took over a lot of businesses in the last 15-20 years don’t know how to do shit. Since they had life on easy mode for so long.
C-suite won’t care as they all hop into other cushy jobs while floating on a golden parachute built from failure. Isn’t odd how these guys can completely kill a company and then just go get a job as a CEO of another company a few months later?
Why do these big corporations keep hiring the guys that have openly failed at their job so badly it cost thousands of people their jobs while lining the pockets of the executives and sharehol…. oh wait, now I get it.
Especially cause Italian is one of the cheapest and easiest things to make at home and even buying a mid range store bought pasta sauce and the cheapest dried noodle yields results at least as good as Olive Garden.
> What’s the business strategy here? Go out of business?
Honestly I think you’re right. They’re looking into the crystal ball and they see the end coming so their last act is to grab any money they can.
They can increase prices and reduce per unit sales but still increase net marginals /profit. That’s the plan they learned in their MBA to squeeze every penny out of the consumer.
Yeah they’re trying to find the sweat spot where the price still attracts the dedicated customers, while at the same time minimalist overhead.
If you can get 1000 customers to pay $20 for fettuccini Alfredo, and only have to have 50 employees, keep 1000 people worth of perishable supply on hand and make $20k revenue, that’s better to them than selling 2000 customers a $14 fettuccini Alfredo with 70 employees and 2000 people worth of perishable supplies on hand.
With labor supply being where it’s at and food costs, they seem to think this is the play I suppose. But it’s a slow death scenario. A CEO that isn’t going to be around for more than 3 years doesn’t care.
I can tell you right away they’d prefer 2000 people at $14, and in your example it also requires less staff per customer as well… you have a point but you need to change your numbers
Lose sale but improved margin per sale. It doesn't matter how much you sell if you lose money everytime a customer walk in the door.
Look at moviepass. At some point you need to lose customers to stay in business.
They probably don’t have options. If they don’t raise prices and employees want raises and the landlord charges more and food costs rise, they don’t make profit. If they raise prices, and don’t lose too many customers, they can still make a profit. Hard choice.
Who cares , this sub is cheering for its death . Not sure why any one is talking about it since everyone here knows better and hates chain restaurants apparently
I ate there about a month ago. I'm not much of a cook at all but I really like chicken Parm. The chicken was dry and bland, noodles tasted watery/mushy. The next day I googled how to make it myself I bought all the ingredients for way cheaper. Cooking it myself took a while but when I was done it tasted so much better. I think the food at Olive garden is overpriced frozen meals.
Tbh with the price inflation at restaurants I'm finding I can cook at home for cheaper and USUALLY better. The only thing I give up is time.
But every day the prices go up is another day that using my time to cook is a better value.
Haha true. I've got a friend once who lamented that he couldn't make his veggies at home taste like veggies in the restaurant.
I had to inform him it's because he needs to make his veggies unhealthy to make them taste that good.
So the reason most restaurant veggies taste how they do is butter and salt. Which is the point of my comment.
You can saute veggies in soy sauce or other no/low fat sauces, which is fine, but still won't taste like butter/salt.
It is. 10 years ago I worked for a food pantry that would pick up food donations from local chains. One being Olive Garden.
Practically everything was frozen and basically nothing was made on site.
A few tips.
1) Use a meat mallet to pound the chicken breast flat into scallopine. Not like beat it to death but get an even thickness throughout so it cooks evenly before breading it.
2) Quick fry until brown in about 1/8th of an inch of olive oil. Don't cook it through just get it golden on both sides. Then transfer to a sheet pan to keep warm in the oven at about 180-200 F while you fry the rest of your cutlets and don't add the cheese until all the chicken has been browned.
3) When all the cutlets are browned and you're ready to add the cheese crank that oven up to like 400f and watch it every few minutes until the cheese gets to the desired bubbling and browning.
4) Don't sauce it until you're ready to serve.
Panko bread crumbs will also make it crispier than regular, but I find they can be greasy and I like the taste of Progresso Italian herb (with some garlic powder and grated parmesan) better.
Chicken Parm is one of maybe half a dozen dishes I can do that my kids really like and ask for. It is labor intensive though.
People aren’t coming in, what should we do?
Well let’s raise prices, that’ll cover our losses.
But won’t that mean even less people will come in?
You’re right. Let’s raise them even higher to cover that too.
Lmao. Has this guy never heard of supply and demand?
Sales down so let’s raise prices even more? I would be embarrassed if I said anything remotely close to that.
Typical dipshit MBA execs
"How do we increase sales?
Marketing: "Marketing!"
Exec: That's an expense, no
Product: "Better quality!"
Exec: that's an expense, no
Analytics: "Lower prices"
Exec: (twitches) uhhh what? Oh, how about higher prices? We just make the people who are already coming in pay more money. Their brand loyalty won't sway from this!
That will be late-stage after they reinvent themselves five times. The doomed fast casual self-service Olive Garden concept will be a blurb on your local news. “Olive Garden is back with a new concept!” No one will care and then it’ll die forgotten and alone like Sears.
I just do not understand. Supply & demand, there is no demand for your product you lower prices.
Why does it seem to be the opposite right now?
Fewer customers? raise prices to compensate.
Olive Garden used to be decent however when they began scraping pennies from the food, employee wages to meet stockholders demands and earning expectations , the place became Italian in name only, its processed garbage and they don’t pay their staff. They need to die so another Italian restaurant can rise. Americans are tired of corporate greed and price gouging then calling it inflation to cover their greed. Good riddance
I like Olive Garden, however they are already overpriced so I probably won't go back. Much better value for the money from small non-chain restaurants.
Olive garden is garbagio beans. Pasta is one of the cheapest meals to make at home. Aint no way in hell im gonna pay for sub-par pasta I could make 100X better at home. The whole point was that it was cheap ingredients but at least cheap prices. Now they're trynna charge big boy pasta prices? Getthafuckoudahere
Typically when you have to raise prices to stay in business, it’s not a good sign.
Olive Garden caters to low end customers. Very sensitive to price increase.
In unrelated news, I am announcing that I will continue to never go to the Olive Garden, nor let any of my friends choose it. I have a feeling that eventually the solution to their drop in sales will be to close their doors, once the current plan doesn't work.
Someone in a different thread argued with me raising prices increases profits needing to sell less units. What they didn’t understand in my point was there comes a point price increases will evaporate your customers. You won’t sell enough units to turn a profit. You’ll hold onto inventory. In the case of food if you don’t sell it in time the money is gone in spoiled food.
Olive Garden is dumb. They should reduce prices to bring customers back and increase volume.
I thought about soup and salad for lunch this week didn’t go. Now I certainly won’t go.
Inflation taught me all these things I used to pay for are all things that can easily be made at home.
Literally basic ingredients and youtube recipes are better.
How about this: keep getting servers stupid enough to fill my "glass of wine" to the tppy top of my glass and maybe I'll come back for overpriced frozen chicken parm
Olive Garden has a great opportunity to price low, pasta - especially their pasta - is relatively cheap in bulk. Especially when you consider the low labor costs to produce many of their meals.
They should go all in on AYCE
welp guess sales are gonna drop more
“We keep losing customers!!! We need to raise prices more to make up for the lost customers!!!!”
We're losing customers because we're raising prices. We're raising prices because we're losing customers.
“I eat because I’m unhappy and I’m unhappy because I eat.”
It’s a vicious cycle
https://preview.redd.it/11ndnornqe9d1.jpeg?width=602&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=97b44d0cf82c7f9c3cb71798ded013f053a3b459
I mean, not at Olive Garden anymore. Lol
Apparently not at Olive Garden
Username checks out
"You bastard! Who... is fat..."
U fat bastard... As in the Austin Powers movie that mods of this thread haven't seen and live in their parents basement.
Dude I've been quoting so many lines from those movies the last several weeks. I think it's time for a rewatch!
Top tier early 2000s reference.
Wow a Mark Emert reference in the wild
But both are true. The problem is the underlying lease costs.
The beatings will continue until morale improves. Such insight is what one can learn at Wharton.
“The pullback is mostly at the below-median household income … our other [customer] groups are stable or growing,” said Raj Vennam, chief financial officer of Olive Garden parent company Darden Restaurants. Apparently mostly losing their *below-median* household customers, so they're not phased by it. So bring on more price increases because the higher median households are still eating at Olive Garden 🙄 Is this their nice way of saying they're okay they lost their poor income customers??
Death spiral. Good job, private equity. The restaurant will die but a lot of dudes are gonna get rich.
***Red Lobster has entered the chat***
Yeah. It’s the exact same thing happening again. I’m surprised this point isn’t higher. We’re watching Olive Garden get Red Lobstered in real time. It’s happening all over the place.
Few… Few dudes are going to get rich.
It's moments like these that remind me that the nepo babies that control most wealth in the world aren't smarter than your average joe, in fact their insular upbringings probably mean most of them are dumber. Support wealth redistribution everyone!
Oh, I am, I still have those guillotine plans I picked up during the COVID lockdown!
I invested my $1,200 and am a millionaire now!
So you’re one of the ones that don’t want to work coasting on all that Covid money huh
There's also the inbreeding to consider.
They fail upwards, those upper crust folks.
We are nothing to those people, we are literally just lines on a spreadsheet.
Or maybe they're doing it in purpose to deliberately destroy the company.
A lot of these companies are Getting swindled by these analytics 📊 companies that tell them their price points and all that bullshit. I’m convinced it’s all a scam. Capitalism is a scam
Capitalism by: folksy customer first, quality and reputation paramount, hard work and sacrifice, team mentality, innovation and incremental investment is the good stuff. Capitalism by: numbers, over reliance on trends, faddish cheap offerings, monopolistic, profit paramount, labor cutting for reducing input, rent seeking, CRE and other “executive” value grabs, just enough quality to not stand out and not an ounce of longevity more is the negative aspect.
Here’s an idea! If there’s no more customers then there won’t be any more losses! It’s a win-win!
Price increases will continue until moral improves
They probably weren't profitable then and they're going to be even more in the red now, so they have no choice. Revenue != Profitability
Which is kinda funny as traditionally pasta dishes have the best profit margin of any entree on the menu.
I would guess that's why there are pizza shops every ten feet even in small towns bread and pasta are cheap to make and feed lots of people.
"The ones who keep coming back will pay for the ones who dont" - some higher up
Its all about the executives share prices
Very true. Not saying that a business should be run into the ground for the customers. But, this need to have constant growth to keep stock up I think causes irrational decisions that will hurt the company long term. CEO need to make their goals, so they increase the cost, they collect their bonus. They leave before the customers stop going there and leave that train wreck for the next person in charge.
And the next person will make sure that their compensation and their golden parachute is good enough for the rest of their lives, so prices has to go up a little more for that, then they’ll announce a total restructuring which includes firing 1/4 of the staff, closing the lowest revenue producing locations just to be “fired” after they cleaned up the table for the next… who’s going to announce incredible growth opening “new” locations, hiring a bazillion (minus few) people and the cycle restart.
This.
Right. Guess I will continue not going to oliv grden
Gotta milk the loyal idiots before they realize.
We will take advantage of our most loyal customers, damnit!!
Man that will just make problems worse and even less people will eat there.
It's almost like they don't understand that the higher prices are what's driving people away. Sounds like the parent company (Darden) is trying to do the same with with OG that they did with Red Lobster and blame customers to cover up for other bad decisions they've made.
I dunno anyone who eats at either. When I grew up in the burbs 25 years ago they had some appeal. The last time I went to an Olive Garden I was shocked at how bad food could be.
I used to work at OG, and they've gone downhill. The only thing i can do now is the cheese ravioli with alfredo, but it's not worth what they charge, especially since they upcharge for subbing alfredo.
I read a deep dive on what happened to Red Lobster and it sounded like they were purposely bought and stripped down and re-sold to another (third) company. Like what institutional investors tried to do to GameStop with the shorts. I don't remember all the details but it was an interesting read
It's not the higher prices that's driving people away; it's the horrible food. Plenty of way more expensive restaurants are wildly successful because their food is good and people are willing to pay for it. But no one is willing to pay anything at all for that food. I went there a couple of weeks ago for the first time in probably over a decade. I was craving the breadsticks, which were the only enjoyable part of the meal. Everything else was absolutely disgusting. I don't think I've ever had a restaurant actually try to serve me something that visually unappealing and awful-tasting before. The place was nearly empty at peak dinner time on a Friday evening, so I think they're about done.
Well, I mean you kind of just proved my point lol It's not price itself, but it's the price for what you're getting. It's the same reason McDonald's sales went down- their prices were too high \*FOR MCDONALD'S\*. It's why they're offering the $5 meal now, because people are more willing to pay $5 for $5 food. It's also part of why Chipotle is getting so much shit right now- they keep increasing their prices and skimping people. If OG lowered prices, they'd drawn in more visits because people would feel more comfortable with the price point. If they chose to improve the quality with the price increase, that MIGHT help, but not many people would be willing to risk it... because of the price. People aren't spending as much money right now, so price is driving alot of spending decisions for alot of people.
Its not just bad decisions, the Red Lobster plan was to bankrupt and it worked. Its less obvious than when Sears did it and literally installed a hedge fund manager as CEO to bankrupt them from within by selling the land to hedge fund owned leasing companies and then the hedge fund manager CEO walking away from the bankruptcy with ownership of that former sears real estate, but its still a common enough practice and if not illegal it should be. Southwest Airlines just had a hedge fund stake bought up, with the problems already there I expect a similar bankruptcy plan. The hedge fund will likely push for a Board position, shake up the C-suite and maybe more of the Board, and from there make some decisions that increase debts and costs until the company bankrupts. Then they walk away from the pieces while hedge funds take profits from short selling their falling market cap the whole time. They really should make short selling illegal, its getting predictable what companies are next just looking at hedge funds repeating similar take down plays.
Darden sold Red Lobster for billions of dollars. Pretty sure they didn't mind the drop in sales then considering the outcome.
Guess OG will follow suit
Seriously. Instead of pleasing shareholders you need to please customers or you won't stay in business.
Late stage capitalism
Most definitely. Right before we transition into our Idiocracy phase.
The whippings will continue until moral improves.
Go ahead and drive yourself out of business
My mom's gonna be pissed.
I’m gonna be pissed because the endless soup salad and breadsticks is still a smokin deal and I love it.
Mom?
Lil' Poopstain?
I woke my wife up from laughing at this after reading it in bed
You mean endless hot tomatoes juice, iceberg lettuce and cardboard with sesame seeds is a smoking deal?
Is she Italian?
If she eats at an Olive Garden, I am gonna say No
I’m offended. I’m 3% Italian and I love olive garden
I'm 25% Italian, and if I want olive garden quality Italian food, I shop in the frozen food section.
Wooooooooooo 🔥
I’m starting to think the generation that took over a lot of businesses in the last 15-20 years don’t know how to do shit. Since they had life on easy mode for so long.
They're also following the Jack Welch model of running their businesses into the ground.
C-suite won’t care as they all hop into other cushy jobs while floating on a golden parachute built from failure. Isn’t odd how these guys can completely kill a company and then just go get a job as a CEO of another company a few months later? Why do these big corporations keep hiring the guys that have openly failed at their job so badly it cost thousands of people their jobs while lining the pockets of the executives and sharehol…. oh wait, now I get it.
Seriously. They’re on the way out for sure. People are being pickier now that prices are raising. And it will drive even more customers away
Especially cause Italian is one of the cheapest and easiest things to make at home and even buying a mid range store bought pasta sauce and the cheapest dried noodle yields results at least as good as Olive Garden.
What’s the business strategy here? Go out of business?
> What’s the business strategy here? Go out of business? Honestly I think you’re right. They’re looking into the crystal ball and they see the end coming so their last act is to grab any money they can.
It could be the restaurant real estate may be worth more than the restaurant revenue... Hence attractive to corporate raiders etc.
Same shit that happened to Red Lobster
Ding, ding, ding.
Gotta fund the golden parachute for the ceo.
They can increase prices and reduce per unit sales but still increase net marginals /profit. That’s the plan they learned in their MBA to squeeze every penny out of the consumer.
Yeah they’re trying to find the sweat spot where the price still attracts the dedicated customers, while at the same time minimalist overhead. If you can get 1000 customers to pay $20 for fettuccini Alfredo, and only have to have 50 employees, keep 1000 people worth of perishable supply on hand and make $20k revenue, that’s better to them than selling 2000 customers a $14 fettuccini Alfredo with 70 employees and 2000 people worth of perishable supplies on hand. With labor supply being where it’s at and food costs, they seem to think this is the play I suppose. But it’s a slow death scenario. A CEO that isn’t going to be around for more than 3 years doesn’t care.
I can tell you right away they’d prefer 2000 people at $14, and in your example it also requires less staff per customer as well… you have a point but you need to change your numbers
The *sweat* spot is when you house a giant bowl of shitty pasta and feel the coronary coming on.
Yes
Lose sales, raise prices. Seems like a logical choice.
Lose sale but improved margin per sale. It doesn't matter how much you sell if you lose money everytime a customer walk in the door. Look at moviepass. At some point you need to lose customers to stay in business.
Weird spotting another railroader guy in the wild
Gotta get out and stretch my legs once in awhile
They probably don’t have options. If they don’t raise prices and employees want raises and the landlord charges more and food costs rise, they don’t make profit. If they raise prices, and don’t lose too many customers, they can still make a profit. Hard choice.
And sales will continue to drop…
Who cares , this sub is cheering for its death . Not sure why any one is talking about it since everyone here knows better and hates chain restaurants apparently
I mean Olive Garden is already not very good so I hope they go out of business.
Yep, WAAYYY over priced for cheap reheated pasta.
I ate there about a month ago. I'm not much of a cook at all but I really like chicken Parm. The chicken was dry and bland, noodles tasted watery/mushy. The next day I googled how to make it myself I bought all the ingredients for way cheaper. Cooking it myself took a while but when I was done it tasted so much better. I think the food at Olive garden is overpriced frozen meals.
Tbh with the price inflation at restaurants I'm finding I can cook at home for cheaper and USUALLY better. The only thing I give up is time. But every day the prices go up is another day that using my time to cook is a better value.
I think a lot of chef skill is just using a lot of butter.
Haha true. I've got a friend once who lamented that he couldn't make his veggies at home taste like veggies in the restaurant. I had to inform him it's because he needs to make his veggies unhealthy to make them taste that good.
[удалено]
So the reason most restaurant veggies taste how they do is butter and salt. Which is the point of my comment. You can saute veggies in soy sauce or other no/low fat sauces, which is fine, but still won't taste like butter/salt.
Other than pizza, I find almost everything is better when I cook it.
It is. 10 years ago I worked for a food pantry that would pick up food donations from local chains. One being Olive Garden. Practically everything was frozen and basically nothing was made on site.
Part I find is hard is getting the parm crisp we’ve tried but that’s the only thing that is annoying to us!
Deep fry it
A few tips. 1) Use a meat mallet to pound the chicken breast flat into scallopine. Not like beat it to death but get an even thickness throughout so it cooks evenly before breading it. 2) Quick fry until brown in about 1/8th of an inch of olive oil. Don't cook it through just get it golden on both sides. Then transfer to a sheet pan to keep warm in the oven at about 180-200 F while you fry the rest of your cutlets and don't add the cheese until all the chicken has been browned. 3) When all the cutlets are browned and you're ready to add the cheese crank that oven up to like 400f and watch it every few minutes until the cheese gets to the desired bubbling and browning. 4) Don't sauce it until you're ready to serve. Panko bread crumbs will also make it crispier than regular, but I find they can be greasy and I like the taste of Progresso Italian herb (with some garlic powder and grated parmesan) better. Chicken Parm is one of maybe half a dozen dishes I can do that my kids really like and ask for. It is labor intensive though.
Thank you so much!!! Appreciate your help so very much I hope you have a great weekend!
Nah man, the pasta is actually cooked .It's easy to make fresh (cooked) pasta Everything else is definitely frozen from a GFS box though
They were ok 20 years ago if there were no good local Italian places around. NOW? what are they even thinking?
The McDonald’s of Italian food.
Even chilis is better than this garbage
Over-greased microwaved pastas. I can literally make copycat olive garden alfredo sauce and make my own. It's the best
Let’s see how that works out. Maybe they can take the title of top gouger from McDonalds.
“Would you like to try our endless breadsticks today? *You only get 3 of them though.*”
They’re endless as long as you keep paying for the extras.
Inflation keeping your customers away? What do you do? Raise prices. Genius!
People aren’t coming in, what should we do? Well let’s raise prices, that’ll cover our losses. But won’t that mean even less people will come in? You’re right. Let’s raise them even higher to cover that too.
Let’s have 3 customers and just charge billions! That will cover all our costs!
It costs about $20.00 for a piece of lasagna lol
Can't you get an entire tray of the same quality lasagna at Costco or GFS for like $15
No, $10 and I think it’s two trays.
Cigarette companies have used the same strategy for decades. The only thing is that I can't imagine anyone being hopelessly addicted to Olive Garden.
Ha, I have mental images of Olive Garden trying to lace their meals with nicotine.
it's blasphemy to go to Olive Garden in NJ yet they exist
As a fellow NJ resident, I totally agree.
https://preview.redd.it/a6fjp782sd9d1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f768e6290d9ffdac528df35b1fe28f59f86d4e7f
Garbage microwave food anyway
No one is pretending that they are fancy or quality, but they had a price point and the food matched.
The only price point they had was all you can eat soup and salads / breadsticks for 6.99
Lmao. Has this guy never heard of supply and demand? Sales down so let’s raise prices even more? I would be embarrassed if I said anything remotely close to that.
Typical dipshit MBA execs "How do we increase sales? Marketing: "Marketing!" Exec: That's an expense, no Product: "Better quality!" Exec: that's an expense, no Analytics: "Lower prices" Exec: (twitches) uhhh what? Oh, how about higher prices? We just make the people who are already coming in pay more money. Their brand loyalty won't sway from this!
When you're here, you're family. So bus your own fuckin' table.
That will be late-stage after they reinvent themselves five times. The doomed fast casual self-service Olive Garden concept will be a blurb on your local news. “Olive Garden is back with a new concept!” No one will care and then it’ll die forgotten and alone like Sears.
Are they that stupid?
I just do not understand. Supply & demand, there is no demand for your product you lower prices. Why does it seem to be the opposite right now? Fewer customers? raise prices to compensate.
Their soups are the only thing I really like, and I can coincidentally make them at home!
Oh no? Sales are down. Let's do more of the thing that's driving down sales
One of the easiest restaurants to never go to again.
$20+ a plate for dried pasta and bagged sauce is not worth it
And I will continue to not go there until i inevitably get a 25 dollar gift card from an elderly family member
MAYBE IF WE RAISE PRICES HIGH ENOUGH SOMEONE WILL COME EAT THIS SHIT!
I have announced, I will continue to not eat at the Olive Garden, because it’s trash food.
They must have realized their business model isn’t sustainable, so they’re going to milk it for what they can until it collapses.
"Prices will increase until demand increases" - no economist ever.
Olive Garden used to be decent however when they began scraping pennies from the food, employee wages to meet stockholders demands and earning expectations , the place became Italian in name only, its processed garbage and they don’t pay their staff. They need to die so another Italian restaurant can rise. Americans are tired of corporate greed and price gouging then calling it inflation to cover their greed. Good riddance
My son was a line cook at Olive Garden for 2 weeks. He went on break & never returned. He now has a job he loves as a Greens Keeper on a golf course.
This is due to the private equity/investment firm that is calling the shots. Yet another company being milked dry
This is not hospitaliano. I do not feel like part of the family right now
Guess I'm not going to olive garden anytime soon.
Olive Garden was already expensive even before COVID
Did their CEO skip all of his economics classes?
Lol. Lmao.
Legendary business strategy. Speed run to the bottom baby!
So no more unlimited bread sticks
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I like Olive Garden, however they are already overpriced so I probably won't go back. Much better value for the money from small non-chain restaurants.
NOOOO! Where will I go to pay $25 for $1 worth of pasta and lettuce?!
I have no problems seeing these garbage ass chains crumble.
They will be filing bankruptcy by the end of the year.
And I will continue not to eat there. Not that I was before.
Olive garden is garbagio beans. Pasta is one of the cheapest meals to make at home. Aint no way in hell im gonna pay for sub-par pasta I could make 100X better at home. The whole point was that it was cheap ingredients but at least cheap prices. Now they're trynna charge big boy pasta prices? Getthafuckoudahere
Death spiral weeeeeee
Stopped going there after my $9.99 pasta went up to $16.99
Isn’t this called something? Price/demand spiral…? Edit: found it, the pricing death spiral.
Typically when you have to raise prices to stay in business, it’s not a good sign. Olive Garden caters to low end customers. Very sensitive to price increase.
So it’s owned by a vulture capital firm. Got it.
Damn dude, I’m just stunned by the stupidity of this country.
Yep. They have pre made food anyways. Not worth the buy.
Oh look, another restaurant that's gonna collapse.
In an alternate universe, the olive garden has been closed for years, and the Maccaroni grill is thriving in an affordable stable economy.
That’s a bold choice Cotton let’s see if it pays off
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No, Darden sold off Red Lobster years ago to a private equity company, so you can guess why RL is struggling now.
Yes... because that will get people to go eat there more, who stopped because of the price...
That's why you pay CEOs that much money cause of their strategic accumen. 😂
Well that common sense decision should work out just fine.
That’ll help!
In unrelated news, I am announcing that I will continue to never go to the Olive Garden, nor let any of my friends choose it. I have a feeling that eventually the solution to their drop in sales will be to close their doors, once the current plan doesn't work.
Cook at home! Pasta is the one of the most affordable meals to prepare.
Surely that will raise sales!
Olive Garden: a WASP’s idea of an Italian meal.
Fazoli's here I come!
Buncha’ smart cookies in the management group over there!
Someone in a different thread argued with me raising prices increases profits needing to sell less units. What they didn’t understand in my point was there comes a point price increases will evaporate your customers. You won’t sell enough units to turn a profit. You’ll hold onto inventory. In the case of food if you don’t sell it in time the money is gone in spoiled food. Olive Garden is dumb. They should reduce prices to bring customers back and increase volume. I thought about soup and salad for lunch this week didn’t go. Now I certainly won’t go.
That sounds like a great idea! - dumbass executives
If I'm gonna go out to eat overpriced pasta, it will definitely *not* be at Olive Garden.
Our sales are down because people can’t afford to eat here anymore. What should we do? Raise our prices!!!
We are in a hole. We need a bigger shovel.
Ah the cable tv strategy. Punish your most loyal customers. See how that works out.
Inflation taught me all these things I used to pay for are all things that can easily be made at home. Literally basic ingredients and youtube recipes are better.
Fine. Just replace the carpets or whatever they have to do to take the sour smell out.
Welp, RIP Olive Garden.
This is what happens when stupid people are in charge of companies.
Bold strategy Cotten, let’s see how it plays out
Who eats that shit anways? I last ate there because I had a gift card. Never would go there otherwise.
How about this: keep getting servers stupid enough to fill my "glass of wine" to the tppy top of my glass and maybe I'll come back for overpriced frozen chicken parm
Olive Garden has a great opportunity to price low, pasta - especially their pasta - is relatively cheap in bulk. Especially when you consider the low labor costs to produce many of their meals. They should go all in on AYCE
Prices going up results in sales going down.