C. A. BridgesUSA TODAY NETWORK - Florida
Get out your pasta-eating pants. Olive Garden is bringing back its wildly popular Never-Ending Pasta Bowl. And loyal OG fans can get an extra week.
The promotion, in which you can order a bowl of pasta and keep getting refills until the place closes or loved ones intervene, starts Monday, Sept. 25 and runs through Sunday, Nov. 19.
But this year Olive Garden announced that their eClub members who joined before Sept. 16 can get a jump on carb-loading with an extra week, starting Monday, Sept. 18.
Hungry? Here's what you need to know.
What is the Olive Garden Never-Ending Pasta Bowl?
Imagine sitting down in an Italian restaurant and ordering a nice bowl of pasta. As you slurp up the last noodles, your server asks if you'd like a refill. On your entree.
This will keep happening until you tap out.
Olive Garden's Never-Ending Pasta Bowl, which started in 1995 and has come and gone periodically since then, offers a variety of pastas with different toppings with optional add-ons for an extra charge. Drinks not included.
How much does the Olive Garden Never-Ending Pasta Bowl cost?
Servings from the unlimited pasta combos menu start at $13.99. For an additional $4.99, you can add meatballs, Italian sausage or crispy chicken fritta.
What comes on the Olive Garden Never-Ending Pasta Bowl?
You get your choice of angel hair, fettuccine, rigatoni, or spaghetti, and you can choose from "made-from-scratch Creamy Mushroom, Traditional Marinara, Five Cheese Marinara, Traditional Meat Sauce, and Alfredo."You also can choose to add meatballs, Italian sausage or chicken fritta for an extra charge.
That works out to 80 different possible combinations, and you can switch it up for your refills.
And you still get unlimited soup or salad and breadsticks, because you're family.
Is this the same thing as the Olive Garden Lifetime Pasta Pass?
No. In 2019, Olive Garden increased the number of available Never-Ending passes because they kept selling out in seconds and added 50 Lifetime Pasta Pass upcharges for an additional $400, which also sold out instantly.
This year no pass is involved, anyone can order off the unlimited pasta menu and eClub members get to start filling their plates Monday, Sept. 18.
Is the Olive Garden Never-Ending Pasta Bowl worth the money?
That depends on how much pasta you can eat in 9 weeks.
The unlimited menu is only good for in-restaurant dining, not takeout, so you're limited to what you can get down your gullet right there in the booth, with maybe some left to take home.
Experts say to pace yourself, get the salad instead of the soup, go easy on the breadsticks, and make sure to order a refill right when you're finishing up to get boxed up for another meal at home.
But for the real insider tips, talk to an insider. In a TikTok video posted in July, @authorofmanymuses gives her own expert advice: don't start with the heavy sauce, skip the sodas (bubbles fill you up), and order half-size refill portions right out of the gate.
"The first portion is a full-sized dinner portion of whatever pasta and sauce that you order," she explains. "Every subsequent refill is going to be the small bowl with, you know, a refill portion."
Instead, ask for a refill size as your first portion. "That way you don't fill up as fast and you can maybe even get a chance to try the two or three or four different varieties before you fill up," she said. The seven-year veteran of Olive Garden admitted it's been a while since she worked there, but said the refill-portion button for servers is "probably still available."
And start off with the red sauce, save the heavier cream sauces for later dishes. "That way you don't get too full too fast," she said.
In 2018, Jeff Berman of Inverness hit up Olive Garden two to three times a day for eight weeks, scarfing down 140 meals in 56 days and reportedly saving $2,164,89. He also said he ended up losing two pounds, but your mileage may vary.
Don't worry, Olive Garden isn't losing money. It's arguably their most successful promotion and nearly impossible for a human being to eat enough stomach-filling pasta to make it unprofitable. But please tip your hard-working server.
Where did Olive Garden start? How many Olive Garden locations are in Florida?
Olive Garden is a home-grown treat that started in Orlando in 1982, but it didn't grow from a mom-and-pop spot. General Mills started the home of endless breadsticks off with a chain in mind. The company later spun off its restaurants — Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Bahama Breeze, Seasons 52, Yard House, Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen, Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Eddie V's and The Capital Grille, and, at the time, Red Lobster — into a new company, Darden Restaurants, also based in Orlando.
Olive Garden is now the largest chain of Italian-themed full-service restaurants in the United States with locations all over the country. According to statistics site ScrapeHero, there are currently 154 Olive Garden locations in Florida.
Editor's note: Olive Garden is not offering the pass this year. Anyone may order from the unlimited menu.
