More Buffet Strategies: Olive Garden’s Never-Ending Pasta Bowl
Author: Nick
Category: Money
Topics: buffets, food, frugality
On the way home from a short road trip on Saturday with my wife, I had an intense craving for all-I-can-eat something. Seeing the sign for Exit 41A-B on Interstate 95 just south of Baltimore, I recalled there was an Olive Garden not far from the exit. After cutting across four lanes of traffic in less than three seconds, we arrived at the Garden and were promptly seated (30 minutes for an Olive Garden is prompt in my book). When our waiter appeared, we issued our orders for the holy grail of Italian buffets: the Never-Ending Pasta Bowl.
But by the end of the night, my wife and I would know this menu item by a different name—the Never-Ending Bowl of LIES.
A Journey of Noodly Anguish
For those of you unfamiliar with the way the Olive Garden Never-Ending Pasta Bowl works, here’s a quick rundown.
- A mere $8.95 per person gets you the following:
- Unlimited salad.
- Unlimited breadsticks.
- One large bowl of a pasta and sauce of your choice.
- Unlimited helpings of any other pasta and sauce in smaller bowls.
- For $1.95 more, you are entitled to “unlimited” meatballs and Italian sausage.
- For the late-Summer 2007 Never-Ending Pasta Bowl event, available pastas include:
- Penne
- Fettuccine
- Spaghetti
- Angel Hair
- Linguine
- Whole Wheat Linguine
- Orecchiette (looks like a nipple)
- Available sauces include:
- Sausage and Peppers Marinara
- Smoked Mozzarella Alfredo
- Marinara
- Five Cheese Marinara
- Alfredo
- Meat Sauce
- The Never-Ending Pasta Bowl is a limited-time offering, but it pops up once or twice a year and runs for a month or two. Be sure to call your nearby location or check the Olive Garden website before setting out for the restaurant.
So for $10.90 a person plus tax and tip, you seem to get a whole lot of food and quite a bit of variety—salad, bread, pasta, and meat.
Unfortunately for my fellow buffet champions and me, the Olive Garden stacks the deck against you. I bet this is one of the most profitable all-you-can-eat offers in the country, which explains why it keeps coming back again and again.
Sprinkling Sauce in Your Wounds: How I Lost to the Never-Ending Pasta Bowl
I will be the first to admit that I fell for the Olive Garden’s trap on this one. Despite following all of my usual all-you-can-eat buffet strategies, I still came up far short of eating my money’s worth; I had just one large and one small bowl.
After returning home and contemplating my horrendous failure for many hours in the bathroom, I discovered the secrets to the Olive Garden’s Never-Ending Bowl of Lies—secrets I will eventually use to defeat this buffet once and for all.
The Olive Garden has established an ingenious system of attracting buffet-loving customers and parting them from their money for little in return. Here’s how they do it in nine easy steps:
- They build a sense of anticipation and desire. As a limited-time but recurring offer, the Never-Ending Pasta Bowl is like the Olympic Games of low-cost buffets. The Olive Garden makes sure to bombard you with television commercials when the Bowl returns, once again triggering your dormant primal urges for unlimited pasta. The Bowl would not be nearly as successful if it were a permanent menu item. It’s a time of great joy for buffet fans—a veritable Hanukkah for pasta lovers.
- They price it cheap… but not too cheap. At just $8.95 for the Bowl and $1.95 more for the meat, you’re getting a fabulous deal, right? I mean, $8.95 is miles away from ten dollars, and you have $1.95 sitting in your couch right now. Seriously, if you can’t afford $11 for some never-ending Olive Garden goodness, you’re probably on welfare!
- The rest of their menu is overpriced. Around here, a bowl of Olive Garden spaghetti and meat sauce is $10. Ten freaking dollars and you don’t even get meatball one! For a dollar more, you can get the Never-Ending Pasta Bowl with its unlimited spaghetti and meat sauce and switch to a different dish on your next serving. The fettuccine alfredo has a menu price of $11! Seriously, if you order a plate of fettuccine alfredo at the Olive Garden during their Never-Ending Pasta Bowl events, you suck at math.
- The salad and breadsticks of evil. Like a judge’s gavel sentencing a guilty man to death, so does the bowl of salad and basket of breadsticks that comes with the Never-Ending Pasta Bowl as they land on your table. These two genuinely tasty items—especially to a man who skipped lunch and ate pizza for breakfast—will be the undoing of any buffet-goer on a mission to defeat the Bowl. Probably made for a grand total of 36 cents, the salad and breadsticks will cut your stomach capacity by as much as half.
- The first bowl. Your numero uno pasta and sauce selection comes in the same bowl used to serve most entrees at the Olive Garden. If you’re thinking of sampling all seven pastas and six sauces in one sitting, you may be out of luck; your Garden waiter won’t give you a second helping until you finish your first.
- One wrong move and you’re done. Some of the sauces on the Never-Ending Pasta Bowl menu are sub-par. Hitting just one of them can kill your appetite on the spot and derail your buffet train far from your destination. (The new Sausage and Peppers Marinara sauce was my downfall.)
- No easy victory for the carnivores. Those seeking to get their money’s worth by hopping on board the meat trolley are out of luck—you get one or two meat portions at most with each pasta dish. That means you’ll have to power through five helpings of fettuccine and penne just to get near a pound of meat.
- Service slower than chunky meat sauce. Ready for another bowl of pasta? You may have to wait for a while since you can’t even place an order for another plate until your current one is done. Olive Gardens are notoriously understaffed, and the extra attention required of table-served buffets means their workforce is stretched even thinner. The long waits between servings means you’ll be more tempted to fill up on leftover salad and breadsticks.
- The dessert menu of destruction. The buffet menu, detailing the available pasta and sauce choices, is printed on one side of a separate menu. What’s on the other side? That’s right—all of those luscious Olive Garden desserts. Just a quick glance at the other side of the menu and you’ll be tempted to save room for a plate of ridiculously overpriced tiramisu or gelato.
Hindsight Is 20 Bowls of Pasta: How to Get Your Money’s Worth Out of the Never-Ending Pasta Bowl
I may have gone down once against the Bowl, but I’ll be back… and with a buffet of knowledge to help me squeeze every last dime out of my eating experience. While my stomach continues its recovery, I’ll share with you what I’ve learned so you can fight the Olive Garden in the name of all buffet lovers everywhere. Here are some strategies for countering each of the clever tactics the Olive Garden uses to make sure you walk out after eating pennies on their dollar.
- Ignore the hype. Don’t let the TV ads push you into the Bowl challenge before you’re ready. Make sure you’ve had enough time to recover from your last buffet. If possible, wait until the Bowl event is three or four weeks in. Yes, you run the risk of the limited-time offer ending at any moment, but those extra weeks will give the wait and cooking staff more practice with the buffet system so your service is faster and your food is tastier.
- Don’t let the low cost fool you. If you go into the Olive Garden thinking you have an easy victory ahead, then you have already lost. That tiny price tag may seem simple to beat, but it’s going to take no less than five or six finished helpings to call yourself a Never-Ending Pasta Bowl champ.
- Don’t compare to menu prices. You might think you’ve eaten your money’s worth with just one bowl of fettuccine alfredo since the same dish has a regular menu price of $11. It probably costs the Olive Garden about a dollar for the ingredients. You could just buy some packages of alfredo pasta mixes in your grocery store for a couple of bucks. Be sure to use one of these more realistic measures as your buffet metrics baseline.
- No salad. No breadsticks. The salad fills you up with needless calories and nutrients. If we wanted healthy food, we wouldn’t be going to buffets in the first place! And breadsticks are just pasta in thicker, cheaper form. You’re best off asking your waiter to keep these items off your table. If he still brings them anyway, make sure your tip reflects your dissatisfaction. And if you must have a bit of salad with your pasta, bring lots of friends so the salad bowl is stretched across more people.
- Go for your favorite in the first round. Since it’s the biggest helping, you want to go for your favorite pasta and sauce combination right off the bat. If you have no particular favorite, you might want to go for a long, thin noodle like angel hair to start because you’ll expend less energy on chewing.
- Know your sauces. While variety is the spice of life, you don’t want to hit a sauce your palate doesn’t like. Find the sauce you love the most and stick with it. You’ll likely find that one of the alfredo sauces goes well with everything. Save the heavier marinara sauces for your later helpings (or skip them altogether).
- Don’t try to beat the meat. As tempting as it is to go for the $1.95 meatballs and sausages, you’re better off passing on them. Every ball and sausage you stuff in your mouth is another pasta bowl you’ll be too stuffed to eat—and fewer pasta bowls means less meat. Unless you’ve plowed through six or seven pasta bowls in the past, your chances of getting your money’s worth in meat is slim. That’s why it’s so cheap.
- Time your eating carefully. First and foremost, remember Tip #1 and come in later during the Never-Ending Pasta Bowl promotion so the staff has some practice with the faster pace of service. To help keep your eating momentum going, try to time the finishing of your current bowl with your waiter’s patrols through your dining area. Have your next order ready to save yourself and your waiter some time.
- BYO menu. Do not touch the Olive Garden menus your hostess hands to you. The back of that Never-Ending Pasta Bowl menu is especially dangerous with its pictures of tempting desserts. You’re best off printing or handwriting your own copy of the pasta and sauce menu and bringing it with you to the restaurant. Even better: write out your pasta line-up beforehand and save time when ordering.
Is the Never-Ending Pasta Bowl Worth Your Money?
I’m calling the Olive Garden out on its false advertising. That pasta bowl of theirs totally ended when I walked out of the restaurant. I came back the next day, sat at a table, and ordered my third bowl and they charged me another $8.95! It’s a Never-Ending Bowl of LIES, I tell ya!
In all seriousness, I’m confident I could tackle the Bowl with enough preparation and the above strategies; but because of the difficulty of eating your money’s worth on this one, I’d have to recommend taking your monstrous appetite elsewhere. If you’re set on tackling a noodly challenge, look for similar pasta buffets at local Italian joints. Even at higher prices, you might get a wider variety of pastas, better sauces, and faster seating and service than you will from the Olive Garden and its Never-Ending Pasta Bowl.
See also: Eat Your Money’s Worth At Any All-You-Can-Eat Buffet
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33 Responses »
1.
Millionster
September 26th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
ROFLMAO. This post was brilliant. I’m still laughing…
2.
Kristofer
September 28th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
They’re crafty aren’t they?
3.
shadox
September 30th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
That’s a funny one.
I must admit I have seen these commercials many times, and everytime I ask myself who on earth could possibly eat more than on of those ginormous pasta bowls. I guess you would be that person… I can’t even get through one of those bowls, and to be honest, the quality of that pasta doesn’t really incentivize you to eat more…
Anyway, watch your waist line.
4.
leslie
October 4th, 2007 at 10:58 am
my firend and i went to olive garden in oceanside, california for the pasta bowls. we were seated immediately. we started with the tuscan soup which was excellent - we would have had the seconds he offered if the pasta wasn’t all you could eat. the waiter was great - we said we wanted to share our pasta bowls so he brought us extra plates. we had the sausage and peppers sauce and the smoked mozzarella alfredo sauces - both were excellent - to begin with. i liked the alfredo so much, i didn’t finish all of the sausage and peppers pasta but did eat most of the sauce. he brought us more alfredo whick we devoured. when we ate all we could, i asked him for more sausage and peppers sauce and a ‘to-go- box for the remainer of my first pasta - i had that plus the left over breadsticks for my lunch the next day. we left feeling very full and satisfied. now i’m trying to find the recipe for the alfredo sauce. any suggestions? leslie in vista, ca
5.
Nick
October 4th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
leslie, a quick Google search turned up plenty of recipes claiming to replicate the awesomeness of Olive Garden’s alfredo sauce. I looked over several of them and found this one which seems to be the best match for the smoked variety:
http://www.mealsmatter.org/recipes-meals/recipe/16382
6.
rstlne
October 5th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
I don’t think I can do their Neverending Pasta Bowl. Even Tour of Italy was almost too much for me!
7.
brodee
October 22nd, 2007 at 3:06 pm
omg thats some funny stuff
8.
WickermanXXX
February 13th, 2008 at 9:05 am
Absolutely hilarious. Adding humor to a post always works for me. I usually get bored reading a page and move on quickly but your post had me gripped - thanks
9.
FrequentEater
February 20th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
What I usually do is order my second bowl as soon as the first one comes, this eliminates the need to finish that first bowl. Each time the server comes with a new bowl, the next round is ordered. I usually end up taking home more pasta than I have eaten.
This site is great!
10.
Sean
February 27th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
We first as an employee of Olive Garden I tell you that the Never-ending pasta bowl definately works in Olive Garden’s favor because most people only get one or two refills. Somethings I think that most people don’t know is that you can mix sauces, and get extra meat. You can ask the server for just a side of meat, without the bowl of pasta! Olive Garden’s plan for pasta bowl is to have the refill out to the table within two minutes of when the server rings it in. Some times this works but most of the time you will get in about 3 to 4 depending on how busy the restuarant is. The menus that the pasta bowl is on are on every single table everytime you sit down but when the pasta bowl is not on they put apps and bar drinks on it in order to give you something else to order. Pasta is dirt cheap even if you eat a lot of bowls you can almost never make up the price. The reason that pasta bowl is expensive to pay for the sauces and employees. Alfredo is only sauce that Olive Garden charges for because it is fresh. Alfredo is not kept overnight. It is made about 6 to 8 times day. Just remember that with pasta bowl that if you eat a lot of bread and salad or soup you won’t have a lot of room for pasta. Also in order to eat more, go for short pasta; penne, ziti, orrechiete, shells.
11.
Kim
February 28th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
You all should WORK at an olive garden and serve your cheap, lazy, fat, gluttonous, disgusting selves and see how “funny” you think it is then. You have the nerve to sit at our tables for twice as long as the average tale, gorging yourselves on pasta and our low-quality crap, have the gall ask to split this already obscenely cheap meal (no chance in HELL I would do this for you, were you my table, it’s against official Darden policy anyways, as is taking home uneaten leftovers), then after the table has sat there for two hours, leaves a ghastly $3 tip for all the extra work you put in, which means you made a whopping $2.90 that hour, since we only get paid a server’s minimum wages of around $2.80 an hour in the USA.
That server that was so “nice” to you? Believe me, he hated your guts and thought you were some of the cheapest losers he’d ever served, and made sure to tell all the other servers about you. TRUST ME on this one. Every server who pretends to be sweet, helpful, and kind, is back in the kitchen two seconds later telling fellow servers how much you suck.
And the reason refills take so damn long? It’s not due to understaffing, OGs are rarely understaffed; it’s due to a) what you mentioned before–the “buffet crowd” comes in for never-ending-pasta-bowels and expects a lot more than the average table, expecting the server to run around like a maniac for their damn refills and b) let’s do some math. Pretend an OG restaurant holds about 180 customers when all the tables are sat. That generally means about 170 meals going back in the kitchen from each round of tables. But with NEPB, when there’s 180 customers, there’s maybe DOUBLE that amount in the period of time one round of tables goes through the restaurant. That equals angry, frustrated, overwhelmed line cooks who end up saying “screw it” mid-shift and just letting tickets take as long as they please. Consider what’s going on in the kitchen while you pound your knife and fork, already covered with three other kinds of previously sampled sauce.
And perhaps think about the utter JUNK you are putting in your stomach when you eat the NEPB at the OG. It’s really trash; the USDA claims it’s better to eat plastic six-pack rings.
12.
Cape Coral
April 29th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
We use the Olive Garden unlimited special also as a chance to have unlimited Alfredo sauce to dip our bread in. Usually you pay $3.00 or more per small, shallow “bowl”. If you include the three dollars per Alfredo sauce refill, it can add up:-)
13.
Tony the Cook
May 8th, 2008 at 6:48 am
The last pasta house that I worked at had a sign over the door going into the dining room from the kitchen that read: PASTA IS CHEAP. That is why you usually get a large amount, even w/ today’s food costs. Buy a pound of pasta and 2 cans of cheap sauce. Cook it up and portion it out, you’ll be shocked at your actual per plate price.
14.
Server Nat
July 9th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
As a server during pasta bowl I can tell you that while you may think it’s cute to come in and eat as much as quickly as possible. It’s really not. We will try and accommodate you but realistically we have numerous other tables full of people doing the same thing. We also have tables of people buying real entrees and the cooks have to make their food as well. At times because of the demand we run out of a certain type of noodle or sauce for a few moments till they can cook more. That also delays the refill process. And at times the meatballs or sausages are out and we have to wait for them to cook. Never ending pasta bowl is not meant to be a buffet. It is meant to bring in people that haven’t tried the olive garden and let them try what we have to offer in hopes they will return after the promotion.
And because the meal is cheap doesn’t mean you can tip your server cheaply. He or she ran more for you than a table with a 20 dollar entree with all your refills. Most servers quit during pasta bowl because of the rude customers and bad tips. Just something to be aware of when you return.
15.
Jeff
July 17th, 2008 at 11:24 am
It’s nice to know that there are others who feel cheated by these “never ending” deals.
Hilarious.
16.
Arvind Ranganath
August 14th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Funny as usual!
Keep up the “Fight”!
17.
Laura
August 20th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
As a server during the NEPB 2008, I’ve got to say that most of the people who have ordered this have been mildly obese to obese. I can’t believe people would stuff their faces with this cheap junk when there is more high quality food on the menu for just as much money that will fill you up. We servers call the NEPB people suckers.
18.
Obbop
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Am I a racist or a bigot or a xenophobe or “full of hate” or any of those labels the politically correct brainwashed buffoons bandy about by hereby proclaiming I have never entered an Olive Garden food joint and that I do not care for the majority of food that is labeled “Italian”?
Guess I am more of a meat and taters hombre thus, when I was dining at the all-thou-can-eateth scarf-n-barfs I was pigging out at Golden Corral or Country Buffet or some Chinese food buffet.
Sadly, now that this crotchety old coot is entering his twilight years (Sniff, over 50) the body will not tolerate the imbibing of prodigal portions as in days of yore when observers would moan in disgust or wheeze in envy at the copious calories Coot could pack away.
Health considerations also require a cutting back of food intake amounts.
Life is still worth living but the quality thereof, being unable to stoke the carbon-oxygen furnace, which is what our bodies are, with platters piled high of yummy comestibles has reduced that quality.
However, perhaps the amount reduced entering my bacter-laden gut, will allow another human to consume more than that needed to allow bare survival.
Any homeless hungry folks, ensure you check out the dumpsters in the scarfing establishments I visit at times (not as much as in the past before my last ‘real’ job wandered overseas so as to allow America’s already-wealthy to amass even more wealth…. such being the holy “American Way.”
Burp.
19.
ren
September 9th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
actually when your order fettucine alfredo or spaghetti and meat sauce, it costs the same as the pasta bowl. they don’t change the price on the regular menu. it would be a waste of time and money to make new menus just for the pasta bowl promotion.
20.
Olive Garden Bartender
September 11th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
It seems really absurd that you leave the olive garden ready to explode because your fat self ate too much, and your upset because you couldn’t fit anymore in your size 50+ waist. Did the server insist that you have that third basket of bread-sticks or the refill on your salad? Of course not, you ordered it A-hole, so STFU and be pleased that someone makes your fat self feel comfortable with ordering 8000 calories! Perhaps, instead of spending $15 on all you can eat pasta, why don’t you spend some dollars on a gym membership and driving classes. If your swerving across lanes of traffic just to stuff your face, you should rethink your life before you either crash into an innocent or die of a heart attack.
21.
OG Servers2
October 9th, 2008 at 1:53 am
OK, how fat, cheap, lazy, and disgusting are you? Your mad because your freaking server brings you salad and bread and because the first serving of pasta was to big?!!! Do you understand that they dont want to bring your fat ass that stupid bowl of salald, its our job. If you want to cut out the only reasonably healthy item in your disgusting order than tell your server, idiot. I guarantee they will be more than happy to leave the salad refills behind, no one told you to eat an ungodly amount of salad and bread to begin with. Do you realize that one serving of pasta is equal to the amount of calories you are supposed to have in one whole day? You are a freakin fat ass that your sever and all the other people working there are laughing about behind your back. I have almost puked because of the glutteny of a table, its discusting. Humans are not meant to eat that much. So go ahead and spend your time plotting on the internet how to shove as much food down your disgusting throat you can in an hour. Go ahead and tip your poor over worked server $3 for their dedicated work, it doesnt matter that she doesnt get paid anything an hour and works off tips. Its ok, cause from the moment you sat down and ordered your nasty pasta bowl order, obviously planning to get all the calories out of that 8.95 that you could, that server knew you were a cheap ass, white trash asshole to begin with. As nice as they may have acted… i promise you they hated you from the beginning anyway. So though your trashy ass acts like its to good for the NEPB i promise i will see you next August when the deal happens again, no doubt you fat ass.
22.
Maderchod
October 10th, 2008 at 12:50 am
You NEPB servers are dumbasses for taking these kind of jobs. “Those A-holes were rude to me and left me $hit tips!”
I’m a skinny mofo when I enter the halls of OG, and I’ll be damned if I don’t get my money’s worth. I give good tip so don’t underestimate your customers because sometimes they’ll return kindly. Otherwise, GTFO of OG!
I worked in retail while in college and hated it. I didn’t work in service industry because its worst. Pick a job that you’ll hate least and you’ll be happier off. Jesus christ.
23.
Eridani
October 13th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Well, at least you understand the idea of your server being ’stretched thin’ during buffet-at-the-table meals. We HATE the NEPB AND the bastards who order it. Sorry, but it’s true. We know we wont make much money off of you unless we can sell dessert and some alcohol, and even then, your bill might not be as high as our table that ordered ‘real’ food (what we call any meal off the menu that isn’t NEPB or the even more hellish Soup, Salad and Breadsticks).
Here are some tips, though. Ask for the refill size first. They’ll do it. Skip salad and soup, but get the bread. I mean, come on…the bread freakin’ rocks and it’s good with the sauce. If you’re going to be a fatty, might as well go all out, right?
You are allowed to box the first one up before you eat it. Do that and get refills. You can’t box up any of the refills you haven’t eaten at least half of, though, but you DON’T have to finish in order to get a new one!! Who told you that? They were lying. If you don’t like it, or are ready for more only half way, the only people you’re hurting are all of the people who are starving and wish they could eat that pasta bowl you turned your greedy nose up at…
24.
Saz
October 21st, 2008 at 6:23 pm
haha, That was hilarious. and it is more hilarous reading all the servers (or ex-servers) from O.G having a whinge!
25.
Max
December 2nd, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Geeze, the servers need to relax a little, the blog was clearly written with tongue in cheek, if it bothers you that much, get a job at a real restaraunt instead of a glorified fast food joint. I’m reminded of a joke from Conan O’Brien from several years ago, in the future, a virus will turn half the human population into flesh eating zombies. When all the flesh is gone, they will eat dirt. When the dirt is gone, they will…reluctantly eat at the Olive Garden
I’ve only been to OG twice, once with a group of friends, I only drank, and once on a date, I ate 3 or 4 bites, and left the rest on the table, that is some bland Italian food.
But the servers on this board have inspired me, perhaps I will venture out there this weekend, I have a shiny new quarter burning a hole in my pocket, and it will be some lucky servers tip. I don’t care how they talk about me in the back, but they best be sporting a convincing looking smile when in my presence, or that quarter is going home with me. Oh, and if it’s a femal server, I’ll make sure I hit on her, I know how much they appreciate that.
26.
Free fiction ebooks
June 28th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Wow, i felt really hungry when i read your post.. :9
Want some pasta..
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