Restaurant Reviews: Olive Garden's Never Ending Pasta Pass

by William Mortensen Vaughan

At approximately noon Pacific Standard Time (3 p.m. Eastern), on Monday, September 8, 2014, the Olive Garden restaurant chain offered one thousand Never Ending Pasta Passes for sale via the Internet, for one hundred U.S. dollars apiece.  So many people attempted to buy them that the web traffic shut the site down before the sale started.  Fortunately, I persisted in attempting to load and re-load the site's webpages until I was able to purchase two of these passes, so our founding Editor-in-Chief (Libertad Green) and I were able to take advantage of this unique offer.

The Never Ending Pasta Passes ended (or expired) on November 9, 2014, having gone into effect on September 22, so they

Jennifer Pendergraft

were valid for forty-nine days.


A few days before the Pasta Passes became valid, they arrived via "snail mail."  The size of credit or gift cards, they worked like a gift card.  Managers at Olive Garden restaurants would swipe them, and a one hundred per cent discount for any included items would be removed from our bill.  Such items included Coca-Cola beverages (including Minute Maid limeade), bread sticks, soup or salad, and, of course, pasta.  However, it did not include meat, such as Italian sausage, meat balls, chicken, or shrimp, added to the pasta sauce.  It also did not include alcoholic beverages or desserts.  Although it included soup or salad, Libertad and I obviated this technicality by using two passes, so she could order all the soup or salad she wanted, and I could order all of the salad or soup that I wanted, and we could share...

The salad and dressing were always the same:  lettuce with tomato, onion, black olives, croutons, and light green chili peppers, with their Italian dressing, sprinkled with grated Romano cheese, if we so desired.  There were several soups, however:  chicken and gnocchi (dumpling); fagioli (bean); minestrone (vegetable soup); and our favorite, zuppa toscana (Tuscan soup).

minestrone

Pasta included spaghetti, cavatappi (cork screw), fettuccine

shrimp cavatappi

(little ribbons), capellini (capelli d'angelo, angel hair), whole wheat linguine (little tongues/flat strands), and rotini.  These pastas could be topped with meat, marinara, Alfredo, or five cheese sauce, at no extra charge.  Other meats could be added for a dollar or so.

There were glitches.  One time, one of our waitresses took only one of our Passes, and charged us for a soup.  I tipped her less than a dollar, so she "ate" the soup, so to speak, and "fed it to the house," so to speak.  Another waitress brought me a strawberry lemonade, which I didn't order, which I assumed was included among the Coca-Cola beverages.  Again, I took the additional charge out of the tip.

On the other hand, none of the Olive Garden I went to charged me for my bottomless peach bellinis (little beauties).  I also discovered that an Italian margarita is simply a margarita with a shot of almond liqueur, such as Disarrono or Amaretto.

Libertad Green, Halloween 2014

On several occasions, such as Halloween, Libertad and I dressed up and ate in.  Usually, we got it to go twice a day.  Whether through Caller I.D. or voice recognition, the to-go-order specialists at our nearest Olive Garden could usually tell it was me when I called, and had a good idea what I wanted:  Spaghetti with meat sauce, a salad, a  bowl of Tuscan soup, bread sticks, and two Coca-Colas, for Libertad.  We probably could have gone to more than one Olive Garden in the same day, and had three or more such orders to go; we didn't do that.  It wasn't long before Libertad couldn't take any more pasta.  Every so often, she would go to a burger joint to get a hamburger or an order of fries, even though Olive Garden offers fries, but not covered by our Never Ending Pasta Passes.

During these forty-nine days, Libertad and I went to six Olive Gardens:  the ones in Arcadia, Burbank, Palmdale, Culver City, Glendale, and Valencia.  Here is how they compare:

Arcadia has the only two-story Olive Garden we've ever seen or heard of.  We ate upstairs, and it was a unique experience.  Juan took great care of us.

Arcadia

Burbank had bread sticks which were not burnt, but more well baked than we prefer.  We prefer them almost raw.

Culver City's Olive Garden is in the Westfield Mall, across the hall from Lucille's.  We're going to Lucille's next time!

Glendale's Olive Garden is located in a modern, glass palace; it has the coziest, and, at least when I was there, quietest bar.

Palmdale's Olive Garden was like a home away from home.  My best recommendation for them is to invest in beepers for their customers who are willing to wait fifteen to forty-five minutes or more for a table.  (Tables near the bar are first come, first served, seat yourself.)  Another suggestion would be to invest in their old, disposable glasses; the to-go caps don't fit well on their new ones, without the logo.

Valencia has the prettiest garden, with large fountains, rock ponds, and park benches.  

brownie

chocolate mousse cake

Italian margarita

five-cheese cavatappi

peach bellini

Reviews by William Mortensen Vaughan
Photograph of Libertad Green by William Mortensen Vaughan
Photograph of Jennifer Penderfgraft courtesy of Jennifer Pendergraft
All other photography by Libertad Green