Olive Garden is committed to its purpose of Hospitaliano! – providing 100 percent guest delight through a genuine Italian dining experience. This passion is continuing to advance Olive Garden's leadership position in the highly competitive, full-service Italian segment of the casual dining industry.
Background
Founded in 1982, Olive Garden is owned by Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI), the world's largest company-owned and operated full-service restaurant company. With more than 730 restaurants, more than 86,000 employees and more than $3 billion in annual sales, Olive Garden is the leading restaurant in the Italian casual dining segment.
Guest Experience
At Olive Garden, "When you're here, you're family," is more than a tagline. Embracing the hospitality Italy is known for, Olive Garden team members have a passion for genuinely connecting with guests at the restaurants. We delight more than 3.3 million guests every week with fresh, simple and delicious food, award-winning wine and beverage lists and friendly service in a comfortable, home-like setting.
Employee Culture
Olive Garden attributes much of its success to its continued training and development of restaurant team members with programs that reward and recognize high performance, such as weeklong cultural immersion trips to Italy and wine education training for select team members.
Awards
Olive Garden's award-winning food, beverage and training teams have garnered national recognition for their innovation, program execution and industry leadership from top trade publications and food service organizations.
Financials
Sales of $3.32 billion in FY10
Average annual sales of $4.7 million per restaurant
Executive Management
John Caron, President
Dan Kiernan, Executive Vice President of Operations
John Hatton, Executive Vice President of Marketing