Surprise: Olive Garden is getting its groove back - my dish olive garden darden restaurants

More than a year ago, the criticism of the Olive Garden was as fast and stable as all the people. you-can-
Eat bread sticks in the restaurant.
In the face of a downturn or decline in sales at the Italian leisure chain, a radical investor Starboard Value is nearly 300
The pageporthe provides everything it thinks for the Ailin Olive Garden and its parent company, Darton restaurant: It's not cooking pasta in salt water.
In terms of distributing salads and bread sticks, servers have done too much, thus unnecessarily increasing the cost of food.
Themenu has expanded to 96 items to confuse customers who see more closely --
Edit the selection of competitors such as Romano' sMacaroni BBQ.
This does not help because the general catering industry is facing fast-
Casual chain stores such as noodles and noodles
And Panera Bread for the same price.
Starboard proposed a sell-off on Darden's entire board of directors, and despite the opposition of the company's leaders, investors chose to install 12 itscandidates in their last vote.
Not long ago, dareclarence Otis, Darton's chief executive, announced his resignation because investors questioned his decision to sell the struggling Red Lobster chain.
This gives the company a new leadership team.
Now, the changes that the new manager is implementing seem to actually help turn the business around.
Darden reported on Friday that Olive Garden restaurant sales rose 1% in the quarter, the fifth consecutive quarter of sales growth.
Profits at the Olive Garden increased by 12%, which executives said was due to an increase in total sales and costs.
Cutting measures. (
Cheap seafood prices also work, they say. )
Dunton, which also owns the Long Horn Steak House and Capital Grille, has seen a sharp increase in revenue guidance this year, believing that its flagship brand has a momentum of continuous improvement.
After an optimistic outlook and a better outlook, investors have raised stocks by more than seven percentage points. than-
Expected earnings results.
Among these improvements, Olive Garden has been investing in expanding its promotion business called "OG to go" to better compete with fast
Provide leisure chain stores for hurried diners.
Carry-over sales increased by 17% compared to the same period last year.
Ceo Gene Lee also said that the company is seriously considering how to do a bigger express delivery business, moving to a more powerful place than a bunch of services such as postal services that it currently uses to market food in certain local markets.
"We believe there will be some big change in the third phase --
Li said in a conference call with investors that he quoted companies such as Uber and Google who were involved in the field.
"There are a lot of people playing in this environment today and we are looking for partners that we think will be clear winners.
"The Olive Garden has also succeeded in finding cheap ways to decorate the restaurant, which in turn reduces moresales.
Of its 844 restaurants, about 40 have only renovated the bar area, which is less expensive than the new design of the entire restaurant.
Executives found that this made the bar area more efficient on busy nights, with sales up 1% in restaurants already implemented.
The addition of the tablet seems to be helping the Olive Garden.
The chain is now six or seven minutes faster than before, which means it can squeeze into more customers. (
More diners may be happy to leave if they don't need to wait to pay the bill. )
It seems that Li plans to carry out more reforms to the Olive Garden.
"I believe our menus, processes and procedures have become too complicated over time," Lee told investors on Friday . ".
He hinted that the menu could be cut and that the company would develop recipes that could be easily prepared.
At a time when many retailers at least partially attribute the sales downturn to consumers' cautious attitude, leesemed is more optimistic about the willingness of diners to consume.
Customers are buying appetizers and desserts.
If they are cash, they may skip the foodstrapped —
He said they bought "high prices"
"Not only is it the cheapest dish on the menu, but it's great value.
For example, in the Olive Garden, he said about 50% of the people who ordered $9.
99 customizable Cucina Mia pasta options to add meat to the dish, up to $12. 99.
This may indicate that diners simply order something that sounds delicious to them, rather than just focusing on the price.
Despite the recent success of the Olive Garden, it still encountered some stumbling blocks this quarter.
It has tried a different strategy to market its annual "Never Ending Pasta Bowl" promotion where diners can pay for all the pasta they can eat
Li said that this method is not effective and is likely to lead to ups and downs in restaurant traffic throughout the quarter.