NEW YORK (AP) – Olive Garden is hurting itself by piling on too many breadsticks, according to an investor that’s disputing how the restaurant chain is run.
In a wide-ranging critique, the hedge fund Starboard Value says Olive Garden restaurants lack training and discipline and that servers bring too many breadsticks to tables at a time. That leads to waste – and cold breadsticks, Starboard says.
The investor notes that the official policy is to provide one breadstick per customer, plus an extra for the table, but that servers don’t stick to that.
The document is part of Starboard’s push to take control of the board of Olive Garden’s parent company, Darden Restaurants Inc. Darden, based in Orlando, Florida, has come under fire for failing to fix an ongoing sales decline at Olive Garden despite a revamped menu and marketing. In the latest quarter, Olive Garden’s sales fell 1.3 percent at established locations.
Darden said in a statement that its “Olive Garden Brand Renaissance” is already underway. It said it will review Starboard’s plan, but noted that “upon initial review, we believe many of the brand and cost optimization strategies are already being implemented across our company and are showing results.”