If you were around back then, you can vouch for that statistic. But has The Olive Garden listed as one of the most popular restaurants of the ‘80s. It wasn’t the first non-fast food chain restaurant, Chi-Chi’s had come along a bit earlier, opening in 1975. Soon we had one in Indianapolis, and anytime we felt nostalgic for Orlando, that’s where we’d go for an afternoon lunch. Most chain restaurants up to the early ‘80s were fast food, so the idea of something like an upper-class “authentic” Italian restaurant coming to a town near you seemed exciting – almost too good to be true, but that’s what we heard was happening not long after a trip to the location in Orlando. The commercials were aimed squarely at your mother and had a sheen that you might find in most jewelry commercials. If you grew up in the ‘80s, you may remember this buzz. A meal with never-ending breadsticks, something that my parents appreciated with four daughters in tow, three of whom were teenagers at the time. When we got home to our small Indiana town, we didn’t just tell people about the belly dancers at Busch Gardens and the Main Street Electrical parade at the Magic Kingdom, we also told them about the fancy new Italian restaurant where we went to eat a meal. (Without the Internet, it was sometimes hard to catch the things you wanted to do.) Something almost as exciting as the theme parks we came to visit. The place was once a stop-off for my family, a must-see during a summer vacation, something to catch after swinging by the empty parking lot at Gatorland. They need the approval of the masses and The Olive Garden had it. The critical response was more like a whimper, but chain restaurants don’t really need critical success. In December of 1982, the now ubiquitous chain of Italian eateries opened with a financial bang, (under the name “The Green Frog” initially) a near instant success with diners. Its tourist-friendly status ensures at any point in time, an eclectic mix of visitors reaching across all different demographics will be in town, thus making it an ideal spot to test the waters for any new business. It’s hard to think of a time when this restaurant was a tourist draw, but I’m telling you, it was.Īfter all, Orlando is the perfect test town. Back then it was another attraction to mark off our list. It changes color when you put it in cold water (a trend in ‘80s toys) and I remembered soaking it in a fountain while waiting to be seated at the The Olive Garden in Orlando sometime in the early ‘80s. I had almost completely forgotten about this connection until I came across a little stuffed animal of a fish, bought for me as a child by my parents in Orlando. But once upon a time, it had an exotic appeal that could’ve only been born in the land of a thousand theme parks. It’s like eating in the private kitchen of a delightful Italian stereotype.” Now it’s just another in a slew of what feels like a billion chain restaurants. As the short running show, “Clone High” once put it, “Perhaps The Olive Garden. I’m talking about the glory that once was The Olive Garden. A restaurant that once held a mythical status similar to that of an attraction, one created and tested in Orlando, and one that surely picked up attributes from the theme park town where its parent company decided to launch their creation. This month’s Retro Orlando isn’t exactly about an attraction.
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