The first Olive Garden restaurant was introduced by General Mills in 1982, where they served Italian-American cuisine. By 1989 it evolved into a chain of 145 restaurants, which made it one of the most successful units of their restaurant holdings. The company’s credo is that every one of their chefs and managers should at one point immerse into the Italian culture, and for that they have established their special Culinary Institute of Tuscany, which is located right in Italy in a little village of Tuscany. For more detailed information please read the article.

Olive Garden is a restaurant chain that was introduced by General Mills, an American corporation mainly working with food products, in 1982. Seven years later it grew up by 145 restaurants, which turned it into one of the quickest-growing General Mills’ units, catching up with Red Lobster’s sales. Olive Garden restaurant chain specializes in Italian-American cuisine and is now leading in Italian-themed restaurants’ market. Their menu can offer you various kinds of pasta dishes, salads, soups, and their famous breadsticks, which they center their lunch menus around.
Later in 1995 General Mills made a decision to establish an independent company for its restaurant holdings and named it Darden Restaurants. Out of all its units Olive Garden restaurants are the most budget-oriented: in 2009 their average check per one person amounted to 15 dollars, while at their closest sibling Capital Grille it was equal to more than 90 dollars. Their other brands include Red Lobster and LongHorn Steakhouse.

Olive Garden Italian restaurant say they believe that to become a passionate in Italian cooking one cannot just do that in the classroom or kitchen. For this reason they created Olive Garden’s Culinary Institute of Tuscany, located in a little village of Tuscany of the eleventh century, so that their chefs could truly immerse into the entourage of Italy: smells, sounds, sights, and tastes. That’s how they believe their staff should go about their work and that’s probably what guaranteed them that huge success they have had for all these years.