Why you should NOT eat at
	The Olive Garden

When you're here, you're family.  The kind of family that we won't fucking leave alone until you buy some wine from us.

The Olive Garden website has a place for customer feedback.  I was going to write them a letter, but rather than spend more time on this (I do have a full-time job, ya know) I just sent them a copy of the first half of the rant you just read, up to the sentence "I mind places that hadn't been tacky, that don't have to be tacky, but choose to be."

The following was their response.  I deleted the name of the respondant, but everything else (including the spacing) is as it was received by me, using Pegasus Mail.

Subject: Olive Garden 278204c
Date sent: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 10:00:33 -0500

Thank you for letting us know how you feel about your visit to our
Waterloo
Olive
Garden.
 
As you know, Olive Garden offers guests a variety of items to complement
our
 
entree selections, including appetizers, desserts, and beverages. Our
wines
are
another alternative that reflects the spirit of the Italian dining
tradition.
 
However, they could have been offered to you in a way that might have been
inappropriate on that occasion. We can be enthusiastic about offering our
Principato wines as they are imported exclusively for us from vineyards in
Trentino, at the foothills of the Italian Alps. We are equally excited
to
offer our
guests freshly grated pecorino romano cheese from the Mediterranean
island
of
Sardinia.
 
Our goal is to offer our guests a selection of choices and we respect
yours.
We
also appreciate that you chose to dine with us and we hope you will
again.
Thank
you for sharing your thoughts.
 
 
Olive Garden Guest Relations

I'm not going to make any comments about their response, because that really wouldn't be fair.  I told you my opinion, and I showed you their response to it.  If you have any comments, email them to me, and I will add them to this page if you tell me it would be okay.