Are Olive Garden's Breadsticks Truly Unlimited?

In this economy, endless food at any restaurant sounds like a dream. But at Olive Garden? Olive Garden's got a lot of good stuff going on for it, from its tasty desserts to its main entrees with sizable portions, but we're here today to talk about the fact that this chain can still offer unlimited breadsticks when other restaurants have long since phased out any freebies, bonuses, and unlimited options they once offered. 

The way the unlimited breadsticks work is simple. You show up with your party, get seated, and your waiter will deliver a bread basket at the start of your meal. This basket contains one breadstick for each guest, along with an extra one "as a conversation starter," a tactic that Red Lobster uses for its famous Cheddar Bay Biscuits, too. From that point on, every bread basket delivered to your table will have exactly one breadstick per guest. Yes, you can ask for as many as you want. Yes, you can ask for refills at any point during your meal. It really is as simple and genuinely unlimited as that. But how is that even sustainable these days?

Over the years, Olive Garden's business model has undergone some changes to make it more sustainable. This is the number one reason you can still get your fill of breadsticks at any Olive Garden you visit, despite the brief break the chain took from the practice during the height of the pandemic. In the past, Olive Garden faced some critique for its practices, including the food waste it generated by over-stuffing the bread baskets. The freshness of these breadsticks starts to decline in as little as seven minutes, too, so having fewer breadsticks per basket saves your table from gnawing on cold and kind of stale bread with your otherwise hot and delicious meal.

Servers also wait for you to request new bread these days, as opposed to automatically bringing a basket over once they see that yours is empty. As such, don't forget to flag down your waiter if you want another helping. But outside of that, a server won't deny you extra bread unless they catch you trying to squirrel some away into your purse for later. While dining in, you can have as many as you want, so try out some of these tasty hacks for an even better breadstick the next time you visit.