Once-Italian-American restaurant and current Orlando-based fast-casual chain Olive Garden is reinventing itself yet again by adding bread stick sandwiches and deep-dish spaghetti pies to its menu.
From now until the end of July, you can order a meatball spaghetti pie, a chicken alfredo spaghetti pie or a spaghetti Rosso with chicken and bacon, starting at $12.99 a slice. All of the pies are surrounded with pie crust and feature lots of bacon and melted cheese—the pasta and cheese come in a 2:1 ratio. The menu item was created to “feed your kid at heart with a new twist on an Italian Classic.”
The restaurant is also adding a spicy Calabrian chicken breadstick sandwich and an eggplant parmigiana breadstick sandwich. Last year, they added the meatball breadstick sandwich and the chicken parmesan breadstick sandwich, which were actually successful at increasing sales for Olive Garden. According to the description of the breadstick sandwiches, ”[They] didn’t stop at perfection, [they] made it into a sandwich.”
These new items are part of their Never Ending Family Table tour, which is basically a popup Olive Garden that offers samples of new menu items. Try them if you dare, or just stick to reading our “Eating Badly” feature on Olive Garden here.