You mind breaking bread with me?
"Olive Garden defends breadstick policy" Associated Press September 16, 2014
NEW YORK — Olive Garden is defending its practice of giving customers as many breadsticks as they want, calling it ‘‘Italian generosity.’’
The remark is part of a response by the chain’s parent, Darden Restaurants Inc., to a nearly 300-page criticism from hedge fund Starboard Value, which took Olive Garden management to task for a litany of issues, also including failure to salt the water used to boil pasta and the length of the asparagus it serves.
Darden’s 24-page response says it is already implementing a variety of strategies to improve Olive Garden’s financial performance. it has introduced new menu items to underscore value, for instance, and is testing table-top tablets for ordering.
Starboard is lobbying to gain control of Darden’s board. Darden has struggled to boost sales at Olive Garden, and it recently sold off Red Lobster, which was doing worse than Olive Garden.
As for breadsticks, Starboard said Olive Garden was being wasteful because servers don’t stick to the policy of providing one breadstick per customer, plus an extra for the table. The investor said they lack ‘‘training and discipline.’’
Starboard also said servers were overfilling salad bowls and using too much dressing.
And you must do with less so the elite political cla$$ and their ma$ters can have more, more, more! Now they are wanting to deny you bread!
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