Olive Garden's Bold Remodel: Why Fans Miss Its Old-School Design

Recently ousted from its number one spot as the most popular casual restaurant in the U.S., Olive Garden has also strayed far from its previous interior design style, and fans of the restaurant chain are missing its old-school look. On an r/OliveGarden subreddit thread asking, "Why do new Olive Gardens look like a Hampton Inn lobby?," one disappointed customer wondered if others remembered how it used to have "a bunch of Tuscan decor [and] plates on the walls" and said it now resembles the buffet area of a Hampton Inn or Courtyard Marriott, with the chain taking away anything that made it reminiscent of Italy and the Tuscan region.

One commenter affirmed the OP, saying they liked the comfier Tuscan feel — "before they remodeled to a more industrial look" (to which a clever respondent asked if that meant they missed "the OG OG"). Another described how bummed they felt when their local Olive Garden got the renovation touch; according to them, it "stripped away all of its charm."

As Olive Garden continues to update its menu, like how it introduced a new spicy three-meat sauce, so has the company sought to keep its interiors fresh and new. Renovations of Olive Garden locations have been pretty much ongoing since 2011, when the brand updated its restaurants to the now much-missed Tuscan farmhouse-influenced decor, and then again in 2014 when the company opted to do away with all of it and adopt a more modern look.

It did this by removing walls in order "to create a more open and inviting atmosphere," adding "distinctive decor" to make it feel more homey, updating the lobbies and bars to be more visually prominent and inviting for customers to fill the spaces, and including brighter colors and more of a variety of textures to the interior space to "bring new energy to guests' dining experience" (via a press release from the company itself). Crucially, it also updated the spaces to be more takeout-friendly (could it have foreseen the eventual home delivery that the chain would offer 11 years later?). It seems like, despite its good intentions, Olive Garden might have been better off not fixing what wasn't broken, at least according to nostalgic customers.