What Olive Garden Does With Leftover Customer Breadsticks

The unlimited tableside cheese-grating service and famous all-you-can-eat breadsticks are just some of the many attractions of dining at Olive Garden. The chain goes through a staggering number of those complimentary breadsticks every week, trotting out as many as customers care to enjoy. Many savvy diners take home any remaining, uneaten breadsticks to snack on later or repurpose into something else, like tasty croutons for the ultimate salad topper. Inevitably, though — and a bit unthinkably, if you're a fan of the gratis baked goods — many an orphaned breadstick gets left on the table when patrons exit the restaurant. What happens to those discarded sticks?

Food safety laws prohibit Olive Garden from reusing them — once a food item has been served to a guest, it can't be re-served to someone else, even if the first person didn't eat the item. If it was handed off to a patron, therefore, it goes in the garbage. "Anything that touches the table is trash," a poster stated in an Olive Garden subreddit. "Brought the guest the wrong thing but they didn't touch it? Trash."

Another Redditor, self-identified as an Olive Garden employee, added their restaurant will freeze food and donate it to a food bank, as long as the item was never set on a guest's table. For instance, if an order was prepared incorrectly and the guest sent it back, it can be charitably repurposed as long as it never left the server's hands. "All of our leftover soup at the end of the day is also frozen and given to the food banks," the poster added. "But if it has been touched[,] then we always trash it!!"

While discarding previously served breadsticks is a matter of food safety compliance, donating unserved bread and other culinary items is part of Olive Garden's efforts to reduce food waste and fight hunger. All of the chain's restaurants participate in a food donation program called Harvest, contributing "high-quality, wholesome food to local nonprofit partners" (per Olive Garden). In addition to leftovers like breadsticks and unsold soup that were prepared but not served, this also includes unused surplus items like sauces and pasta. 

The Harvest initiative is spearheaded by Darden Restaurants, OG's parent company, which also owns LongHorn Steakhouse, Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, and several other brands. Among the food items donated across the entire Darden family, bread and pasta comprise 12% of the goods (per Darden).

All of Darden's restaurants recycle cooking oil, as well, and the majority take part in solid waste recycling programs. Through the Darden Foundation, Olive Garden and the other Darden restaurants have a long-term partnership with Feeding America, and more than $16 million has been donated to that organization's food banks throughout the United States. Refrigerated box trucks have also been donated to U.S. food banks through grants from the Darden Foundation, helping bolster mobile food pantry efforts in areas with heightened food insecurity.