Olive Garden is selling 50 “lifetime pasta passes” for $500 each and in case you think no one would ever go for that, a less-expensive, $100-version of the passes sold out online in one second in 2017.
The passes go on sale at 2 p.m. on Thursday Aug. 15.
If “lifetime” sounds like too much of a commitment, Olive Garden’s annual $100 “never ending pasta pass” lets 24,000 customers eat what they want for nine weeks. The first 50 pass holders will have the opportunity to upgrade to a lifetime pass for an additional $400. The rules are here.
“@BillGates should buy them all and give them to underprivlaged youth and families around the country who are deserving,” @WeberPhilip1 tweeted.
Currently, you can go to Olive Garden and order the never ending pasta bowl for $10.99, which means at $500, it would take approximately 45 visits for this to be a sound investment.
Olive Garden launched the never ending pasta pass in 2014 as a publicity stunt, Syracuse.com reported. Some people who took advantage of the deal discovered there were hidden costs. Like health.
Complaints included a diet saturated with carbs and sodium. One Business Insider writer said he got canker sores after eating there 20 out of the first 25 days. Halfway through the pass period, Syracuse radio personality Josh Grosvent said, “No more Olive Garden… I’m gonna explode.”
Based in Orlando, Darden Restaurants owns Olive Garden along with LongHorn Steakhouse, Yard House, and The Capital Grill. In 2017, Darden bought Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen for $780 million.
Tweets about the lifetime pasta pass run the gamut from sold (“OH MY GOD HOW DO YOU GET ONE?”) to skeptical (“Lol this is a pretty obvious sign they’re going out of business within the next 3 years, this is just a last minute cash grab for any suckers willing to shell out for these.”)
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“It’s actually very good marketing,” Mike S tweeted @VM_Y_Trader. “They are selling 24,000 9 week passes for $100. They are huge winners, as 95% of the buyers can’t stomach another ounce of it after 3 or 4 visits. Then they offer only 50 lifetime passes for an extra $300. Those people are dead in a year. $$”
