When You're Here, Drink Wine

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I thought this was fitting for a Friday.  I recently remembered a most hilarious article that my former coworker and I found online while trying to look up nutritional facts for Olive Garden, which, by the way, are atrocious. 

 

Don't Eat at the Olive Garden.

 

Perhaps the most scathing review of a restaurant I have ever read besides the NY Times Review of Guy Fieri's restaurant in Time Square (which you absolutely must read here).

 

Doug Shaw, the author, thinks Olive Garden pushes wine too hard on its customers.  And frankly, he is pissed.

 

My favorite lines in the review are the following:

 

"The present purpose of the Olive Garden is to sell you their wine. That's it. The food and the commercials exist to get you there to sell you wine. The chairs are there so you have a place to sit while you buy their wine. The tables are there so the wine has a place to be. The air-conditioner is there so the wine doesn't go bad."

 

"I have an acquaintance who is a serious alcoholic. As soon as you walk in the door, he is waving a bottle at you, trying to get you to have a drink with him so he has an excuse to have several. Even at his worst he is not as obnoxious as the Olive Garden is."

 

"If you had a better time at the local restaurant, email me and let me know. And if I am in town, I will let you buy me a glass of wine there. If you honestly thought that the Olive Garden offered you a better dining experience, I will let you buy me dinner there, and I will buy you a glass of their wine."