The Secret Way To Order Discontinued Olive Garden Items
When you've been in the industry as long as Olive Garden, you probably have a long history of experimenting with different menu items. Some of these products might have been wildly successful, and others may have been total failures, but at the end of the day, they all helped shape the restaurant chain into what is today. But is it possible to order some of these items that have long been discontinued, even if they aren't officially on the menu anymore?
Technically, yes, you can. While there's no secret password you can say — nor any particular amount of money you need to bribe your server with so they bring out a long-gone dish just for you — the key here lies in the fact that you can very easily customize your meal to suit your flavor preference. You could, for example, ask for a different sauce on your pasta, change the fillings for your ravioli, and so on. If you're polite and reasonable about it, you'll most likely have no problem getting your dish made.
But while having the ability to customize your meals is all well and good, what exactly can you make? After all, you can't order discontinued items without knowing what exactly they are. Fortunately, Olive Garden has a wide variety of options to choose from, allowing you to make anything from discontinued dishes to personalized meals that better suit your own taste.
Customize meats, cheeses, and toppings
A popular but discontinued dish at Olive Garden is something known as the chicken fettuccine Florentine. In case you don't remember that particular item, it was chicken, fettuccine pasta, and spinach tossed in a thick parmesan cream sauce — and it's still possible to order it simply by asking the chefs to put spinach on your chicken Alfredo. That's just one example of how customers can tweak the menu to order a discontinued item, or at least, as close to it as possible.
Olive Garden's customization options are surprisingly varied. You could swap certain proteins, such as switching beef out of a dish for chicken and vice versa. You could request cheese on your meal or omit it entirely. Then, there's also the ordering trick for extra-creamy minestrone that incorporates potato soup. If you're a fan of warm Italian doughnuts covered in powdered sugar, you could ask for a different dipping sauce, like raspberry instead of chocolate.
It's important to note, however, that not every location may be able to accommodate your requests, depending on what ingredients it has in its kitchen. Again, so long as your requests are reasonable and you're polite about it, you should be able to get your order without much trouble. But you may be surprised to learn that, even with all this customizability, not all discontinued items can be ordered.
Some products truly aren't available
Certain discontinued items require too much time and too many ingredients, meaning it wouldn't be feasible to prepare a dish for just one customer. A good example of this is Olive Garden's spaghetti pie. As the name implies, this was a "pie" made using a spaghetti base, several cheeses, bacon, and a topping of meats and sauce.
Introduced in 2016, the spaghetti pie was surprisingly popular despite its unconventional name. (After all, who would order something called spaghetti pie when they first hear it?) However, the pie was discontinued not too long after its introduction. While you can still order spaghetti at Olive Garden, of course, the time needed to prepare the noodles into the pie shape would be too inconvenient, especially during the busy lunch and dinner rushes.
Another good example would be the mushroom ravioli, which was discontinued in June 2023. It may be possible to order it by asking if your ravioli can have mushroom filling, but the kitchen might not have the sauce the dish was once served with. Although some dishes may be not available to order — whether on the menu or through customization — you still have plenty of breadsticks and menu choices to pick from. "Italian generosity is always on the table," Olive Garden claims, and with variety like this, that's especially true.