pappcam's post was on point about this. People can be busy. Also, some people don't enjoy cooking.

I certainly do eat out from time to time because I want an interesting experience (I can't eat Kansas City barbecue at home, so I had it three times when I was in Kansas City in May for example). My pizza at home is nowhere nearly as good as Houston Pizza's, so we order from them about once a month.

However, sometimes I'm busy and don't have a lot of time. I teach part-time at the university on Tuesdays, and I have office hours before class. I don't have time to go home to eat, let alone to actually prepare a meal there, so I eat out. I also don't have time for an hour-long-plus meal experience, so I eat something quick and tasty. It needs to suffice; if it can impress, even better, but I'm more worried about cost and convenience and time than I am about the experience.

To take this to an extreme point, Tim Horton's would be a much smaller chain if people valued quality over convenience. Their coffee is pretty good, and it is good enough, and if you are in a hurry, you can grab one from their drive-through on the way to whatever you are doing. I don't drink coffee much so never buy theirs, but the lineup to buy it never fails to impress.

Also, when you're out of town, unless someone is feeding you, restaurants are all there is. We certainly do have good restaurant meals while travelling, but sometimes the last thing we want is a two-hour dinner.

Lol come on guys. There are way better places than Olive Garden (and Tim’s for that matter) to get fast and cheap food. Can’t believe the essays being posted to defend that place. :yuck:

And I can’t believe someone asked a simple question only to get dumped on by multiple posters. Actually, I can believe it, sadly.

It's also been a line of inquiry for almost literally 25 years, I think it's fully warranted to be interested, even if it's just a chain.

Agreed. My larger point is, in any online community, if you can answer a question in good faith, go ahead and do so. If the subject doesn’t interest you, feel free to stay out of it.

My comment had nothing to do with elitism. There are many articles outlining the death of all these generic restaurant chains. Consumers are switching to higher end/local/indie/unique/experience based restaurants when they can afford it, and extremely cheap convenience food when they cant afford it (ie the rise of 7-11 food sales).

Applebees in the US has resorted to offering $1 drink specials every month in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

Older demographic and remote small towns with limited options are about the only markets where these chains are staying somewhat relevant. Even in Regina, most of these chains are struggling.

Well the millions of people who enjoy the place don't consider it boring.

Maybe there are a lot of plain, boring people in this world?

Lol. You need to get over yourself.

Naw. Everyone should set high (but reasonable) expectations for themselves. The race to the bottom is what is wrong with the world today, and getting excited about dollar store restaurants does not help.

I'm glad your pompous a$$ gets to eat out at the finest of restaurants. You aren't by chance a Kardashian are you?

Boston Pizza is fine dining compared to Olive Garden.

Lol settle down. This is a forum to discuss opinions. I'm perfectly within my right to express mine. You might want to not react the typical way and assume I'm just some stuck-up elitist. There's a difference between disliking a place because a certain demographic is attracted to it, and disliking a place because it offers a low-quality product or service, while having social and economic costs (i.e. causing a local business to close, driving down wages, pushing manufacturing offshore, etc.).

Listen, I get people spend their money at shitty places like Walmart, Tim Hortons or Olive Garden, but I am just suggesting to maybe consider the costs beyond just your bank account. There's a reason these places are so cheap compared to locally-owned small businesses. Usually someone suffers in the end. How elitist of me to consider how where I decide to spend my money may affect the society and economy around me. I think we have enough evidence in 2018 to show that low-cost places like Walmart and Tim Hortons are absolutely terrible and that the drive for low prices ends up biting us in the end.

Subjectively though, Olive Garden is just plain boring and lame. If that's your style, then please by all means, support it when it comes here for 2 years before it closes.

Edit: I seriously doubt we will get an Olive Garden anyway. People's spending habits are changing, they want their money to go further and are starting to demand quality over quantity. You can see it with the craft brew boom and rejection of the mass-produced piss produced by Molson, Coors, Labatt, etc.

LOL, ouch.

Actually I agree.

Went to the Olive Garden in Winnipeg a few years back,sooooo bad!! Support local!!!

Uh.... Boston Pizza is horrific. I'd chalk this up to Canadian chauvinism.

Lol. Pretty sure the IPA craze will die long before mass produced beer. People will soon realize hoppy beers are disgusting, they'll cut off their man-buns and beer drinking will again be a normal thing that normal people do. :tup:

The IPA craze has (thankfully) already died down in favor of Belgian styles, etc.

The primary diet of primary-grade, school children seems to be PASTA, PASTA, and more PASTA, or PIZZA, PIZZA, and more PIZZA! I'm sure an Olive Garden opening in the Regina will appeal to many of the families with young kids, and even a few others who just like that type of Italian dining. Calgary's Olive Garden seemed to be quite busy the times we wanted to go there (we tend to be there over a (long) weekend) -- so much that we needed to find alternative dining on some of those times. Otherwise, we haven't yet had a bad experience dining there. If they do open an Olive Garden here, it will be another welcome dining choice with wide appeal for our family, among Eastside Mario's, Famoso, Boston P, Houston P, Western P (local), Luiggi's (local), Appleby's, Montana's, and even I Love Sushi (noodles for the kids at the buffet! Also local!), etc., and I'll be content as ever for the next decade or so! ... :)