Olive Garden Evolving The Brand With Visual And Digital Improvements
By Megan Zielinski, contributing writer
Olive Garden announced major brand changes to take place in restaurants nationwide, including providing customers with an enhanced Web experience, renovating restaurant architecture, convenient online-to-go ordering service, and updating the Olive Garden logo.
Over the next year, more than 75 Olive Garden restaurants will undergo a complete transformation designed to promote an engaging atmosphere and heighten the presentation of meals. New changes to take place include elimination of walls to open up the restaurant; appealing decorations, bright colors, new fabrics, textures, and updated details to set a welcoming tone; a restructured lobby and bar area for guests to comfortably mingle; expanded seating capabilities for large dining parties; existing plates and bowls will be replaced with contemporary, all-white dishware, further enhancing the appearance of food. A New menu layout including a leather-based structure, designed for simplified search of items in organized categories, will also be tested out in the remodeled restaurants, as well as 30 additional restaurants later this year.
Restructuring of the Olive Garden website and the introduction of online-to-go for customers is a continuation of the restaurant’s ongoing commitment to improving the dining experience. With online-To-Go, customers now have the opportunity to order their meals online for the pick-up service — payments can be made online or at the restaurant upon pick-up. Online-To-Go also
enables customers to save their favorite menu items for future purchasing and can even pre-order their meals days in advance.
The most powerful change to take place for Olive Garden is the conversion of the previous logo of 15 years to an updated logo to be featured on the newly-designed restaurants, all restaurant menus, the new webpage, social media sites, and other advertising tools.
Over the past year, Olive Garden directed its focus on serving high-quality menu options, adding 20 new menu choices for diners to enjoy — the restaurant’s largest menu development ever. "As we continue to update our brand experience, we needed to send a strong signal to our guests that there's something new and exciting at Olive Garden, and our new remodel design, web experience and logo are designed to do just that,” stated Jay Spenchian, Olive Garden's executive vice president of marketing.