olive garden... could this really be happening?

This would seem to be an odd location for an olive garden. I would think that they would want a location that has much more foot traffic and/or parking. They would also have a limited population in the surrounding neighborhood to draw people from due to the gowanus area's manufacturing/warehouse base and the current make up of 4th ave. I think they would want a more central location than 4th ave and 12th st. I hope I'm right.

Garbage.

And the yuppies, following their middle-America radar, will flock there, the same way they flocked to Subway instead of Charcutterie, Haagen Daazs and Maggie Moos over the locals, Dizzy's over Donuts Luncheonette, and so on, ad infinitum.

Subject: Olive Garden - Just Don't Do It

People going to an olive garden to get Italian food in Brooklyn is really a low down dirty shame. There are dozens of good Italian restaurants in the area, and anyone who would go to Olive Garden in Brooklyn should probably think twice about whether they know what's going on in their lives, where they are, and what they are doing.

Didn't you move here to get away from that stuff? Or is it you want to bring your lame, corporate-centric culture to ruin the half decent life we have in Brooklyn. (Just a rant to myself)

I think we are really starting to lose our identity to outside forces, but I suspect this restaurant venture will fail. The problem is that Olive Garden can afford to fail just to keep a presence in Brooklyn. Corporate values 101. Its not about the neighborhood, its about overall profit.

Charlesbklyn

sadly alot of none new yorkers would goto olive garden . i try forever to convince my out of state friends to go eat locally lol.

we always end up at olive garden or applebee's etc...

Funny, when I lived on Flatbush and Carlton, the Subway right up the block was always full of Monica, Chandler, Ross, Rachel, Phoebe, and Joeys when I passed by.


Then I would head down to the perpetually empty (and now gone) Charcutterie on 6th to get an enormous homemade corned beef sandwich for 5 bucks.

There's an Olive Garden in Manhattan. Actually, I think there's two. My friend/coworker and I would pass by the one on 23rd and 6th ave laugh that there would be people in there. We constantly joked that we were going to go have lunch there and when he gave his 2-weeks notice, he and I went to have our "ironic lunch" as we called it.

We settled into a booth and tried to figure out who was eating there, if there were any locals or if everyone was from out of town. It seemed to be mostly filled with business people, probably from out of town having their lunch expensed. We were surprised to see some younger folks, like 20 year olds having lunch.

We both got pasta dishes. He got spaghetti and meatballs and I got some 4 cheese baked ziti. We were surprised at how good our food was. Not "OMG, this is really good Italian food," but it tasted like better quality frozen dinners. Perhaps what a frozen dinner would taste like if you could get it when it was just made and before it was frozen.

It made sense to us what an Olive Garden was doing in Manhattan: for those business folks and tourists who wanted to eat something familiar and reassuring in that you know what it will taste like. I guess some people just want to have something familiar. When I was in Paris, I saw a lot of American tourists eating at Pizza Hut and after a few days of fumbling and trying to figure out menus, I could understand why some would go to a joint like that; You could count on it and it reminds you of home (no I didn't eat there).

Not sure if an Olive Garden would fit in Brooklyn, though. Unless there's a lot of hipsters who want to go have Ironic Meals, this isn't a place where out of towners hole up in a hotel while attending a conference.

I'm pretty sure a lot of people who work at Methodist Hospital eat at Subway on 7th and do not live in trailers or worse yet, live in New Jersey.

Brooklyn already has an Olive Garden - do we really need another?

I have to agree with WhyFi. I think olive garden is awful and i wouldn't go there. Then again, it's on 4th avenue which isn't a stretch I want to dine on anyway. Talk about a lack of ambience.

Carnivore wrote: I could see families with kids going to Olive Garden. Going to Olive Garden definitely isn't a yuppie thing, but somehow Papa John's and Domino's survive in New York, and it seems to me mostly due to how susceptible kids are to advertising. I've seen total foodie parents order from Domino's to placate their kids. The same thing could easily happen with Olive Garden, especially with all the young families in the neighborhoods around this planned location.

I agree, I can imagine families with young kids going there. Like, everyone's hungry, and there's nothing really to eat in the house, and you don't want to wait a long time at La Villa, and you want to go somewhere where people won't glare at you for bringing your kids, and you have a kid who won't eat anything in a restaurant but plain pasta anyway -- well, I can see the appeal of the Olive Garden. I could also see going there with my mother-in-law, a lifelong New Yorker who is the farthest thing from a yuppie, and who thinks TGI Fridays is a perfectly good place to go for a nice dinner.

Anyway, I think Brooklyn will survive the Olive Garden.

brooklynpotter wrote: yuppies go to subway and olive garden? no, people who live in trailer parks go to subway and olive garden. or people who live in jersey

Get out of the NE once in a while.

VeggieQueen wrote: hopefully i'll be dead before the big box chain stores take over our lovely neighborhood.

sorry to tell you that Whole Foods is a big box store.

armchair_warrior wrote: technically its in gowanus . the whole foods.

I suppose it depends on who your realtor is, or if you consider the Stone Park to be part of Park Slope. The Whole foods will be just one block away from it.

Sorry guys, I'd go. Mozzerella fondue. Mmm

brooklynpotter wrote: yuppies go to subway and olive garden? no, people who live in trailer parks go to subway and olive garden. or people who live in jersey

Or people dying to eat deep-fried onions with such fine company. Sign me up!

And by the way, BROOKLYNPOTTER IS LYING!!! She eats at Red Lobster every Saturday night.

veets wrote:

Oh Lord Save me... I am tempted to go to Ikea and Whole Foods when it opens and... Forgive me NOW because I shoped at Lowes and Home Depot and Target.... I didn't use natural resources, Lord... I did walk there.... I know these stores are run by the Devil who commutes here from the suburbs Tempt me no further with WalMart Super Stores and Kohls and Micheals Crafts!! (anyone visited the suburbs recently and has names to add to that list!!!???)

It's okay, I remember being very angry about Barnes & Noble opening and boycotting for a while, but one day I found myself inside, and since then I have spent hundreds of dollars in that store. But I do miss Booklink.