We went to Olive Garden for the first time to take on their $13.99 never-ending pasta deal and tapped out early

“When you’re here, you’re family.”

Because we apparently live under an enormous rock, neither of us had been part of the fabled Olive Garden family until a few days ago. We went for the cheap, bottomless entrées, but we had no idea the high prices our stomachs would pay to be welcomed into said family.

The chain just brought back its hit promotion, the Never-Ending Pasta Bowl, which is set to run from August 25 to November. The deal, which starts at $13.99, lets you mix and match your favorite pastas, sauces, and proteins — it also comes with soup or salad, plus breadsticks.

The special’s price has stayed the same since 2022, despite inflation.

So, with an optimism we would quickly learn was woefully misguided, we set out to push ourselves pasta our limits (sorry).

Our journey begins in Times Square.

The food options in New York City seem infinite sometimes. You can step outside your front door and stumble across a hidden culinary gem. There are also times when an affordable bowl of pasta from a staple restaurant chain requires a 40-minute train ride and the overwhelming foot traffic of Times Square.

Undeterred, we eventually made it to our destination: The only Olive Garden in Manhattan.

One extremely long escalator ride later, we arrived at our booth.

We were seated with the standard menu, which did not mention the never-ending pasta promotion. We asked our waitress when she arrived, and she returned with a slip of paper for each of us that laid out the deal.

Oh, the pastabilities are endless! (Well, technically, there’s around 100.)

One of the tough parts about eating in an area dense with tourists is the high pricing. The never-ending pasta deal usually starts at $13.99 per person, but for this Times Square location, it was $19.99 — plus an extra $5.99 to add unlimited protein.

Our waitress quickly brought us breadsticks. Sarah started with the Pasta e Fagioli soup, and Jordan got the house salad.

Both were sizable portions, and we didn’t make much progress on either to save space for the pastas.

For our first pasta order, Jordan got fettuccine Alfredo with chicken fritta.

The size of our first portion was daunting, but my first bite was delicious and creamy. I immediately knew that the crispy chicken would be my favorite protein. Spoiler alert: I was right.

By the end of my first plate, I knew I was in trouble. Starting with a cream-based Alfredo sauce and breaded chicken was a risk. The heaviness worried me. However, I was determined to keep pushing on to the next dish.

Sarah’s first pasta was spaghetti with the new spicy meat sauce.

As a spice fiend, the spicy sauce was a no-brainer. I initially wanted to get angel hair for my first round since it seems lighter, and we have to pace ourselves (this is a pasta marathon, not a sprint, after all). In the end, though, I went with the classic spaghetti.

I was indecisive about the meat option, but our waitress mentioned they could serve one meatball and one sausage — decision paralysis solved!

We hadn’t realized the first pasta dish was the largest, and subsequent ones were all smaller.

Sarah started with a tomato-based sauce and mostly ate the sauce, avoiding the pasta (strategically, but ironically given the name of the deal) to save room. As Jordan later commented on Sarah’s first round, “There was a lot of pasta left, but I didn’t want to call you out.”

Jordan, having started with a heavier cream-based sauce, was starting to have regrets. When Sarah asked how she was feeling after round one, Jordan said, “Not very optimistic about going past round two.”

When the waitress came by to ask if we were ready for another pasta, we said yes, but there was clear reluctance in our voices. Alas, it was our begrudging gastronomic chore and journalistic duty to carry on.

In round two, Jordan opted for the rigatoni with five-cheese marinara and meatballs.

The cheesy marinara reminded me of vodka sauce, which was a pleasant surprise. I was relieved to see a much smaller portion, which gave me hope that I could finish another bowl.

That feeling didn’t last long. Having barely made a dent in my second round, I started to regret every single bite of my breakfast.

“There’s simply not enough room,” I told Sarah between gulps of water to keep things moving along.

Sarah ordered the rigatoni with creamy mushroom sauce and chicken fritta.

To say I enjoyed the mushroom sauce is a criminal understatement. I felt obligated to get a new pasta and sauce every round to try as much as possible, but I really wanted to get the mushroom sauce again after this round. I ended up eating more of the pasta than I’d strategically allotted for, but the mushroom sauce was worth it.

At one point, I wondered aloud, “Is this what Joey Chestnut feels like, just all the time?”

This was what remained of Sarah’s pasta after our second round.

As she slumped over in her booth after giving up on clearing the bowl in round two, Jordan said, “I gotta be horizontal.”

Sarah reminded her she’d said this the last time, too, when we tried Red Lobster’s new seafood boils.

“This one’s worse, though,” she said.

Unbuttoning the top button on her jeans, Jordan said she should’ve worn pants with a soft waistband instead. Sarah, ever the empath and certainly not one for “I told you so,” simply said, “Rookie mistake.”

When an automated Slack message asked our team’s reporters about their afternoon agenda, Jordan’s response summed it up perfectly: “about to burst at olive garden.”

Wanting something crisp and refreshing after the heavy pastas, Jordan started chewing on a banana pepper from her salad while Sarah ate some tomatoes and a black olive.

At this point, we started getting nervous about living up to the standard customer experience.

Jordan was by now firmly in a food coma.

“We need a yawn counter. I’m on like six,” she said at one point. She pushed through it, though.

“I’m not optimistic, but I at least have some bites left in me,” she said as we prepared for round three.

Sarah, on the other hand, was beginning to feel like the Benjamin Button of Olive Garden. The more creamy mushroom sauce she ate, the more pasta she wanted. As we prepared for our third bowl, she had the zeal of a fresh, empty-stomached customer.

We asked our waitress about the popularity of the never-ending pasta deal, and she said most tables take advantage of the offer when it’s available. The day before our visit, she said she waited on one customer who made it through a whopping 10 bowls. She said, on average, customers make it through around 6 bowls. That…was absolutely astonishing to us.

In round three, Jordan got the gluten-free rotini with marinara, sans protein.

I don’t usually go for a gluten-free option. However, in the spirit of trying all of the available pasta shapes, I gave it a try. The sauce was lighter than the Alfredo and five-cheese marinara, and it had that juicy tomato flavor I was hoping for. The rotini was quite chewy, though.

I ditched the protein this round in the hopes that it would help me finish more of my bowl. It didn’t help much. I ended up picking at it, eating one noodle at a time, and, eventually, taking breaks from eating altogether.

Sarah got the angel hair Alfredo with chicken again.

The chicken in my dishes was salty, but otherwise good. The angel hair felt lighter and easier to eat than my previous pasta choices.

In round four, our paths diverged.

Jordan stopped at round three, while Sarah, for better or worse, attempted a fourth pasta: mushroom sauce with sausage.

During our fourth round, we had some entertainment: The wait staff sang Happy Birthday to one table, and several minutes later, the fire alarm went off. The momentary confusion before anyone knew if it was real or a false alarm felt fitting for the moment.

We tapped out after a combined total of 7 pasta dishes.

Let’s just say our first trip to Olive Garden was an adventure.

The never-ending pasta bowl is a great value, even at the Times Square prices. But the financial cost of Olive Garden’s never-ending pasta is easier to stomach than, well, the cost to your stomach. Our grand total, including drinks and the protein add-ons, came to $73.45 before a generous tip for the quick service.

As a bonus, here’s some advice to those who might try this carb-loading challenge themselves:

1. Wear sweatpants.
2. Start with a tomato-based sauce.
3. You may ask yourself if you’re willing to be beaten by the 10-bowl legend of the Times Square Olive Garden. One answer will hurt you a lot less than the other. Know your limits. Don’t be a hero.

The post We went to Olive Garden for the first time to take on their $13.99 never-ending pasta deal and tapped out early appeared first on Business Insider.