NEW YORK — Restaurant chains from Applebee’s to McDonald’s have in recent months clocked a troubling trend: Customers watching their budgets are spending less, and dining out less often. So they’ve come up with a solution — offer meal deals and discounts to bring people back. But Olive Garden is holding out.
In this Wednesday, March 20, 2013 file photo, people leave an Olive Garden restaurant at sunset in Foxborough, Mass. “We’re not doing that,” said Rick Cardenas, CEO of Olive Garden’s parent company Darden Restaurants, during an analyst call Thursday. “Even at a time that our competitors have ramped up discounting.
” There’s a reason that so many restaurants are turning to discounts now, after years of avoiding the practice. Since the start of the pandemic, chains have been hiking prices dramatically — partially because of increasing costs, and partially because customers didn’t seem to mind spending more. But recently, diners have started to push back .
So restaurants started offering temporary discounts on those higher menu prices. The Italian casual dining chain has bucked the trend, making relatively moderate pricing increases and avoiding deep discounts. The arrival of the McDonald’s meal deal comes at a time when the company is battling the perception that it has become too expensive.
The approach has yielded mixed results. In the past, Olive Garden used to outperform the industry during times of economic uncertainty. The chain has lost t.
