Most New Yorkers know to avoid Times Square at all costs and, sorry not sorry, have disdain for most of the tourists who find themselves there — especially those who dine at the overpriced chains they can find back home in Anytown, USA.
But a Twitter thread that is going viral takes us inside one of those eateries, thankfully from afar, and answers everything we never knew we wanted or needed to know about life on the inside of a Times Square chain restaurant.
San Francisco-based writer Joe Wadlington on Wednesday recounted an alleged date he had recently with a former manager of the Times Square Olive Garden, and, if true, it was incredible because “clearly, he’d seen some shit.”
Oh, did he ever. The unnamed date even relays what was the most popular dish at the Times Square Olive Garden — and said that the two shifts he worked where they ran out of the restaurant’s addictive breadsticks was worse than the night two women got in a knife fight.
Behold the beauty:
I went on a date last night and the guy meekly shared that he used to be THE GENERAL MANAGER FOR THE TIMES SQUARE OLIVE GARDEN.
— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
Clearly, he’d seen some shit. So the next hour and a half was me asking questions. I tried to do y’all right.
— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
Q Did y’all ever run out of breadsticks? If so what happened?
A Yes. Twice. Worst shifts of my life. People were angry, kept telling us “no”— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
“They kept saying, ‘OLIVE GARDEN DOESNT DO THAT, our Olive Garden, in Ohio, doesn’t do that.”
— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
Q: Was everyone from Ohio?
A: Brazil, Puerto Rico, & Ohio. The foreigners I understood. They’d grown up watching O.G. commercials.— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
Q: National pricing or city pricing?
A: City pricing. It made no sense why the Americans were there. They were paying 3x for the same food.— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
A: How big is it?
Q: Three floors. It may be the biggest Olive Garden in the world. The wait was always 2 hours. Our last seating was at 2AM— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
Note: I think he may have been trying to impress me here.
Note, note: It worked.— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
Q: What was the most popular dish?
A: The tour of Italy
Q: What?
A: It’s a plate of lasagna, a chicken parmesan, & one fettuccine alfredo— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
Q: That’s too much food for one person
A: It’s too much food for three people
Q: How much?
A: Maybe $25— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
Q Did anyone order the unlimited soup/salad/breadsticks and stay for 8 hours?
A Why would someone do that?
Q You said they were Americans.— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
A: Not on my shifts. But if someone wanted to, Olive Garden would not let us remove them. They are “family” and would be allowed to eat.
— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
Q: That’s really good to know.
A: People can’t eat that much bread.
[I started laughing because he’s wrong]— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
Q: What’s the weirdest thing that ever happened?
A: Oh, there was a knife fight.
Q: Tell me everything.
A: Two women. They came together.— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
Q: Steak knives? Like the knives from the table or BYOK?
A: From the table. So, it started out as a fist fight and the other manger pulled— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
them apart and put one in the elevator going down to the 1st floor. They were on the third floor. The 2nd woman broke away and ran down the
— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
Stairs. She stopped the elevator on the 2nd floor and grabbed a knife off someone’s table.
A: someone else’s knife?!
Q: yes— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
Q: So only one woman had a knife.
A: The other woman picked up a knife off a different table. So the other manager, he was a huge guy, 6’6″— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
ran down there and pulled them apart again. They were on the first floor at this point. And he threw them out into the street. So they could
— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
deal with it out there.
Q: Did they still have the knives?
A: No, he took them.
Q: Did he give them breadsticks?
A: What? No.
Q: Sorry.— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
A: What happened after that?
Q: I don’t know. They were outside, so they weren’t our problem anymore
A: Would you say they’re still “family”— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
A: No.
Q: Wait. You said the shifts where you ran out of breadsticks were the worst. Worse than the shift with a knife fight?— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
A: You may be surprised, but yes, Olive Garden running out of breadsticks is worse than a knife fight.
Q: No, I totally get it.— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
Reader, I married him. ?
— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017
