No Olive Garden For Fayetteville

There’s been speculation for months that Darden Restaurants Inc. of Orlando, Fla., was planning to locate one of its Olive Garden restaurants in Fayetteville.

But Rick Van Warner, a spokesman for Darden, says no such plans are in the works. Van Warner says the company isn’t building many new Olive Garden or Red Lobster restaurants at this time. The company — which has about 680 Red Lobster restaurants and 485 Olive Gardens — is devoting more time to its new, third restaurant concept, Bahama Breeze, casual dining restaurants with a Caribbean island theme.

Rumors circulated that the Red Lobster in Fayetteville wasn’t performing as well as Darden expected, and that’s why Darden wasn’t bringing an Olive Garden to Northwest Arkansas. But Van Warner says he doesn’t believe that’s the case. The Fayetteville Red Lobster brought in $2.37 million in sales in 1997 and $1.37 million for the first six months of 1998. Van Warner says the average Red Lobster brings in $2.8 million in sales annually.

“[Sales of] $2.4 million is certainly less than the average,” says Van Warner, “but I have not heard anything negative about the performance of Red Lobster in Fayetteville. That wouldn’t affect our decision about whether to open an Olive Garden there.