All You Can Eat

There are some things you can eat a lot of. I don't mean a big serving, I mean a lot of servings. In some respect the fact that the initial offering is small rather than large probably helps, as there is breathing space between ingestions. Hot dogs and slices of pizza rank high, as do chicken wings and ribs, cookies and M&M's, potato chips and fries. Yes, there are people that can probably say the same about tofu or lentils or kale, but I choose not to dine with them.

However, regardless of what your fav is, when you go to a restaurant your order is usually one and done. Other than topping off your soft drink, any additional food goes on your tab. Yes, there are the all-you-can-eat buffets, and their "good for you" cousins, the all-you-can-eat salad bars. More catering halls than made-to-order eateries, these self-serve establishments offer chafing dishes and platters filled with a wide variety of offerings, whether it is on the strip in Las Vegas or in a strip mall in New Jersey.

The most notable exception is probably Olive Garden. This chain of Italian themed restaurants offers waiter and waitress service, as well as all-you-can-eat fresh breadsticks along with salad or soup. Finish nibbling before your meal, and the server will happily bring you more. Many a diner has wound up taking home their entire plate of chicken parmesan as they filled up on multiple tranches before their main course ever arrived.

Every now and again (and this is one those times) they have a special promotion where they extend that concept to a portion of their main menu. Forget fall foliage: we are smack in the middle of "Never-Ending Pasta Bowl" season. While the price might vary depending on location, for the bargain sum of $14.99 you get a non-stop supply of rigatoni with creamy mushroom sauce and meatballs, angel hair with spicy alfredo and sausage, or fettuccine with marinara and grilled chicken. Or maybe all three. If you're running a marathon the next day, this is carb loading at its finest.

That said, if you are like many, after you binge on anything you're happy not to see it for a while. But if you're the kind of eater wherein too much is not enough, you might want to move up the scale to the "Never-Ending Pasta Pass." Making a return in July after a six-year hiatus, the chain offered 10,000 passes for $100 each plus tax. They entitle the holder to 13 weeks of unlimited pasta, sauces, toppings, soup or salad, and breadsticks. And least you think no one would really be interested in such a thing, it's worth noting that, like Taylor Swift tickets, they sold out within minutes.

And if that doesn't sate your starchy jones, then you might just be Braden Sinclair.

One of just 50 people in the world who holds a "Lifetime Pasta Pass," Braden was into Olive Garden early on. In 2004 his Little League coach nicknamed him "Breadsticks" after he ate too much on a team visit and had to sit out a game. He got his first Never-Ending Pasta Pass in 2015 and his first OG (as the fanboys and girls call it) tattoo in 2016, a picture of a parmesan cheese grader with the slogan "Say When." Then in 2019 he was plucked as one of chosen few who were offered the chance to pony up $500 for a lifetime of fettuccine. 

On his site lifetimepastapass.com you can track consumption (118 visits), see his fav combinations (rigatoni with Alfredo sauce and crispy chicken frita wins going away) and even vote for what you think his next combo should be (as of this writing it was Rigatoni with Traditional Marinara and Meat Sauce topped with Italian Sausage). There also a helpful status flag that proclaimed, at least when I looked, that "Braden is not currently at the Olive Garden."

The movie "Annie Hall" opens with a joke: "Two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, ‘Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.' The other one says, ‘Yeah, I know; and such small portions.' OG is the flip side of that. The pasta isn't bad, and the portions can be endless. And believe it or not, Woody, it's a club that would even have you as a member.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford prefers red sauces. His column appears weekly via email and online on Substack and Blogspot as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.