Introductions

Hello, I’m James Lewis Bullinger the First, and I’ll be your guide on this, the second year of Olive Garden’s Pasta Pass.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Olive Garden’s Pasta Pass, it is a golden card that grants the holder unlimited pasta from the special Never Ending Pasta Bowl menu. But, it’s not just pasta; you also get unlimited breadsticks, soup, salad, and Coca-Cola products for seven weeks. Olive Garden did this promotion last year during the Never Ending Pasta Bowl promotion time as well. I blogged that whole experience, and you can look at it at broadsheetbullinger.blogspot.com.

However, I don’t feel like we had a #PastaGate last year. Last year, when the passes went on sale, the servers crashed. I continued trying to gain access to buy a pass. Forty minutes after the passes were released, I was able to snag one for myself and one my wife. This year though, the servers didn’t fail. This year they had 1,000 individual passes for $100, and 1,000 family passes for $300 all set to go on sale at 11:00 AM Pacific time. When the time came to release the passes for sale, I sat, I waited, I tried to purchase a Pasta Pass. I failed. They sold out of passes in one second, ONE SECOND! There was a countdown to when they went on sale. On my computer it went straight from the countdown, to the sold out message. #PastaGate!! I don’t know why everyone was so upset. Of course they would sell out like that.

Notice the time in the bottom right.  11:00 AM on the dot.

Now, you may be asking yourself, “If they sold out in one second, and on James’s computer it went from countdown to sold out, how is James going to my guide?” I’ll tell you. Olive Garden, in their infinite wisdom, decided to have contests on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for the chance to win a Pasta Pass. I won that contest. Not only that, my wife won another contest. We are Twitter royalty. Don’t believe me? Look it up. @JamesLewisI Here is my the winning tweet:

So I technically won a pass on the first day that they were made available for sale, the 17^th of September, but Olive Garden didn’t notify me until the 22^nd, I entered their other contests until I was notified. After they told me that I had won, I threw myself into helping my wife win a pass as well. It would have been futile if she hadn’t, she is my muse after all. This blog probably wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t won also. She won on the 29^{th of} September, and was notified October 3^rd.  We think it was one of these tweets (the one’s that @olivegarden liked):

Probably the whozits one right?

I saw the notification of the win before she did. Her birthday is coming up, so I wanted it to be a surprise, I also hadn’t told her I had won for the same reason. I had to hack her email and twitter with lightning quick speed, but I was able to keep the win a secret.

So we won! We were set to be members of the pasta elite for another year. But, the Never Ending Pasta Bowls started today, the 5^th of October, and, as of this morning, we still hadn’t received any passes that granted pasta. They had tried to deliver mine Friday, and again today, Monday, but we weren’t home, so they left a taunting note. I called UPS, I direct messaged Olive Garden, and called all the customer service lines available. It was beginning to look like we’d miss out on the first day of Pasta Pass glory. Then an angel entered the story.

I decided since no one at corporate was able to help me, I’d call my local Olive Garden. I spoke to Jean McFarland, the general manager, who said she remembered me from last year, liked the blog, and would figure something out so we didn’t miss out on the first day of never ending pasta. Bless you Jean.

I picked my wife up from a hard day at work. She said she wanted to go eat something, I knew just the thing. On the drive to Olive Garden I showed her the email certificate that she had won. She almost cried. We love seven weeks of date nights.

To those who are veterans of last year’s blog, you may be thinking that this blog lacks the focus of the dining experience surrounded by interesting characters, and I would say to you, it does. We had an oddly unremarkable visit to Olive Garden. The food was delicious, and sure, there was a woman who looked like a poor Lucille Bluth, and who had a hard time eating any food without a small portion of it escaping her lips. Sure, there was a large family with many children playing in the rolly chairs by their table. Sure, a man walked in and reminded me instantly of a retired Mario, a Mario who had really let himself go after Princess Peach had picked a prince over a plumber, but all in all, it was just a nice dinner.

We both got the Cavatappi with Five Cheese Marinara, our favorite. The Breadsticks were warm, the Dr.Pepper was flowing. It was nice.

We were served by a girl resembling Princess Jasmine, who had been a hostess last year. She said she had been serving since right after last year’s pasta bowl had ended. We saw the faces of old friends, people who we’d seen almost daily for seven weeks last year, and who made it into our hearts, the way Olive Garden’s  pasta makes it into your belly. It wasn’t a particularly funny visit, it felt like going home.

Jasmine took care of our tab by whatever fairy magic Jean had left her with, and we went home. As I began preparations for writing this, there was a ring at our doorbell. It was 7:30 and I was in my unders. The front lights were off and we had no idea who it could be. I thought they’d just go away. There was another ring, and knocking. I threw on some pj’s and as I walked to the door I heard someone yell “UPS!”  It was my Pasta Pass! Someone had contacted that wonderful daily Santa, and asked him to bring my pass back tonight. What a wonderful world we live in.

I will be chronicling our pasta adventure every day. Please continue to read, to share, to like, to comment, subscribe, and support.

Visit 1:

Weight fluctuation today: 0
Total: 0

Monetary value this visit: $28.04
Total: $28.04