ORLANDO, Fla. — Olive Garden is bringing back its wildly popular, never-ending pasta pass for the second year while adding a group option.
The passes go on sale Thursday at 2 p.m. Eastern Time. Olive Garden said it has added more server capacity to fix the issues that crashed its website during last year’s event.
The passes give a customer unlimited trips to Olive Garden for six weeks for its never-ending pasta bowl, which includes bread sticks, salad and soda. The individual pass costs $100, and this year the restaurant chain added a family pass for $300 that will allow customers to feed themselves and up to three guests.
There will be just 1,000 of each of the passes available. Company officials expect them to be gone within minutes. To attempt to get a pass, go to olivegarden.com.
The passes will be good from Oct. 5 to Nov. 22.
Last year, the promotion clogged the restaurant chain’s website with as many as 500,000 visitors when the limited deal went on sale and quickly sold out.
Some customers trying to buy the promotion couldn’t get through.
“My entire networking class tried for 20 minutes to get a pastapass and not one of us got through,” wrote a Twitter user identified as Josh.
But persistence paid off for other who kept trying.
“After an hour of refreshing, waiting with overloaded servers and outrunning the internet horde. I now have an olivegarden pastapass,” wrote Twitter user Bryan Miguel.
Company officials insist they are more prepared this year.
“The sheer excitement and the volume last year was incredible,” said Olive Garden spokesman Justin Sikora. “We wanted to make it more special this year.”
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