Culture

The 86-Year-Old Olive Garden Critic Is Back, and Meaner Than Ever

Marilyn Hagerty, whose straightforward review of the chain restaurant inspired equal measures of mocking and praise, has returned to said chain restaurant to evaluate it one year later. And guess what? She's gotten more critical since going viral.

By Esther Zuckerman
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This article is from the archive of our partner .

Remember last year when that elderly North Dakota woman reviewed the Olive Garden for her local newspaper, the Grand Forks Herald, and became an Internet sensation? Well, Marilyn Hagerty, whose straightforward review of the chain restaurant inspired equal measures of mocking and praise, has returned to said chain restaurant to evaluate it one year later. And guess what? She's gotten more critical since going viral.

Though she maintains her characteristic plainspoken style and certainly has some good things to say, Hagerty now has some new gripes with Olive Garden:

  • "The food is predictable, down to the four or five black olives you find in the salad bowl." 
  • "The two menus, the spiel by the waiter and the commotion of nearby tables made impossible to understand what was being offered when I went out for dinner last week at the Olive Garden."
  • "The seafood was there, but a little hard to find. There was more pasta than I could eat." 

During her first trip Hagerty had found the chicken Alfredo "warm and comforting on a cold day," and declared: "All in all, it is the largest and most beautiful restaurant now operating in Grand Forks. It attracts visitors from out of town as well as people who live here." Now, she maintains, the "Olive Garden has settled in."

We'd hate to think that Hagerty has actually become jaded after eating at fancy places like Le Bernardin in New York and getting on with Anthony Bourdain, who announced he would be publishing a book of her reviews.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.