CHUCK HUMEL / CHRONICLE

Diane Massey, service manager, presents dishes to prospective team members at a training seminar at the new Midway Mall location.

They were beating down the doors to Elyria’s newest major restaurant weeks before anyone opened a menu to order a favorite pasta or wine.

Some 1,700 people applied in hopes of becoming one of the 145 cooks, servers, bartenders, hosts, hostesses, and others who will begin serving diners at 4 p.m. today at the new Olive Garden restaurant at 1588 West River Road.

Facing Midway Mall in an area packed with chain restaurants, the 6,752-square-foot eatery will seat 211 diners. While the restaurant negotiates the usual shakedown this week, it will serve dinner 4 to 10 p.m. today to Thursday, and 4 to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Full-time hours of operation will begin Sunday, with lunch being served every day starting at 11 a.m.

“They’re learning it’s a real balancing act,” said Matt Wade, 32, the restaurant’s general manager, as servers dressed in the chain’s smart-looking white shirt-black pants uniform repeatedly walked through the restaurant carrying large trays with empty salad bowls at shoulder level.

Most close in appearance and design to the chain’s Sandusky and Mentor locations, the Elyria Olive Garden features the Tuscan farmhouse design that has marked all of the company’s outlets since 2000. This style is reflected in its rustic stone exterior, exposed interior wood beams, and terracotta tile floors, all inspired by the Culinary Institute of Tuscany.

“I hope to get there in a couple of years,” Wade said with a quick smile.

The Italian school is a training ground for the chain’s cooks, chefs and managers.

“One thing we don’t have here is an outdoor patio,” Wade said. “I don’t think they believed that would be used a lot around here.”

Probably not, considering it’s nearly mid-April and we had temperatures in the 30s with snow flurries on Sunday.

Wade is a 12-year veteran of Olive Garden. Having worked up from a server, Wade comes to Elyria from the chain’s Parma restaurant where he also served as general manager.

“We know that Elyria has asked for an Olive Garden for a number of years … and we’re really happy to finally be able to give it one,” he said.

To symbolize the importance the company places on its general managers, Wade’s name was chiseled into a piece of imported Tuscany travertine marble displayed by the main entrance.

Area diners will find the usual Olive Garden fare, including “unlimited soup, salad and breadsticks” to Five Cheese Ziti al Fomo, Steak Gorgonzola-Alfredo and Chicken Marsala, as well as the new springtime promotional entree, Five Cheese Stuffed Rigatoni with Shrimp or Sausage.

Olive Garden has 628 restaurants nationwide that employ 78,00, and total $2.8 billion in annual sales.

Contact Steve Fogarty at 329-7146 or sfogarty@chroniclet.com.        

 

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