Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Pizza Hut Tops In Customer Satisfaction Of Major Chains

Pasta and pizza win again! Just days after taking the cake as the world's first- and second-favorite foods, the two Italian-cum-American dishes have led Olive Garden and Pizza Hut to victory in this year's American Customer Satisfaction Index. Olive Garden won the "Full-Service Restaurant" category (just beating number two Red Lobster) with 82/100 points. Pizza Hut had the top score among "Limited-Service Restaurants" (read: fast food) at 81/100. Experts noted that, as in previous years, full-service restaurants outperformed those with "limited service," but said that the latter was gaining on the former.

The lowest scorer among the major chains surveyed, with just 72 points, was McDonald's. But even this is a dramatic improvement from last year, when the biggest fast-food chain in the world scored a 64. Maybe it's time for them to advance their Italian offerings beyond cappuccino and into cheesy starches.

Below, the full results of the survey:

Full-Service Restaurants
Olive Garden—82
Red Lobster—82
Outback Steakhouse—81
Chili's—79

Limited-Service Restaurants
Pizza Hut—81
Little Caesar's—80
Starbuck's—80
Papa John's—79
Domino's—77
Wendy's—77
Taco Bell—76
Burger King—75
KFC—75
McDonald's—72

Comments

[Six Gator]

11:16 AM on 07/07/2011

Olive Garden....horrible, horrible, horrible....I'd rather go to Fazoli's! ...well, neither really, but at gun-point maybe.
Those bread sticks they promote are so nasty! They act like eating one is a good thing!

[El Saltine]

07:16 PM on 07/01/2011

Olive Garden? You're kidding me right? If america like OG then america has no taste.

[Karl Wilder]

12:57 PM on 06/24/2011

I have had two of the worst meals of my life at an Olive Garden. Truly vile overcooked mushy pasta with a rather disgusting sauce.

[nightfly4257]

09:14 PM on 06/23/2011

Low expectation by a lot Americans when it come to where and what eat.

[frank day]

07:40 PM on 06/23/2011

Olive Garden's food is unappetizing to say the least.

Their service was adequate at best.

Why anybody eats there is beyond me.

Try some local restaurants for a change.

[grod805]

09:20 PM on 06/23/2011

Did you write a poem for this post?

[MochasMom]

06:32 PM on 06/23/2011

Cripes. If Olive Garden and Pizza Hut were my only two choices, I'd sooner eat a scabby dog.

[dauphin]

01:11 PM on 06/23/2011

I guess Applebee's and TGI Friday's were too gourmet to make the list.

We as Americans are allowing the dumbing down of our collective pallets. We all want huge portions and to pay as little as possible, so we just accept that we are getting mediocre food for a dollar. Luckily I live in an area that has many more choices than just chain restaurants. I would rather give my money to a family or chef owned and operated establishment. If you go to a chain restaurant you are only a number and they may as well slap on a feed bag for all they really care about you the customer.

[fds]

01:31 AM on 06/23/2011

Proof that the American people surveyed know nothing of good food.

[trying this again]

11:51 PM on 06/22/2011

I lived in Italy for 3 years and there is no way, after eating genuine Italian food and pizza margheritas from Napoli can I imagine eating at either. However, my mother in law wanted to go to OG a few weeks ago and the portion size was crazy big. I could feed my family with one plate of OG pasta. Yuck.

[grailknight]

10:10 PM on 06/22/2011

Yet another measure of the decline of the great American republic.

[Carbon Forteetoo]

08:21 PM on 06/22/2011

If people ever saw what goes on in an Olive Garden kitchen, they would run, screaming in horror, out of that place.

[yogajan]

06:08 PM on 06/22/2011

Olive Garden has some of the worse food I have ever had. With the exception of the salad and bread, everything else was inedible. I tried it once and thought maybe it was a bad night, tried again and the food was even worse. There won't be a third time.

[radicalcentrist44]

06:46 PM on 06/22/2011

Even the salad has gone downhill. I was forced to go with co-workers and I thought I could get away with the salad and breadsticks, but they were horrible. I am not sure how one can make a flavorless breadstick.

[doris french]

06:05 PM on 06/22/2011

Last time i went to Olive Garden it was disgusting, the chicken "breast" was a patty like you would get at a school cafeteria.

[ThinkCreeps]

06:03 PM on 06/22/2011

Dear lord god!

72% was the minimum score. 82% as the maximum score.

None of the `food' is edible.
A range of 0-15% might be reasonable.