Olive Garden Lunch Hours, Daily Hours & Holidays (2026)

What are the Olive Garden lunch hours?

Olive Garden serves lunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday. The company's FAQ says lunch runs weekdays until 3 p.m., and every one of the 15 restaurants we pulled from Olive Garden's locator on Nov. 1, 2026 listed the same window, from Times Square to Anchorage.

The switch at 3 p.m. is built into each restaurant's schedule: a lunch block that ends at 3:00 and a dinner block that starts at 3:00. If you are aiming for a lunch price, get your order in a little before 3 so your server can ring it up in time.

One listing reads differently. The limited-time $9.99 weekday soup, salad and breadsticks shows "Mon-Fri 11-2:30PM" on the online To Go menu, while Olive Garden's special-offer page says Monday through Friday until 3 p.m. If you plan to order that deal for pickup late in the lunch window, call ahead.

The lunch menu itself, with every item and price, is on our Olive Garden lunch menu page.

What time does Olive Garden open and close?

Most Olive Gardens open at 11 a.m. every day and close at 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Fourteen of the 15 restaurants we checked keep exactly those hours, in cities as different as Houston, Boise, Kansas City and Kirkland, Washington.

The outlier is Times Square in New York, which stays open until midnight Sunday through Thursday and until 1 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. Its dinner service is listed until 11:50 p.m. Restaurants in malls, airports and tourist areas can set their own hours, so treat the table below as the usual pattern, not a promise.

Leave a buffer at the end of the night. At the Ohio restaurant we checked, the online waitlist closed at 9:30 p.m. and online To Go ordering at 9:40 p.m. on a Sunday, 20 to 30 minutes before the doors closed. Catering delivery wrapped up at 9 p.m. Your restaurant's page on olivegarden.com lists all of these times separately.

Is there an Olive Garden Sunday lunch menu?

No. Olive Garden serves its dinner menu all day on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, so there is no Sunday lunch menu and no weekend lunch prices. The FAQ notes a few regional exceptions, but all 15 restaurants we checked followed that rule.

The closest thing on a weekend is the Lighter Portions section. It offers smaller versions of eight classics, such as Lasagna Classico and Fettuccine Alfredo, Monday to Friday after 3 p.m. and all day Saturday and Sunday. These plates cost exactly $2 more than the weekday lunch versions at every restaurant we checked, which still saves $3 to $8 compared with a full dinner plate. Our lunch menu guide compares the two side by side.

The weekday $9.99 soup, salad and breadsticks deal is also off on weekends, when the same meal costs the regular price of about $12.49 to $16.99. Our Olive Garden specials page lists the offers that do run on weekends, such as the $6 Take Home entrée.

Is Olive Garden open on Thanksgiving and Christmas?

No. Olive Garden closes its restaurants on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day so team members can spend time with family and friends. The company's FAQ says so directly, and every restaurant we pulled lists Thursday, Nov. 26, 2026 as a closed day, along with Christmas Day in each of the last four years. Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam and international restaurants can set different holiday hours.

That also answers the Thanksgiving dinner question. Olive Garden does not serve a Thanksgiving menu, a turkey plate or Thanksgiving to-go meals on the day, because the restaurants are dark. If you want Olive Garden food on the table that Thursday, order a family bundle or catering pans for pickup on Wednesday and reheat them. Catering delivery orders placed online by 5 p.m. arrive the next day, so a Tuesday order covers Wednesday. See our Olive Garden catering prices guide for pan sizes.

The day before each holiday is less predictable. Olive Garden lets each restaurant's managers decide whether to close early on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and on Christmas Eve, based on how busy they are, and asks guests to call for that day's closing time. There is no separate Christmas or holiday menu; on other holidays the regular dinner menu is served all day.

Is Olive Garden open for dine-in?

Yes. Every Olive Garden is a full-service, sit-down restaurant, and dining rooms are open during all regular hours. To Go, Carside Pickup and delivery run alongside dine-in.

Olive Garden does not take reservations. Of the 965 U.S. restaurants in its locator, none had online reservations switched on, while 918 offered the online waitlist. Join it in the Olive Garden app or on your restaurant's page before you leave home, and your place in line starts counting while you drive. About 100 restaurants also list call-ahead waiting, where you phone in and the host adds your name.

Eating in is the only way to get refills. The never-ending soup or salad and breadsticks come with adult entrées in the dining room, and Olive Garden says refills are dine-in only. The full Olive Garden menu shows what the dining room serves, with prices.

When did the first Olive Garden open?

The first Olive Garden opened in Orlando, Florida, on Dec. 13, 1982. It was created by General Mills, which owned the chain until 1995, when it spun off its restaurants as Darden Restaurants. Darden still runs Olive Garden from its Orlando headquarters.

The chain grew quickly in the 1980s. The oldest restaurant in our sample, the Orlando Fashion Square location on East Colonial Drive, opened on May 29, 1984, and is still operating. As of Aug. 30, 2026, Darden counted 953 company-owned Olive Gardens, up from 933 a year earlier.

How much does it cost to open an Olive Garden?

Olive Garden doesn't publish a cost to open one, because its U.S. restaurants are run by Darden rather than sold to franchise owners. Darden's filings say it owns and operates nearly all of its U.S. restaurants, and all 953 Olive Gardens in its latest count are company-owned. In Olive Garden's own locator, the only U.S.-area restaurants marked as franchised are seven in Puerto Rico.

Outside the U.S., Olive Garden grows through franchise partners. Darden reports 86 international franchised restaurants across its brands, in Canada, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Investment figures for those deals are not public. Olive Garden's FAQ points franchise questions to a restaurant-franchising page, and annual reports are on darden.com.