When Does Olive Garden Stop Serving Lunch Specials?

Over the years, Olive Garden's menu has gone through quite a few changes. Back in 2014, the restaurant chain decided to launch the "Lunch Experience" — midday menu items for quick lunches, offered weekdays until 4:00 p.m. Today, that menu still includes quite a few of Olive Garden's standard dishes. However, the timing has changed slightly.

If you want to grab a bite from Olive Garden's lunch specials menu, you'll need to stop in on certain days, and at certain times. The discounted meals are still only served Monday through Friday, which means that if you stop into the restaurant for lunch on a weekend, you'll be met with a full-price meal.

Fortunately for those who prefer a later lunch, the lunch special prices are honored until about mid-afternoon. The pricing begins when the restaurant opens. This time can vary by location but is generally around 11:00 a.m. You'll then have until 3:00 p.m. to stop in and grab a lunch special before the special pricing ends.

Olive Garden's lunch specials menu includes quite a few of the restaurant chain's entrees. The least expensive order, at around $9, includes Olive Garden's iconic garlicky breadsticks and salad to start. Diners can also choose from one of the restaurant's soups: pasta e fagioli, minestrone, zuppa toscana, or chicken & gnocchi.

If you're craving something a little heartier, $10 will get you the five-cheese ziti al forno, cheese ravioli, fettuccine Alfredo, eggplant parmigiana, or spaghetti. Or, if you want a little extra protein, you can choose from spaghetti and meatballs, chicken parmigiana, shrimp scampi, or a slice of lasagna with meat sauce for $11. All pasta-based entrees also include unlimited breadsticks and soup or freshly prepared house salad.

By comparison, those same dishes cost a few dollars more during dinnertime. While a plate of fettuccine Alfredo may only cost you $11 at lunch, that same meal will be closer to $16 just a few hours later. The biggest reason for the price difference? The portion sizes.

According to Olive Garden's menu, the lunchtime Alfredo is around 650 calories, while a dinner portion is closer to 1,310 — nearly double the size of the lunchtime serving. Other options are similarly portioned and priced, too. Some may even argue that it isn't worth it to order the lunchtime specials.

Instead, if you opt to take advantage of the larger entrée size, you can take home leftovers and get two meals for the price of one. Take the fettuccine Alfredo, for example. If you pay $16 for a larger portion but split it in two, that's around $8 for both meals — a few dollars less than the lunchtime portion.

So if you're set on only eating a smaller portion for your midday meal, you may be inclined to opt for the lunchtime specials at Olive Garden. But if you're able to pay a little more to take home an extra meal, splurging on a full-size entrée may be worth a little more for your money.