5 Delicious Reasons To Eat At Olive Garden & Skip Fast Food

I don’t know about you but it seems like the number of hours in a day started to shrink the moment I became a parent. From the moment the doctor said “you have a healthy baby boy”, the sands in the hour-glass appeared to trickle exponentially faster.

In reality, I knew the minutes and seconds that signified each day had not changed. It only felt like my life was passing by faster than I wanted because my responsibilities had doubled – no they had quadrupled. Where I once only needed to be concerned about my own wellbeing, now I had the assignment of guardian, chauffeur, stylist, image consultant, chef, teacher, counselor, cleric, etc.

Like most parents, I needed help. However, unlike most parents, I found help from a most unusual and unexpected resource. I found help at a restaurant.

When You’re Here, You’re Family

Refusing to give in to the common American habit of trying to extend the day and simultaneously attempting to reduce the complications of life by eating food that shortens our life and complicates our health, I searched for a better option. The moment my son was able to walk, I began to take him to Olive Garden.

Once if not twice a week, Naeem and I would have lunch at Olive Garden. At Olive Garden not only was I able to avoid the temptation of feeding my precocious M.I.T. fast food but I found eating at Olive Garden beneficial for a host of other reasons.

Man In Training

Each trip to Olive Garden became an opportunity to further my son’s manhood training. There were five ways visits to Olive Garden assisted in preparing him for manhood.

1. Social Skills – Trips to Olive Garden provided a great practice ground for developing social skills. When we entered the restaurant, we were greeted by the host which meant he had to learn how to greet others. “Hello Welcome to Olive Garden” offered an opportunity for a young man to learn the importance of holding his head high, looking people directly in the eye and speaking clearly and confidently.
2. Etiquette – In retrospect, those visits to Olive Garden were practically right out of the Emily Post handbook. Those early lunch appointments with my son were a perfect training ground for dining etiquette. There were cloth napkins so we discussed how to place the napkin on his lap and use it appropriately. There was silverware so we discussed formal table settings. My son’s name meant benevolent king, I figured he might as well learn how to dine properly – like royalty.
3. Reading – Every place we went was a classroom and Olive Garden was no different. The waiter would provide a menu and although Naeem generally knew what he wanted to eat in advance, the menu gave us a tool to enhance his reading skills. I would ask Naeem for recommendations and he would read the menu to me. Not to mention eating at Olive Garden helped me watch my boyish figure. Rather than suffering the fate of an expanding waistline like many of my peers, trips to Olive Garden only facilitated the growth of my son’s vocabulary and reading skills.
4. Employee Evaluation – What kind of small business owner and entrepreneur would I be if I didn’t prepare my son to be his own boss someday? Our “big man and little man” lunch meetings set the stage for teaching him how to evaluate the performance of staff. During lunch, he would pay attention to things like the waitresses’ greeting, water refills, and the intervals between check-ins. Unbeknownst to the waiter, their evaluation and tip hinged on two deal breakers: crayons to color on the back of the kids menu and the quantity of after meal chocolate mints. Forget or skimp on those two things and in the words of Donald Trump “You’re Fired!”
5. Finance & Math lessons – Reading wasn’t the only academic lesson offered at Olive Garden. My budding mogul received some of his first lessons about finance. We broke bread but we also broke down basic mathematic and financial principles. We also talked about the financial planning profession; discussing topics such as stocks, bonds and mutual funds. When the bill arrived we reviewed it and used it as an addition and household finance exercise.

That’s Amore!

I’m sure it’s obvious that those early days of my son’s life bring back fond memories for me. The weekly lunches with my new-found responsibility afforded me the opportunity to get to know the once man in training who continues to be my best friend.

Although, Naeem no longer needs me to teach him the original lessons of a M.I.T., we remain committed to avoiding fast food. Now instead of using lunch as a technique to prepare him to be a man, we simply enjoy each other’s company and talk about life as any two grown men.

And yes, we still eat at Olive Garden.  Why mess with a good thing? Good food, great company and a place that provides menu choices and serving sizes that allows me to maintain my boyish figure. That’s amore!

Where do you take your child to lunch? Do you use lunch as a place of learning or as an opportunity to avoid interaction with your child?