Olive Garden server waits on teen football team. Then they order her worst nightmare: ‘I ran around…for 3 hours’

“Unlimited” food deals in restaurants are famously great for customers. Who doesn't love endless breadstick refills? 

Unfortunately, such arrangements can be pretty rough on whoever's actually running said unlimited food. One Olive Garden server says it got especially bad during one shift.

‘Officially over our never ending pasta'

An Olive Garden server (@molejayrene) shared a video airing a grievance with the restaurant's iconic Never-Ending Pasta Bowl. Her video has since accumulated more than 1.5 million views.

The creator started out her TikTok by filming herself mid-shift, sporting her Olive Garden apron. She expressed exhaustion with a table she'd just waited on.

“Officially over our never ending pasta,” the creator wrote. “Just got a table of 10 boys on a football team that all got never ending pasta and I ran around for just their table for almost 3 hours!!!”

Fellow servers and diners alike took to her comment section to express their sympathy.

“As a former Olive Garden employee, the need to timed gratuity on the never ending pasta tables,” one viewer wrote. “It's completely unacceptable that a table can camp for HOURS for never ending pasta and we still get the same tip. Wrong.”

“I don't want unlimited pasta,” another commenter said. “But you're going to prob bring me 4 sittings of that salad.”

One viewer even recognized how stressful unlimited food is for servers by saying the dynamic changes how they tip.

“Anytime I do the unlimited soup and salad I always over tip,” they commented. “Cause it's so much more work and I know as a server that I would be frustrated too.”

“I don't think people realize how exhausting it is already to have soup and salad refills non-stop,” a server summed up. “So adding PASTA BOWLS is no joke. My back be KILLING after every shift.”

@molejayrene thank god it's friday and i have the weekend off #server #neverendingpasta #olivegarden ♬ original sound – Soundchecks To Stagedives

Are there limits to the Never-Ending Pasta Bowl?

This particular unlimited deal has been an Olive Garden mainstay for three decades. According to CNN, Olive Garden first rolled out the Never Ending Pasta Bowl in 1995.

“It has made annual appearances since then (barring a brief pause during the Covid-19 pandemic),” CNN wrote. “The promotion has become a mainstay on the menu, enticing value-seeking families because of its affordability factor. The promotion is timed around back-to-school when ‘people have a lot of expenses' and ‘consumers are looking to save.'”

Today.com reported that Olive Garden has called it “one of the most popular offers in [the] company's history.” Mashed added that the promotion is the chain's most financially successful.

There is no official cap on how many refills or fresh bowls a single diner can request while seated. However, Olive Garden's own Pasta Pass terms specify that the deal is dine-in only. Additionally, “each meal is for one person and may not be shared.” Every diner at a table has to order their own bowl rather than splitting one. This is likely why the creator ended up having to ferry so many pasta bowls for one table.

Buzz News has reached out to the creator via TikTok comment.