You’ve really got to be creative to eat on the cheap and enjoy it. Make yourself aware of the bargains that abound and you’ll walk away satisfied — even stuffed — with excellent victuals.

A frequent example, one that’s pretty well available country wide, is Olive Garden’s all-you-can-eat soup and salad, on their lunch menu. Not only is the salad top grade, but so are the soups: usually chicken gnocchi, vegetarian minestrone, zuppa toscano (creamy sausage soup with potatoes) and pasta fagiolo.
One thing you’ll enjoy along with the food at O.G. is the waitstaff. They are pleasant, outgoing and eager to please — something you don’t always see in a waiter or waitress. Here’s another unusual aspect of the O.G. waitstaff: we’ve gotten to know the staff at our local Olive Garden on sight, if not by name. Many of them have been there for years, something you don’t often see at restaurants: more often, you’ll see a fresh set of faces with each visit. What difference does that make? It tells you that the management appreciates the staff and shows it, and so the staff is happy, with the result that they treat us — the customer — well.
Prices will vary from one O.G. to another for various reasons, but we’ve been paying around $18 for our soup and salad lunches with coffee for the two of us. My girl will usually have two bowls of salad and most often just one, though occasionally two bowls of soup. As for me, she’ll “tchh-tchh” me for having a third bowl of soup and a third bowl of salad every time.
When you think about it, the waiter probably works harder for the all-you-can-eat meal with refills of salad, soup, coffee and (yum) breadsticks, than he/she has to work for a conventional meal. With that in mind, and considering the always excellent service, we usually leave more of a tip than when we order a meal.
If you haven’t tried Olive Garden, recently or ever, go to www.olivegarden.com and find one near you. You can check out their menu at that site, with prices, for your local O.G.  If the Soup and Salad lunch deal doesn’t appeal to you, you’ll find their entrees reasonable, and all that they offer is great. And, if you are traveling, we’ve found that they are consistently good, no matter the location, so keep them in mind as you bounce around the country!