In 2019, Olive Garden was the workhorse in the Darden Restaurant family of brands, accounting for half of the company’s total sales and 55% of its profits.
Fast-forward seven years, and it’s become more of a team effort at the Orlando-based company.
In Darden’s last fiscal year, which ended in May, Olive Garden made up 42% of sales and 47% of segment profits. The rest came from Darden’s eight other brands: LongHorn Steakhouse, Yard House, Ruth’s Chris, Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, The Capital Grille, Chuy’s, Seasons 52, and Eddie V’s.
It’s not that Olive Garden is shrinking. The 949-unit Italian chain remains Darden’s largest brand, and a steady contributor, with revenue growth of more than 7% in fiscal 2026.
But its sibling brands, especially 618-unit LongHorn, are growing faster. Of the non-Olive Garden revenue and profit growth in the company's fiscal 2026, LongHorn accounted for about half of it, with the rest of the brands contributing the remainder.
Darden executives shared these data points during an earnings call Thursday to highlight the success of the company’s portfolio strategy as it enters its 32nd fiscal year as a publicly traded company.
Over that time, the company has created or acquired an array of concepts with the goal of both reaching more customers and increasing its scale. This has given the company more buying power, and has helped defend it against changing tastes and economic trends. That, Darden says, is translating into companywide growth.
For Darden’s last fiscal year, which ended in May, consolidated same-store sales rose 4.5%, exceeding its long-term framework of 1.5% to 3.5% growth. That was driven by its largest brands — Olive Garden (4%), LongHorn (7.2%), and Yard House (5.6%) — despite a tough economic backdrop. And all of Darden’s segments, which are Olive Garden, LongHorn, fine dining, and “other business,” generated positive same-store sales for the year.
“That is the value of the portfolio that we have,” CEO Rick Cardenas said during the call. “We're not relying on any one brand, and we're not relying on any one cuisine.”
The portfolio approach has been part of Darden’s playbook since at least the early 1980s, when it developed Olive Garden to pair with its then-flagship concept, Red Lobster. It would go on to create Bahama Breeze and Seasons 52 before shifting to M&A, adding LongHorn and Capital Grille with the acquisition of Rare Hospitality in 2007.
It went on to buy Eddie V’s, Yard House, Cheddar’s, Ruth’s Chris, and, most recently, Chuy’s, en route to becoming the largest full-service restaurant company in the world, with more than 2,200 locations, $13 billion in annual revenue, and two of the 10 largest U.S. casual-dining chains in Olive Garden and LongHorn. Yard House is No. 11.
The approach has not always yielded success. An early creation, China Coast, failed within five years, and the company sold Red Lobster under pressure from investors in 2013. Earlier this year, Darden shut down the struggling Bahama Breeze, with plans to convert 11 locations into other concepts. Cheddar’s has grown total sales by just 5.7% since Darden bought it in 2017, per Technomic data.
Nonetheless, Darden argues that its scale enables its brands to do better together than they would on their own. Its in-house food distribution network helps keep costs down, for instance, and a proprietary POS system helps restaurants operate better. This has translated to strong unit economics: Olive Garden’s 24.3% restaurant-level margins are the best in the casual-dining industry.
Darden’s platform also allows all of its brands to share in its renowned operating philosophy, which is centered on food, service, and atmosphere, as well as its vast trove of customer data.
“Our smaller brands benefit from the learnings generated from our larger brands, and because of our platform, they can tailor sophisticated media plans to their specific business needs,” Cardenas said.
As an example, he pointed to data-driven menu upgrades at Yard House over the past three years. The tavern concept’s new burgers, pizza, and tacos are easier to execute and more popular with customers, he said, which has contributed to its success.
Darden expects fiscal 2027 to be another year of growth, projecting companywide same-store sales growth of 2.5% to 3.5%. That’s not as strong as 2026, but still within its long-term framework.
Darden will also ramp up its development activity, targeting 75 to 80 new openings, plus 11 Bahama Breeze conversions. All told, it could amount to up to 20 more openings than fiscal 2026, when it added 71 restaurants.
And though the company said it does not need to buy more brands to continue hitting its benchmarks, it has not ruled out doing so, either.
“We work with what we have in front of us, which is the brands we have today and converting those remaining Bahama Breezes,” Cardenas said. “That's quite some work for our teams. It's going to be very valuable to us. But we're going to focus on the brands we have until there's another brand.”
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a Restaurant Business member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.