Olive Garden project delayed for unknown reasons

Those begging for an Olive Garden in Cartersville are going to have to wait longer to see it happen. Movement has apparently stalled to build the chain restaurant here.

A call to Olive Garden corporate offices yielded no reason for the delay. The official response was that the company wasn’t commenting on the construction and opening of a restaurant in Cartersville at this time.

Public records on demolition and site work for the Cartersville project were updated on Oct. 16, 2023. Bids were received in November. Description of the initial work was to demolish the hotel and parking lot and get the land ready for construction including grading and installing a retention pond, removing or relocating utilities, doing paving, curbs, and striping, sewerage line installation, and irrigation.

The estimated value of this part of the project is $200,000 according to ConstructionJournal.com.

Speculation about the restaurant chain coming to Cartersville came to fruition last July when the Italian-American food chain with unlimited salad, breadsticks, and pasta announced it submitted an engineering site plan to the City of Cartersville.

Plans are for it to occupy the space where Knights Inn is currently located. The old motel will be demolished but that hasn’t happened. Rumors abound that the company must evict squatters but Olive Garden officials won’t confirm that.

Olive Garden operates 922 restaurants worldwide, according to 2022 statistics. The top states for the number of restaurants are Texas with 108 Olive Gardens, California with 79, and Florida with 77. Georgia has 33 restaurants.