When Is The Olive Garden Supposed To Open In The Capitola Mall

CAPITOLA — Anne Tara sat at the bar Monday, enjoying her salad and veggie pinadina sandwich $6.99 lunch special at the new Olive Garden Italian Kitchen.

"I'm impressed," said Tara, a Live Oak resident making her first visit to Olive Garden, a chain with a Tuscan farmhouse-style architecture and expansion plans.

Anne Tara of Live Oak makes her first visit to Olive Garden Italian Kitchen on opening day Monday in Capitola. (Jondi Gumz — Santa Cruz Sentinel)

Her friend, worried about opening day problems, decided not to come but Tara didn't see any glitches.

With every table full, people waited in the sunshine outside the $1.5 million building with rustic stone exterior at 3400 Clares St. behind the Capitola Mall, for their name to be called.

"We opened with a line of people out the door, which was really nice," said Lisa Chiorello, the general manager, who is in her late 30s and has worked for Olive Garden for 19 years. "Capitola is a great community — everybody knows everybody's name."

This is her first time in charge of the opening.

Love is food

Chiorello, who is Italian — her grandfather came to the U.S. from Naples — started as a server in San Jose and worked her way up. She became a general manager 10 years ago and would like to go to Olive Garden's culinary institute in Tuscany some day.

"We show our love by feeding you," she said. "Love is food, right?"

Lisa Chiorello is the general manager at Olive Garden in Capitola. She's worked 19 years at Olive Garden and requested the Capitola location. (Dan Coyro — Santa Cruz Sentinel)

Staff got the jitters out on the weekend at invitation-only friends and family events, where salmon was the No. 1 menu item and bar sales raised $5,000 for local nonprofit Live Like Coco.

Locals are welcoming Olive Garden after a tough year for retailers, with Sears closing its anchor store in the Capitola Mall and Orchard Supply Hardware closing its store in the Kings Plaza shopping center down the street.

Stephen Logan of Merlone Geier Partners, the new owner of the mall, asked residents in January what they would like to see. He didn't have a proposal to share Monday but he said Merlone Geier is excited about Olive Garden.

Tara said she knew people had emailed Olive Garden for years, asking the restaurant to take over the building Marie Callender's closed in 2011. Olive Garden tore that building down and built from scratch, putting in new design features such as a wine wall and a family-size round table.

Olive Garden's Capitola restaurant features a stone exterior and new interior decor such as a wine wall and a round family-size table. (Dan Coyro — Santa Cruz Sentinel)

"We talked about it a long time," said Chiorello, recalling the first mention six years ago.

Once Olive Garden committed, Chiorello asked for Capitola, hoping to move closer to her sister who lives locally.

"Something like this doesn't come around very often," she said.

Her sister warned her that housing could be challenging but she found a place in Capitola and enrolled her daughter at nearby Soquel Elementary School.

"I have an eight-minute commute," Chiorello said.

155 employees

She hired 155 people — hosts, bartenders, servers and kitchen staff — which makes Olive Garden the fifth largest employer in Capitola.

"I've always heard it was a good company," said Cahil Gonzales, 33, a culinary school graduate who commutes from Watsonville to work as a bartender. "They have a lot of benefits — 401-K, health insurance, dental insurance."

Erick Haro, 19, of Santa Cruz, appreciated the training as this is his first job in food service.

During three days of dress rehearsals, staff took turns playing the role of customers and eating an entire meal. Chiorello said it helps wait staff give a genuine recommendation.

"I think you can tell the difference," she said. "They are very enthusiastic about the food."

Gonzales said her favorite is braised beef tortellini; Haro's is tiramisu.

Another employee benefit: A 50 percent discount on their meals and a 25 percent discount on takeout and dining in with friends or family.

Patrons will find the menu matches other locations with Ziosk technology, adopted three years ago to help patrons in a hurry.

Chiorello said customers can use Ziosk to order appetizers, non-alcoholic beverages and children's meals — "if a child needs food right away." Those orders go straight to the kitchen.

The Ziosk also can be used to pay the bill and has games to entertain children for for $1.99 a session but the star attraction is the food.

Catherine Little of Ben Lomond was the first customer in the door on a mission to get breadsticks for her son.

She ate the lasagna appetizer, a new menu item with layers of cheese and meat sauce topped by mozzarella and served over pasta chips.

"It's the Italian version of nachos," said Little. "Perfect."

CAPITOLA OLIVE GARDEN

What: 6,999-square-foot newly built restaurant featuring Italian food.

Where: 3400 Clares St., Capitola, behind Capitola Mall and across from Trader Joe's.

Hours: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week; closed 8 p.m. Dec. 24 and Christmas Day.

Employees: 155

General manager: Lisa Chiorello

Information: http://www.olivegarden.com or 831-462-0120.