Olive Garden Observation

I began my observation on Wednesday, March 29th at 5:30 pm at a local Olive Garden restaurant. The weather was 54 degrees, sunny and slightly windy. Olive Garden is an Italian fare restaurant with over 800 chains throughout the United States. They present themselves as “keeping with modern day Italian traditions” (Olive Garden, 2017) when they promote their food. When one enters the door to the restaurant they are presented with Italian music or older music by artists like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. As one makes their way to their seat, the decor is that of a modern Italian-themed home or restaurant. The most noted feature encountered was how calm and quiet it was within the restaurant. There was soft whispering amongst the guest and the

Each family cohort group sat quietly amongst their children who also maintained a low speaking voice. The woman from the Generation Y or Millennial generation seemed preoccupied on her phone and her child sat staring off into space, left with no one to communicate with. This woman showed her need to be a part of the “connexity lifestyle where she remains footloose but connected to her friends at all times”(Solomon, 2013) The Generation Y is very keen on having the best of the best and the most recent trends at their disposal. This could be due to them “growing up during a time of economic prosperity, surrounded by the rapid advance of technology, particularly the Internet” (Niesen, 2013), which has created an attitude that is difficult to please. So the lack of this generation being present at this restaurant is understandable because there isn't many new or unique foods or drinks that would draw in this type of crowd. “Gen Y makes up about 20 percent of the population and is expected to increase at twice the rate of the rest of the population over the next decade” (Reed College of Media, 2017). Also observed, was the family that was made up of three unique cohort groups, Generation Z, The War baby Generation, Generation X. Because these cohorts all share very different characteristic their lack of conversation didn't surprise me. A generational gap can create a relationship distance between the cohorts that can make it more difficult to communicate or to understand one another. The traditional cohorts I observed were very calm and polite. They seemed comfortable in this atmosphere and there was a very clear display of a “gray market” (Solomon, 2013) during this time of day and this day of the week in the restaurant. It was filled with a large majority of elderly customers more so than any other demographic. What I learned from the observing the several