Olive Garden’s Never Ending Pasta Bowl Jumped to $14.99 After Four Years at $13.99, and Virginians Will Pay It

This year’s Never Ending Pasta Bowl gives you 120 ways to fill it.

It also costs $1 more to start, and a Virginia family who visits Olive Garden frequently will feel that.

Here’s how the new price compares with years past, and what it means for your next Olive Garden visit.

Four Fall Runs at $13.99

The bowl came back in October 2022 at $13.99, a $3 jump from the $10.99 it was before. The $3 increase was about 27%, nearly four times the size of this year’s.

That 2022 run was scheduled for Oct. 3 to Nov. 20, seven weeks, after the bowl’s previous run in 2019.

Then the price stopped moving.

When the bowl returned in August 2025, Olive Garden said the price hadn’t changed since 2022. That made 2025 the fourth consecutive year at $13.99, covering four fall runs from 2022 through 2025.

If your usual restaurants got pricier over those years, you weren’t imagining it. Average menu prices had jumped more than 30% over the previous five years, according to the National Restaurant Association.

New Starting Price

Olive Garden’s July 24, 2026 announcement prices the Never Ending Pasta Bowl “starting at $14.99.” It’s the first increase since 2022.

The promotion runs nationwide from Aug. 31. Olive Garden eClub members and Pasta Pass holders got early access starting Aug. 24.

The bowl is dine-in only.

You’ll want to read that “starting at” closely before you order.

One Extra Dollar

From $13.99 last year to a starting price of $14.99, the bowl rose $1, an increase of about 7.1%. Measured against the $10.99 bowl from before 2022, the starting price is up $4, about 36%.

A dollar sounds small.

But food away from home rose 3.4% over the 12 months ending in August 2026. Pricing across Darden, Olive Garden’s parent company, averaged 3.7% in the quarter that ended Aug. 30, FSR Magazine reported.

Raising last year’s $13.99 by 3.4% would have made it about $14.47, or about $14.51 at 3.7%. If you order the bowl twice this fall, the extra dollar becomes $2 on your tab. A table of four where everyone adds a topping would pay $79.92 before tax and drinks, up from $75.92 at last year’s prices.

What the Price Buys

This year's bowl lets you pick from 120 possible combinations of pastas, homemade sauces and protein toppings.

Last year's bowl offered four pastas, including fettuccine, spaghetti and angel hair, along with six sauces.

Spicy Alfredo is new.

So is a Crispy Shrimp Fritta protein topping. A protein topping costs an additional $4.99, the same as in 2022 and 2025. Add one to the $14.99 starting price and you're at $19.98 before tax and drinks.

Darden's First Quarter

Same-restaurant sales at Olive Garden rose 1% in the Darden quarter that ended Aug. 30. Darden's release lists it at 1.1% on a fiscal-calendar basis and 1.0% on a comparable-calendar basis.

The bowl began Aug. 31.

So the sales figures can't show how diners are reacting to the new price.

If you're hoping for lower prices, that isn't the forecast. The same report said Darden's price increases are expected to slow toward the low-to-mid 2% range by its fourth quarter. Early results for the pass and bowl have exceeded Darden's expectations, with protein add-ons drawing more interest than before.

Pasta Pass Math

The Never Ending Pasta Pass sold for $100 plus tax and covered 13 weeks of unlimited pasta. The pass also includes protein toppings.

At the $14.99 starting price, $100 buys about 6.7 bowls, or about five visits if you add a topping to each one. Use the pass once a week for its 13 weeks and each visit works out to about $7.69 before tax. One bowl a week over the promotion's 12 weeks would run $179.88 at the starting price, or $239.76 with a topping each time, before tax and drinks, against $100 plus tax for the pass.

The pass debuted in 2014 at the same $100 but was good for only seven weeks.

Just 1,000 sold.