Olive Garden expands Puerto Rico footprint with new $2.8M location in Montehiedra
Olive Garden continues to expand its footprint in Puerto Rico with the opening of its eighth restaurant, located at The Marketplace shopping center, adjacent to the Outlets at Montehiedra shopping center.
With an investment of $2.8 million, the restaurant seats 200 people in several dining areas. With the opening of the restaurant, 120 new direct and indirect jobs are generated, said Lizmarie Medina, chief marketing officer of Grupo Colón Gerena, which operates the Olive Garden franchise in Puerto Rico.
This is the third restaurant that Grupo Colón Gerena has opened in the new retail area, along with Applebee’s and Wendy’s, which opened in March 2020 during the pandemic.
“Puerto Ricans have waited for many years for Olive Garden to arrive in our market. The brand’s arrival satisfied the customers’ appetite for different culinary concepts,” Medina said.
“Since its inception in 2014, Olive Garden has become one of the favorite restaurants among Puerto Ricans, which has led us to grow the brand in the market, now with an eighth location on the island,” she added.
“This new restaurant elevates to 115 the number of restaurants GCC has on the island, under six different concepts: Olive Garden, Applebee’s, Longhorn, Red Lobster, Sizzler and Wendy’s. With the new personnel at Olive Garden Montehiedra, GCC has more than 5,000 employees across the island,” Medina said.
“This is an emotional opening, as we have worked tirelessly to achieve it. As part of our arrival in Montehiedra, we decided to donate sales of the Friends & Family event to CODERI, an entity specialized in special education and a rehabilitation center for young children and adults with intellectual disabilities and autism,” Medina added.
