A man went into Olive Garden hoping to walk away with the viral cheese grater, but all he ended up leaving with was embarrassment.
The video starts with a server at Olive Garden telling popular TikToker Elliot (@callmebelly) that they don’t have any cheese graters to sell him “at the moment.”
The out-of-stock cheese grater disrupts his plans for his content. Elliot has 1.4 million followers and often posts videos related to food. In one of his other videos, he goes to Applebee’s to try the $1 margaritas. In another, he goes to Olive Garden with a group of friends for the never-ending pasta, and they treat it like a “family-style” meal that they all share.
“I was going to do a video on, like, ordering one,” Elliot tells the Olive Garden server of the cheese grater. He repeats “it’s OK” before saying “no worries” and that he’ll just buy one “next time” he visits an Olive Garden.
“Y’all sold the Olive Garden cheese graters out I’m humiliated,” the text overlay on @callmebelly’s video reads.
@callmebelly Im so sad #olivegarden #cheesegrater ♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys – Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey
His video was viewed over 28,000 times, and viewers are urging him to purchase the cheese grater at a different store, listing places like Target, Walmart, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Amazon. “You can buy them anywhere,” several commenters pointed out.
While other stores do sell the same cheese grater, it’s often cheaper to buy from Olive Garden. The cheese grater is reportedly sold for roughly $14.99 at Olive Garden, and it is listed at $22 at Amazon. And while it was found at Walmart for $8, the Olive Garden one comes with a tub of cheese, according to most customers who have purchased it, making the deal all the better when taking the cheese into account.
TikToker Bo (@bo_gjerness) was the first person to popularize the concept of buying the cheese grater in the restaurant, and kicked off the trend that even popular creator Jordan Howlett (@jordan_the_stallion8) partook in. Olive Garden workers have since come out saying that almost everything in the restaurant has a number and is sellable, and one server even recently demonstrated how to use the cheese grater for customers who have been using it wrong.
The Daily Dot reached out to Elliot via Instagram direct message.
