Darden CEO Rick Cardenas on how he went from bus boy to the board room of the same company
Take-Away with Sam Oches
Nation's Restaurant News
4.9 • 17 Ratings
🗓️ 26 August 2025
⏱️ 71 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode of Take-Away with Sam Oches, Sam talks with Rick Cardenas, the CEO of Darden Restaurants. This is the fourth edition in our Signature Series — in partnership with The Coca-Cola Company — which are conversations with some of the biggest CEOs in the restaurant industry. Rick started as a bus boy at Red Lobster when he was 16 years old, and over the course of four decades he climbed the entire ladder of the company that would become Darden, rising to the chief executive role in May of 2022. He joined the podcast to talk not only about Darden’s growth strategy and the role the company plays in the lives of its loyal customers, but also about his remarkable career and the lessons that restaurant employees of all types can pull from it.
In this conversation, you’ll find out why:
- Every restaurant has employees who have the ability to grow and develop
- The broader your experience, the better a leader you become
- As a leader, you either play not to lose or you play to win
- If you’re not getting passed over for jobs, then you’re not dreaming big enough
- As you scale, you should lean into what you know
- You don’t have to sacrifice your values in order to innovate
- Your employees create your culture, so invest in them accordingly
Register for CREATE, our event for emerging restaurateurs, by clicking here.
Have feedback or ideas for Take-Away? Email Sam at sam.oches@informa.com.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey there, welcome to Takeaway with Sam Ocas, a podcast from Nation's Restaurant News. |
| 0:12.2 | I'm Sam Ocas, editor-in-chief here at NRN, and this is the show where I give you an all-access pass to the restaurant industry's most influential decision-makers. |
| 0:20.7 | This week, I'm talking |
| 0:21.8 | with Rick Cardenas, the CEO of Darden Restaurants. This is the fourth edition in our signature |
| 0:27.8 | series, which are conversations with some of the biggest CEOs in the restaurant industry. |
| 0:32.3 | And while I'm sure that Darden needs no introduction, of course it is parent to 10 iconic full-service brands, |
| 0:39.7 | including Olive Garden, Longhorn Steakhouse, Chewies, Ruth's Chris, and more. This may be something |
| 0:45.6 | of an introduction to Rick himself. Rick has been CEO for three years, but he rarely does |
| 0:51.3 | media interviews, choosing instead to focus on the business of maintaining |
| 0:55.2 | Darden's status as the world's biggest full-service restaurant company. |
| 0:59.8 | But wow, does he have a story to tell? |
| 1:03.1 | Rick started as a busboy at Red Lobster when he was 16 years old, and over the course |
| 1:08.8 | of four decades, he climbed the entire ladder of the company |
| 1:12.8 | that would become Darden, rising to the role of chief executive in May of 2022. Rick sat down |
| 1:21.0 | with me last month in an Orlando Olive Garden to talk about not only Darden's growth strategy |
| 1:26.6 | and the role that the company plays in the |
| 1:28.5 | lives of its loyal customers, but also about his remarkable career and the lessons that |
| 1:33.8 | restaurant employees of all types can pull from it. I have done thousands of interviews with |
| 1:39.8 | restaurant executives in my 16 years covering this industry, And this was easily one of the most interesting |
| 1:45.3 | and insightful that I have ever done. Rick perfectly embodies this story that the restaurant |
| 1:51.0 | industry has been trying to tell for generations, that our industry is not just a place to get |
| 1:56.0 | a job for gas money, but it can also be a destination to build an impactful and rewarding career. In this interview, |
... |
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