Welcome to Red Sauce America, our coast-to-coast celebration of old-school Italian-American restaurants.

When I meet women on dating apps, I always want to know if I can take them to the Olive Garden, my treat. It’s a solid opener; a way to know if we’re compatible. If they’re the right kind of woman for me, they’ll respond with an enthusiastic yes.

The right kind of woman for me is someone who won’t give me a hard time about the things I like. The kind of woman who will let me pocket all the leftover breadsticks and doesn’t care if we only discuss our favorite sexual positions and what kind of appetizers look best off the limited-time-only menu. We’re at Olive Garden because it’s kitschy and cute. Nothing that happens needs to be a serious thing. It’s no big deal.

Many people don’t know that Olive Garden began in 1982 as an independent restaurant in the Greater Orlando area. As a local who’s obsessed with talking and writing about Florida, I guess it makes sense that it’s a restaurant I’d frequent. The one I go to isn’t actually the original, but they’re all very much the same kinda place: same menu, same ’90s-style carpets, same matching uniforms on the waitstaff.

At Olive Garden, the good times are as limitless as the free salad and breadsticks. Photo by Cody James

There’s something comforting about the fact that my Olive Garden is located in the neighborhood where I grew up. It’s where my evangelical family and I used to eat together before we stopped speaking. Before I came out, before I stopped going to church, before I held them accountable for all the ways they’d silenced important parts of me. So yeah, Olive Garden reminds me of my family, which is painful, but it also reminds me of home—at least, an idea of what home could be: a never-changing place that isn’t ever going to foist anything new upon me. And there’s a Michaels across the parking lot, so after dinner, if I’m tipsy from my wines, plural, I can walk over and look at art supplies, which is always a very good time.

What I’m saying is: I go to Olive Garden to chill out and avoid the problems in my life.

We’re seated. Would you like some wine, I ask. I always want wine. What kind of wine do you like, she’ll ask, and I’ll smile and tell her I can’t tell the difference. All wines taste the same to me. But if we don’t tell our server that, we’ll get unlimited free samples. And I am all about unlimited free samples. Oh look, here come the breadsticks! Also free.