Olive Garden returns to Ontario with Ottawa Westboro opening this summer

Olive Garden is planting its flag in Westboro, taking over 675 Kirkwood Ave. at Hampton Park Plaza, the former East Side Mario’s site that also housed D’Arcy McGee’s before both restaurants closed in 2023. The new Ottawa dining room is expected to open this summer, giving west-end diners a familiar chain-Italian option in a spot that has already seen casual-dining traffic for years.

The move matters because it is not just one restaurant opening. Ottawa is one of two confirmed Ontario locations in Olive Garden’s comeback, alongside Vaughan Mills in Vaughan, and the first new provincial openings after more than 20 years away from Ontario. Darden expanded Olive Garden into the province in the 1990s, including two Ottawa locations, but the chain had shut down all 11 Ontario restaurants by the end of that decade. This Westboro opening is Olive Garden’s clearest signal yet that the brand is re-establishing itself in the province rather than testing a one-off return.

Recipe Unlimited completed its acquisition of all eight Olive Garden restaurants already operating in Canada on July 14, 2025, and the company’s development agreement with Darden Restaurants gives it exclusive rights to develop and operate new Olive Garden restaurants across the country. Before the Ontario comeback, Olive Garden’s Canadian footprint was limited to eight locations in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Recipe said on Jan. 15, 2026 that the first new Ontario restaurants would open in Vaughan and in Ottawa’s Westboro neighbourhood, putting the chain’s expansion plan into motion.

For pasta regulars, the brand’s appeal is exactly what made it a big-name absence when it left Ontario in the first place: a menu built around pasta dishes, soups, salads and family-style dining, with the chain’s familiar comfort-food formula intact. The company has not announced an exact opening date yet, but the Westboro address at Hampton Park Plaza now has the clearest marker yet that Olive Garden’s long Ontario absence is ending one suburban dining room at a time.