This Man Has a Cult Internet Following Over His Olive Garden Lifetime Pasta Pass

这个男人凭借他的“橄榄园餐厅终身意面通行证”在网上收获了一批狂热粉丝

Everyone knows that when you’re at Olive Garden, you’re family. But in the 44 years since the casual Italian-American restaurant chain was founded, few have embraced it with the ardor that Braden Sinclair has. In fact, way back in his Little League days, a coach named him “Breadsticks.” 众所周知，在橄榄园餐厅（Olive Garden），你就是家人。但在这家意式美式连锁餐厅成立的44年里，很少有人能像布雷登·辛克莱（Braden Sinclair）那样对它怀有如此热忱。事实上，早在他的少年棒球联盟时期，一位教练就给他取了个绰号叫“面包棒”（Breadsticks）。

“I had to go to Olive Garden for my birthday, ate too much, missed an entire game,” Sinclair tells WIRED. “One of my coaches decided that because of my initials being B.S., and my number being 11—which he said looked like breadsticks—and then that story, that I had to be called ‘Breadsticks’ for the rest of the season.” “我生日那天去了橄榄园餐厅，吃得太多，结果错过了一整场比赛，”辛克莱告诉《连线》杂志。“我的一位教练认为，因为我的名字首字母是B.S.，我的球衣号码是11号——他说这看起来像面包棒——再加上那个故事，所以那个赛季剩下的时间里，大家都得叫我‘面包棒’。”

He maintained that close relationship with the chain for many years, until, in 2019, he was rewarded with an almost unfathomable distinction: Sinclair is one of just 50 human beings on the planet to ever secure an Olive Garden Lifetime Pasta Pass. 多年来，他一直与这家连锁餐厅保持着密切的联系，直到2019年，他获得了一项令人难以置信的殊荣：辛克莱是全球仅有的50位获得“橄榄园终身意面通行证”的人之一。

Unlike the thousands of 13-week Never Ending Pasta Passes that the chain has offered at various intervals since 2014—this summer, a batch of 10,000, priced at $100 apiece, sold out within seconds—Sinclair’s heavy gold card bears no expiration date. It entitles him to as much pasta, toppings, breadsticks, and soup or salad as he cares to eat, for as long as the chain endures and he remains a loyal customer. (No delivery, though, to be clear. A pasta bowl so bottomless demands that one take a seat of honor for the dine-in experience.) 与该连锁店自2014年以来不定期推出的数千张“13周无限畅享意面通行证”（今年夏天，1万张售价100美元的通行证在几秒钟内就被抢购一空）不同，辛克莱那张沉甸甸的金卡没有过期日期。只要这家连锁店还在经营，且他依然是一位忠实顾客，他就可以享用任意数量的意面、配料、面包棒以及汤或沙拉。（需要说明的是，不提供外送服务。如此“深不见底”的意面碗，必须要在店内就座才能享用。）

How exactly does Sinclair wield his kingly rights at Olive Garden? All is revealed on his new website, Lifetimepastapass.com, where he crunches the many numbers—both financial and dietary—on his many meals there. And, with a continually updated poll that decides what he should order the next time he drops in, it’s easily the closest you’ll ever get to having the lifetime pass yourself. 辛克莱究竟是如何在橄榄园餐厅行使他的“帝王权利”的呢？一切都在他的新网站 Lifetimepastapass.com 上揭晓。他在网站上整理了自己在那里用餐的各项数据——包括财务和饮食方面。此外，网站上还有一个不断更新的投票，决定他下次去店里该点什么，这绝对是你离拥有终身通行证最近的一次体验。

Braden Sinclair can eat unlimited pasta at Olive Garden anytime he wants. Photograph: Bonnie Durham 布雷登·辛克莱可以随时在橄榄园餐厅享用无限量的意面。摄影：Bonnie Durham

Sinclair nabbed his license to feast during a special promotion, when Olive Garden announced that the first 50 people to buy a temporary pasta pass would have the opportunity to upgrade it to the lifetime pass for an extra $400. To this day, Sinclair wonders if his timing was really that good or if the company deliberately selected him to receive the ultimate prize. 辛克莱是在一次特别促销活动中获得这张“饕餮许可证”的。当时橄榄园餐厅宣布，前50名购买临时意面通行证的人，将有机会额外支付400美元将其升级为终身通行证。直到今天，辛克莱还在纳闷，到底是他的运气真的那么好，还是公司特意选中了他来获得这份终极大奖。

“I had sort of a joking relationship with their Instagram for years, just like chatting back and forth,” he explains, adding that it felt a little “weird” and something like “divine intervention” that he won given his coziness with the brand. An Olive Garden vice president of marketing FaceTimed him with the good news, he recalls. “多年来，我和他们的Instagram账号一直保持着一种开玩笑式的互动，就像是在闲聊，”他解释道，并补充说，考虑到他与该品牌如此亲近，他能中奖感觉有点“奇怪”，就像是“天意”。他回忆说，橄榄园餐厅的一位营销副总裁通过FaceTime视频通话向他传达了这个好消息。

Reactions to the card from Olive Garden employees range from awe to confusion. “They always take it back to the kitchen, show it to people,” Sinclair says. “Managers will come out and ask questions. The other end of the spectrum has been having to kind of prove it’s real, which is rare, and I totally understand. Like, if I managed a restaurant and someone came in with a gold card that said I don’t need to pay, I would also have questions.” 橄榄园餐厅员工对这张卡的反应从敬畏到困惑不一而足。“他们总是把它带回厨房，展示给其他人看，”辛克莱说。“经理们会出来询问。另一种情况是，我不得不证明它是真的，这种情况很少见，但我完全理解。比如，如果我是餐厅经理，有人拿着一张写着‘我不用付钱’的金卡进来，我也会有疑问。”

Now a 33-year-old father of two young kids, Sinclair doesn’t gorge on heaping plates of carbohydrates the way he used to (and, since frequenting Olive Garden makes him more conscientious about the rest of his diet, he’s avoided packing on the pounds). But he says the Lifetime Pasta Pass somewhat justifies his continued fixation on the restaurant, which was a familiar comfort when his family temporarily relocated from Maine to Wisconsin during his childhood. In 2016, he paid homage to the place with a tattoo of its famous rotary cheese grater; the caption reads “SAY WHEN.” He also began collecting vintage T-shirts that the chain had released in the 1980s and 1990s. 如今，33岁的辛克莱已经是两个孩子的父亲，他不再像过去那样狼吞虎咽地吃下大盘大盘的碳水化合物（而且，由于经常光顾橄榄园餐厅，他反而对其他饮食更加注意，从而避免了体重增加）。但他表示，这张终身意面通行证在某种程度上证明了他对这家餐厅持续痴迷的合理性——在他童年时期，当全家从缅因州搬到威斯康星州时，这家餐厅曾是他熟悉的慰藉。2016年，他纹了一个该餐厅著名的旋转奶酪磨碎器的纹身来向其致敬；纹身下方的文字写着“SAY WHEN”（意为“喊停”）。他还开始收集该连锁店在20世纪80年代和90年代发行的复古T恤。

This year, Sinclair unveiled the project that brought all of his Olive Garden experiences together in one place. Lifetimepastapass.com documents his “infinite tour of Italy” by showcasing not only his backstory and extensive merch collection but all the data you could ever want about how he has used his rare privilege: number of restaurant visits since 2019 (112), bowls of pasta eaten (152), calories consumed (154,817), meal value ($1,878.87) and total tips ($607.00). 今年，辛克莱推出了一个项目，将他所有的橄榄园餐厅经历汇集到了一处。Lifetimepastapass.com 记录了他的“无限意大利之旅”，不仅展示了他的背景故事和丰富的周边收藏，还提供了你可能想了解的关于他如何使用这一罕见特权的所有数据：自2019年以来的到店次数（112次）、吃掉的意面碗数（152碗）、摄入的热量（154,817卡路里）、餐点价值（1,878.87美元）以及支付的总小费（607.00美元）。

You can also keep tabs on a map of which locations Sinclair has tried—while the South Portland, Maine, restaurant is his home base, he has ventured up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Other charts show his most favored pasta type (rigatoni), sauce (alfredo), and topping (crispy chicken fritta), as well as the monthly frequency of his Olive Garden visits; he dined there nine times in August, the most since he set a personal record of 20 visits in October 2019, shortly after winning the pass. 你还可以通过地图查看辛克莱去过的餐厅位置——虽然缅因州南波特兰的餐厅是他的大本营，但他已经沿着东海岸四处探店。其他图表显示了他最喜欢的意面种类（通心粉）、酱汁（阿尔弗雷多白酱）和配料（脆皮炸鸡），以及他每月光顾橄榄园餐厅的频率；他在8月份去了9次，这是自2019年10月他刚获得通行证时创下20次的个人纪录以来的最高值。

With a decade of experience in data analytics and visualization, Sinclair saw all this as a fun application of his talents. But he also wanted people to have “skin in the game,” as he puts it—so he built a dashboard where anyone can vote on the combination of ingredients that make up his next pasta order. 凭借在数据分析和可视化方面十年的经验，辛克莱将这一切视为展示他才华的有趣应用。但他还希望人们能“参与其中”（skin in the game），正如他所说——于是他建立了一个仪表盘，任何人都可以投票决定他下一份意面订单的配料组合。

“I thought it was just gonna be a joke among my friends,” Sinclair says. “You know, share it on Instagram, so maybe 10 of my friends would go in and vote, and then the next day five, and then the third day no one would care, and it would be over.” Instead, after he shared the project on a couple of subreddits, he was stunned to tally over 700 votes on his next meal. He wound up eating angel hair with spicy alfredo (a new sauce offering) and crispy shrimp fritta. “我以为这只是朋友间的一个玩笑，”辛克莱说。“你知道，在Instagram上分享一下，可能也就10个朋友会去投票，第二天5个，第三天就没人关心了，事情也就结束了。”然而，当他在几个Reddit版块分享了这个项目后，他惊讶地发现下一顿饭的投票数竟然超过了700票。最终，他吃的是天使细面配辣味阿尔弗雷多酱（一种新推出的酱汁）和脆皮炸虾。

“A big reason why I wanted to do this is I just kept getting rigatoni with alfredo, five-cheese marinara, and crispy chicken, like on repeat,” Sinclair says. “I was like, ‘I need to branch out.’” His best discovery so far? “I realized that alfredo and meatballs is an insane combination,” he says. “It’s so good.” “我想做这件事的一个重要原因是，我总是重复点通心粉配阿尔弗雷多酱、五种奶酪番茄酱和脆皮鸡，”辛克莱说。“我当时想，‘我需要尝试点新鲜的。’”到目前为止，他最好的发现是什么？“我意识到阿尔弗雷多酱配肉丸简直是绝配，”他说。“太好吃了。”

In some ways, Lifetimepastapass.com is a reflection of Sinclair’s belief that the card comes with great responsibility. Besides tipping diligently, he also skips the refills, aiming to be a “respectful” and “low-impact” diner. 在某种程度上，Lifetimepastapass.com 反映了辛克莱的信念：这张卡伴随着巨大的责任。除了认真支付小费外，他还尽量不续杯，力求成为一名“尊重他人”且“低影响”的食客。