Christopher Johnson keeps a photo album of many of the Olive Garden customers he has served over the decades.

There are pictures of Walt and Caroline, who knew Johnson from his first stint with the Orlando-based chain that began in the 1990s. They were there his first day back when he returned to work for Olive Garden a second time in 2003.

They would always get the tiramisu, Johnson remembers, and while he said Caroline has since passed away, Walt, now in his 90s, still dines at the restaurant with his son.

“He still has the same soup and salad, Zuppa Toscana,” Johnson said. “He doesn’t do his dessert anymore, but he always tells me, ‘Make sure you give me a good scoop [of soup].’ But that’s my friend.”

At a time when restaurants have struggled to keep and hire employees amid the “Great Resignation,” Johnson’s loyalty to Olive Garden, and his regulars’ loyalty to him, is paying off for the chain’s Orlando owner, Darden Restaurants.

Darden’s retention levels are higher than the industry average, spokeswoman Lauren Bowes said, but she could not provide specifics ahead of next month’s earnings call. She said it’s not unusual to walk into any one of their restaurants, where servers make an average hourly wage of $25.46, and find long-tenured staffers. Darden has 180,000 employees.

“If you can generate a team of people like [Johnson] … that just have that sparkle, that connect with and engage with their guests, and create that deeply satisfying human experience when you dine out, that drives demand,” said Geoff Luebkemann, senior vice president of the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association.

Johnson, 50, of Orlando, first started with the chain in Winter Haven in 1994 while he attended community college. He transferred to the Orlando Fashion Square mall restaurant in 1997 while he was at the University of Central Florida.

After getting a television production job with a station that aligned with his radio and television communications degree, Johnson left Olive Garden in 2000. He returned to the restaurant in April 2003 and moved across the parking lot when a new location opened there in 2019.

His photo album started about a decade ago.

“I was like, ‘My 10-year anniversary is coming, and I want to have something that if I ever leave, I will have something to remember all the folks because they’ve been good to me over the years,’” Johnson said.

His memory is one of the talents Johnson’s guests love about him.

He knows to bring peach tea drinks to-go for regular Joyce Jackson, 70, and her granddaughter Imani Finney, 17, at the end of their meal.

“He knows what you want,” said Jackson, of Orlando. “He knows how you like it.”

The grandmother and granddaughter dine together at the Fashion Square Olive Garden two or three times a month, but they have a rule.

“If Chris is not here, I don’t come in,” Jackson said.

‘Olive Garden has always been good to me’

Johnson said he returned to Olive Garden after his TV station cut hours and downsized.

“At the time, I had the same general manager and there were a lot of the same coworkers [at Olive Garden],” Johnson said. “We had a really good rapport with working together. So it was no problem for me to come back.”

He worked lunch Monday through Friday, a schedule that allowed him to do freelance videography work when he came back. His exact hours vary based on how busy the restaurant gets, but he is generally at the restaurant from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. or 4 p.m.

Johnson now also drives for Lyft in his free time, a way to earn extra money he picked up when dining room traffic was slower because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The reason he gives for staying in the same job for decades is succinct: “Olive Garden has always been good to me,” Johnson said.

He said he was only out of work for a week when the coronavirus pandemic shuttered restaurants across the country. Even that was covered by Darden’s coronavirus emergency pay for furloughed workers.

“They were really committed to me,” Johnson said. “I was stir-crazy because there was nothing to do but go to the grocery stores, and I did not want to go to another grocery store.”

He returned to Olive Garden after that week and delivered meals from the restaurant and helped fill takeout orders in the parking lot.

“Many restaurants just simply regarded employees as a useless commodity and threw them over the side once the revenue disappeared. The hourly employees who were working at that time didn’t forget it,” said San Diego-based restaurant analyst John Gordon. “Darden and other best practice full-service restaurant providers noted that, and they didn’t want to be caught in that paradigm. … They knew it would be more difficult to get employees back from the pandemic.”

It wasn’t until around this past Thanksgiving that many of Johnson’s Olive Garden regulars returned after staying home during the pandemic.

“I want to say maybe half of my regulars are over 75,” Johnson said. “Just to keep them safe, they just did not come, and it took a little while for them to kind of get comfortable.”

Having the option of sick leave

Johnson has also benefited from another change at Darden that started in 2020.

Darden rolled out a paid sick leave policy in March of that year, around the start of the pandemic, where hourly workers accrue one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked. They can use up to 40 hours per year and can carry time over with a maximum balance of 60 hours.

The company also offers two weeks of paid family medical leave over a rolling 12 months that can be used to care for one’s self, a spouse, child or parent, Bowes said.

The sick leave, which many service workers at other restaurants and grocery stores across the country still don’t get, was a lifesaver for Johnson last year when he developed gout that affected his ankle.

“That really kind of slowed me up from serving because you have to constantly walk, walk, be on your feet. I couldn’t do it, so that sick pay really came in handy,” he said. “When you’re a tipped employee, and the majority of your money comes through tips, and if you’re not working, you’re not making money, and so it was like, ‘OK, what am I going to do?’ … At that point, I had accumulated enough sick time hours to where I was able to benefit.”

Johnson said he has three or four coworkers who have been with Olive Garden as long, or longer, than him.

“To have a handful of people at each restaurant that’s been there since opening day is normal,” said Kat Baron, Olive Garden director of operations in Orlando, Osceola County and some of Polk County.

Darden’s CEO, Rick Cardenas, started as a busser in 1984 and has spent most of his career with the company, leaving the business in 1998 and working for management consulting firms until his return in 2001.

“Darden changes lives,” Cardenas told the Orlando Sentinel last year. “We can give people opportunity to grow and progress.”

Gordon noted Darden’s career ladder for hourly workers and managers as one of the reasons for its better retention.

Take Baron, who has been with Olive Garden for 15 years after starting as a server. She worked as a general manager for six years and then about two years ago she got promoted to director.

“They’ve always believed in me and made me believe in myself and given me nothing but opportunity that’s provided a great life for my family,” Baron said.

Johnson and his Olive Garden colleagues are far from the norm in the restaurant industry.

Luebkemann cited data from career website Zippia.com, which shows 34% of servers stay in their job for one or two years and 30% of restaurant servers stay in a job for less than a year.

The customers that stick with Johnson and come in regularly benefit Olive Garden. The goal is to earn one more visit every year from loyal guests who already dine there once or twice a year, Baron said.

“I wish that I just had Chrises throughout my entire region that really created that sense of guest experience,” Baron said.

Or as Johnson’s 73-year-old regular Becky Hartwig, of Belle Isle, put it: “I like the food, but he makes the experience better.”

afuller@orlandosentinel.com