ORLANDO, Fla. — Olive Garden’s unlimited pasta passes sold out instantly Thursday, drawing the ire of some customers who complained on Twitter and other social media.

Customers who logged into the site and tried to buy the passes the minute they went on sale at 2 p.m. Eastern Time instead saw this message: Sorry, the never-ending pasta passes have sold out.

Olive Garden was selling $100 individual and $300 family pasta passes. Only 1,000 of each pass were available.

“At sale time, our system allowed in the first 2,000 guests to purchase the available pasta passes, which occurred in less than a second,” said Olive Garden spokesman Justin Sikora.

Within hours pasta passes appeared on the auction website eBay.

For the second year in a row, Olive Garden and Orlando-based Darden Restaurants sold passes that gave customers access to never-ending pasta, salad, bread sticks and soda from Oct. 5 to Nov. 22.

After the passes sold out, Olive Garden hoped to keep people interested by starting a Twitter #pastapass hashtag and promising to give away more cards through social media.

The offer echoed pasta pass problems that Olive Garden had last year, when its website crashed as 500,000 users try to buy individual passes. They sold out quickly and left many customers disappointed.

This year, the company upped the offer with a $300 family card good for the holder and up to three guests.


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