[6] In 1990, China Coast was launched as an attempt to create a (U.S.) national casual dining restaurant that featured American Chinese cuisine.

[6] Markets were oversaturated with restaurants in 1997, forcing Darden to close 48 poorly performing locations and lose $91 million due to the restructuring.

The company then began testing a new concept called Smokey Bones BBQ Sports Bar, which opened in late 1999 in Orlando.

The restaurant is a sports bar concept featuring barbecue and related foodstuffs in an Appalachian mountain lodge setting.

As part of the Rare acquisition, Darden set up its Specialty Restaurant Group to include Capital Grille, Bahama Breeze, and Seasons 52.

[17] In December, Darden announced that it would sell its Smokey Bones chain to Barbeque Integrated, Inc., an affiliate of Sun Capital Partners, Inc., for approximately $80 million.

[14] In January 2011, Darden announced co-locating their Olive Garden and Red Lobster brands in smaller markets to share kitchens but continue separate menus and eating areas.

[20] In October 2011, Darden acquired two chains, Eddie V's Prime Seafood and Wildfish Seafood Grille, for a $59 million cash transaction, and were placed within its Specialty Restaurant Group,[21] Also in October, Darden signed an area development agreement with Americana Group of Kuwait to develop and operate at least 60 locations using the Red Lobster, Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse concepts.

[24] On December 19, 2013, Darden announced plans to sell or spin off the Red Lobster brand, citing pressure from stock investors.

Starboard led a large group of investors in asking management to delay the move and see if better options, such as its plans to revitalize the chain, were available.

[30] When management instead decided to sell the chain to private equity firm Golden Gate Capital in May, Starboard and other investors sharply criticized the $2.1 billion "fire sale" price as a serious undervaluing of Red Lobster and its assets, such as the underlying real estate.

However, after CNBC reported on a leaked document, supposedly offered to potential lenders and buyers earlier in the year, that described Red Lobster's financial position far more optimistically than management had in its contemporary public statements,[33] one of the investors, a union pension fund, filed suit alleging material misrepresentation.

[34] Management claimed Golden Gate had prepared the document in consultation with Red Lobster's executives, who could have been expected to have that view of the chain's future.

While it received considerable media attention for its detailed focus on Olive Garden, in particular the chain's "wasteful" practice of serving too many of its free unlimited breadsticks at once (to prevent food waste due to staleness: instead of one per customer plus an additional one per table; additional breadsticks are served fresh on demand) and not salting the water it boiled pasta in, to secure a longer warranty on the pots, it also attacked management for spending lavishly on the chain's corporate headquarters while paying the general managers of individual restaurants less than its competitors did.

"[38] Nevertheless, in October, shareholders replaced the entire board with Starboard's slate, in what an observer called an "epic fail" for management, since that rarely happens.

[39] On March 27, 2017, Darden announced its intent to acquire Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen for $780 million[40] from shareholders such as L Catterton and Oak Investment Partners.

On March 28, 2017, when Darden announced that it had acquired Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen and "lifted its full-year earnings outlook," the company became the biggest gainer that day on the S&P 500, with shares growing nearly 9%.