Chain Restaurants That Have Overwhelmingly Large Menus

If you're an indecisive diner, nothing is quite as overwhelming as a restaurant menu that reads more like a novel. While some eateries stick to a concise range of dishes, others boast sprawling menus that span a bafflingly varied array of cuisines. They say that variety is the spice of life, but some consider these extra-long menus to be a red flag. After all, if a kitchen claims to be a jack of all trades, doesn't that ultimately mean it's a master of none?

Whatever the answer may be, the reality is that some of the nation's most beloved restaurant chains feature borderline behemoth menus. A lot of these restaurants slimmed down their offerings in recent years — especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic when businesses tried to cut costs and improve profit margins amid dwindling sales. Several restaurants are still yet to restore the full breadth of their menus, but there's still no shortage of chains offering an impressive range of variety. Here are some of the chain restaurants with the most overwhelming menus.

With unlimited hot, fresh breadsticks and all-you-can-eat soup or salad, Olive Garden knows how to satiate a ravenous appetite. Pasta is the main attraction here, but you'd be hard-pressed to find many Italian (or, to be more accurate, Italian-inspired) eateries with quite as much variety as Olive Garden, with the menu featuring 25 classic entrées alone. From Alfredo to ziti, it's a bonafide A to Z of carb-tastic dishes — even if it was cut down from its prime during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Like a lot of restaurant chains, Olive Garden slashed its offerings at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Several of these lost warriors have been restored since 2020, including Steak Gorgonzola Alfredo and Stuffed Chicken Marsala, both of which returned in late 2024 amid reports of dwindling sales. At the beginning of 2025, Olive Garden also brought back the Three-Meat Manicotti and the Four-Cheese Manicotti. While several other discontinued Olive Garden dishes remain on hiatus, such as the Shrimp Scampi Fritta, we're just glad the menu has been restored to at least some of its former glory.

Chili's has slashed the size of its menu at least three times. Back in 2010, the restaurant chain revamped and replaced over 75% of the menu, reducing it from 12 pages to eight. Seven years later, it scrapped 40% of the menu. Then, when Kevin Hochman stepped up as CEO of Chili's parent company, Brinker International, in 2022, it initiated yet another revamp that simplified the menu and enhanced select ingredients.

Even after these updates, the Chili's menu remains pretty big. It does, however, remain much more focused than some of the other chains on this list. While Chili's started out selling burgers – which still make up a significant chunk of the menu — it's also fully embraced Tex-Mex cuisine, with the likes of quesadillas and fajitas bulking out much of the menu alongside other meaty staples often served up in bars and grills, such as steak, ribs, and chicken tenders. The appetizers are where you'll find the most variety, with 13 appetizers that cover all the classics, like boneless wings, egg rolls, and chips and salsa. Sure, there's nothing super unique or surprising going on here, but we'd argue that it's this sense of familiarity that plays a part in aiding Chili's ongoing resurrection.

There's a lot going on in the Applebee's Grill + Bar menu. On one hand, you can take your pick of all-American fare typically found at grills and bars, like burgers, steak, and ribs. On the other, the menu also features more inventive fusion dishes such as the Quesadilla Burger, Chicken Wanton Tacos, and Fiesta Lime Chicken. It's a relatively eclectic amalgamation of ideas but not one that seems to translate to thriving sales. As per its fourth quarter earnings report, Applebee's same-restaurant sales declined by 4.7% in 2024 compared to 2023, per a Dine Brands call reported on by The Street.

Surprisingly, there was a point when the Applebee's Grill + Bar menu was even more convoluted than it is today. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, it featured roughly 160 items. After axing the items that were either too complex to prepare or simply didn't sell well, the chain was left with around 100. Although new dishes have been added to the menu in the years since, a return to its sprawling pre-pandemic state seems unlikely. In 2021, Applebee's former president, John Cywinski, confirmed that it had permanently embraced a more streamlined menu, telling CNN Business that it "makes the restaurant more efficient." Considering the fact that employees have claimed that the vast majority of its menu is frozen and cooked in the microwave, it's tough to imagine how much more efficient a restaurant can get, but kudos to Applebee's for trying.

The Goliath of all restaurant menus needs no introduction. With over 250 dishes squeezed into a spiral notebook of over 20 pages, The Cheesecake Factory menu is essentially a culinary world tour through everything from ceviche and Thai noodles to shepherd's pie and enchiladas. In fact, the menu is so famously long and varied that it was once listed on Goodreads as an actual novel.

What remains the most impressive thing about The Cheesecake Factory menu isn't its breadth, but rather the fact that it somehow manages to pull off the vast majority of its contents to at least a decent degree. The chain preps its famously large portions from scratch (with the exception of, ironically, its cheesecake, which is made offsite and shipped frozen). The Cheesecake Factory still adds new items on a semi-regular basis. However, this menu isn't an infinite beast, as it also simultaneously scraps items to avoid becoming too bloated.

Its owner David Overton himself admits that if he'd had more experience when he launched The Cheesecake Factory, he wouldn't have made the menu quite as large. "I probably should have kept the menu slimmer, if I knew then what I know today," he told Thrillist. "I had no idea we would become a chain and would have to recreate this menu dozens of times." Given that this lack of experience gave us the miraculous culinary chameleon that is The Cheesecake Factory today, we wouldn't say that's a bad thing.

No matter when the breakfast cravings strike, Denny's has got you covered with a menu that spans the entire spectrum of breakfast foods. The menu's most iconic section — the Slams – includes meat and egg combos aimed at those who prefer a savory morning meal, as well as syrupy options tailored for those with a sweet tooth. With 14 options on its Classic Slams menu, 10 kinds of specialty pancakes and crepes, 10 signature breakfasts, and more, Denny's is essentially a breakfast haven.

And yet breakfast foods aren't its only remit. Other sections of the menu are considerably more concise but still large enough to cover diner classics like country fried steak, chicken tenders, nachos, and, of course, burgers. To Denny's credit, its culinary focus is quite specific compared to other chains with mammoth menus. Its lunch and dinner entrées have always played second fiddle to its all-day breakfast, with the latter simply offering a long list of variations of essentially the same thing.

While Denny's has tried to simplify its menu in recent years to cut labor costs, these changes primarily targeted build-your-own options. This has left its wide variety largely intact — at least, for now. Denny's didn't have the strongest sales in 2024 and set its sights on closing up to 90 restaurants in 2025. History has proven that restaurants like to tamper with their menus when the going gets tough, so we wouldn't rule out more updates in Denny's future.

Considering the fact that TGI Fridays was once New York's hottest singles bar, it's safe to say that it's undergone some changes over the decades. One thing that's remained relatively constant — at least in recent decades — is its sizable menu, primarily powered by appetizers. While its all-you-can-eat Endless Apps promotion may be MIA, you can still chow down on everything from loaded potato skins to pan-seared pot stickers to steakhouse meatballs before enjoying your entrée.

The entrée options aren't quite as expansive, but still span over 30 dishes across all sections, including fish and chips, burgers, salads, soups, and shrimp. This lineup has undergone multiple updates in recent years. In 2023, it launched its Grilled & Sauced menu in an effort to modernize its offerings. Five years earlier, it revamped its meaty menu items to try and differentiate itself from other casual dining eateries. These menu changes haven't necessarily improved sales, however, as the chain still filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November 2024 amid a string of restaurant closures.

Cracker Barrel takes its cues from traditional Southern culture, which means its restaurants are packed with old-school touches like cozy fireplaces and wood panelling (or at least that was the case until the chain kicked off a round of modern refurbishments in 2024). When it comes to the menu, this translates to comforting dishes such as country fried steak, buttermilk biscuits, meatloaf, and pot roast.

As well as its regular entrées — which are split into hefty subsections such as seafood, barrel bites, and chicken n' turkey — Cracker Barrel also offers all-day breakfast. This part of the menu alone features dozens of dishes, from sweet treats such as chocolate chip pancakes to hearty savory options, such as hash brown casseroles.

Similar to several of its competitors, Cracker Barrel cut down its menu to streamline operations in 2020. However, it has since made it clear that its menu won't be shrinking down to a concise offering any time soon. As the chain continues efforts to reverse a downward turn in recent years, it has continued to out new dishes. This included Nashville hot chicken tenders inspired by Cracker Barrel's Tennessee roots, as well as a wholesome chicken and dumpling soup, in early 2025.

The star of the BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse menu remains the same today as when the chain first debuted in 1978: handcrafted, deep-dish pizza. Customers can choose from classic toppings such as buffalo chicken and pepperoni or even build their own creations. As if solid pies aren't enough, the rest of the menu has been padded out with other sections over the years, including pasta, sandwiches, steaks, tacos, salads, and soups. Anyone with a sweet tooth is also sure to be impressed by its dessert lineup, of which its famous Pizookies — thick, gooey, cake-esque cookies — are the clear standout.

BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse is not only aware but proud of the fact that it boasts one of the most supersized menus in the business. As it brags on its website, "a remarkable menu offers something for everyone to love." This extensive lineup sets it apart from its competitors, but it also plays a part in driving up costs. In 2023, CEO Greg Levin revealed plans to scale back its current lineup of around 140 items by around 10%. "We'd rather serve a little bit less items but make sure every single item is perfect," Levin said, per Restaurant Business Online. "Time is really the goal there." Fortunately, this menu hasn't stayed stagnant in the years since, with new items still added on a regular basis.

Red Robin very much positions itself as a burger joint. A quick scroll through the Red Robin website brings up images of thick, juicy burgers, with over 20 options ranging from your standard cheeseburger to more unique creations, like the Banzai (which combines a teriyaki-glazed patty with grilled pineapple, cheddar, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise) and the Sautéed 'Shroom (which stacks sautéed garlic mushrooms, Swiss cheese, and house-made garlic aioli).

And yet, if you keep exploring its website, you'll find an additional section that significantly expands the menu. Since 2019, Red Robin has sold pizzas from Donatos — an Ohio-based chain — at select locations after initial tests in Cleveland, Arizona, and North Carolina proved promising. Beyond burgers and pizzas, Red Robin also boasts a curiously diverse appetizer menu that includes Parmesan sprouts, fried pickles, and shrimp, as well as multiple flavors of both bone-in and boneless wings, chicken sandwiches, ribs, and salmon.

There was a time when Red Robin dabbled with a less convoluted menu. That came, of course, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when it trimmed the lineup by 55 items. "Given the success, we plan to leverage a simplified menu as part of our ongoing business plan," then-CEO Paul Murphy said, (via Nation's Restaurant News). If today's mismatched menu is Red Robin in its "simplified" state, this may have been a good move.

Let's be real — a trip to Hard Rock Cafe has more to do with the ambiance, rock and roll relics, and the gift shops stuffed with branded t-shirts than it does the actual food. While the first location may have been founded by two Americans on a mission to find a good burger in London, today the city is hardly in short supply of decent eateries, and Hard Rock isn't a name that tends to pop up when debating the best in the burger biz.

Instead, one of the ways that it stands out from the crowd is sheer variety. The standard lineup spans multiple pages and covers a long list of appetizers, a handful of burgers, steaks, and rib options, and multiple sandwiches, salads, and bowls. As a global brand with restaurants dotted as far and wide as Mexico, Armenia, Nigeria, China, and Maldives, the menu does change slightly from location to location, but you can pretty much always count on some variation of these core groups with very little influence from local flavors. At the Hard Rock Cafe in Roppongi, Tokyo, for example, you won't find anything close to sushi on the menu. You can, however, find three pages of cocktails and multiple pages filled with different burgers.

IHOP may technically stand for the "International House of Pancakes," but its offerings have expanded far beyond breakfast foods over the years. While you can still enjoy a gargantuan stack of buttermilk pancakes drizzled in syrup — plus more creative flavors, such as bananas foster, tres leches, and New York cheesecake — IHOP's menu is also scattered with a mishmash of other non-pancake items, such as tacos, burritos, shrimp, and salads.

Most famously, IHOP made a dramatic splash into the burger space in 2018 when it temporarily switched its name to IHOb for the occasion. More than a publicity stunt, this was an effort to emphasize that IHOP was no longer just a pancake joint, but a fully-fledged restaurant ready to satiate your appetite at any time of day. "We had to make a bold move to get people to be willing to talk about us for something other than breakfast food," IHOP's president at the time, Darren Rebelez, explained to Business Insider.

With a name like IHOP, the chain is always going to be somewhat tied down by its pancake origins. There's no denying that its menu has grown rather bloated in its efforts to prove otherwise, even as sales have gradually declined. Fortunately, IHOP seems aware that it's drifted off course. In March 2025, the company announced plans to lean back into its morning meal roots, with breakfast continuing to deliver the strongest sales. Whether this leads to a more cohesive menu remains to be seen.

Red Lobster has learned some tough lessons with its menu over the years. Back in 2003, it misjudged the appetites of its customers when it launched an all-you-can-eat snow crab deal that ultimately lost the company millions. Two decades later, it repeated history with an Endless Shrimp promotion that lost Red Lobster $11 million and played a role in the company filing for bankruptcy a year later.

The point here is that going OTT is in Red Lobster's DNA. This becomes evident when you look at its menu, which covers much more than the restaurant's name would suggest. While its Signature Feasts menu includes relatively typical fare for a seafood restaurant, including lobster, shrimp, salmon, scallops, and surf and turf, other sections of the menu veer off in more unexpected directions, such as chicken linguini, filet mignon, cheeseburgers, and bacon mac and cheese.

This is after Red Lobster already reined in its menu in 2024, slashing its overall size by 20% to improve efficiency. Hefty though it may be, this smaller (but still bigger than most) menu seems to be working for the company, which exited bankruptcy in September 2024 and attributes some of its improved sales to its more streamlined offerings.