Olive Garden is one of the nation’s hottest restaurants

It must be the breadsticks.

Olive Garden continued to be one of the hottest restaurants in the country, posting a same-store sales gain of 2 percent in its most recent fiscal quarter — easily outperforming rivals like Chili’sꦬ and Applebee’s.

The solid performance in the three months ended Aug. 28 marked the eighth straight quarter of same-store sales increases, the company sai🦂d.

The company said it was able to put up strong same-store sales gains in its fiscal first quarter despite a 1 percent decline in customer traff꧃ic.

It was about to boost revenue with a combination of price increases and mixing in h🉐igher-priced items o🥀n the menu.

Activist investor Starb✅oard Value in October 2014 won two board seats and pressed for operational changes at the 843-unit chain. One involved the chain’s unlimited breadsticks.

Servers offeredᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ up too many breadsticks at one♚ time, leaving the ones eaten last cold and less tasty.

The company promised to change that pattern.

Olive Garden’s strong performance helped parent ܫDarden Restaurants to a 27.5 percent gain in profits, to $110 milꦗlion, or 87 cents a share.

Wall Street expected 82 cents.

Per-share ♏earnings were helped by a stock buyback 🦩program. Revenue gained 1.7 percent to $1.71 billion, in line with expectations.

Shares of Darden rose 36 cents, to $61.72.