Latonya Gordon thinks she’s about to start saving on gas.

Gordon, 43, and her daughter, Shauntya Lucas, 16, were the first two customers in line when the new Owings Mills Olive Garden opened Monday afternoon.

Normally, Gordon said the two go to the Olive Garden in Columbia just about every weekend. Now, the pair can get all the pasta and salad they want just a few miles from their home in Randallstown.

“I love Olive Garden,” Gordon said. “They came and brought it closer to home … It’s a lot closer for us now.”

Gordon and her daughter were waiting in their car outside the Italian restaurant chain at 3 p.m., she said. By 3:30 p.m., when other cars started pulling into the parking lot at the Owings Mills Restaurant Park, Gordon and Lucas braved the cold and grabbed a seat on a bench outside the front door.

The restaurant didn’t open until 4 p.m. Monday, but the two wanted to be sure they’d be the first people in line.

Louise and Stuart Schuchalter, both of New Town, had a similar idea. Louise, 65, said the two were elated when they learned the restaurant would be coming to Owings Mills. They knew they wanted to be part of the opening. 

“We’ve eaten at other ones, and we knew it’d be mobbed,” Louise Schuchalter said.

The couple has lived in Owings Mills for 21 years. The addition of the restaurant has Stuart Schuchalter, 68, thinking about how much the area has grown in those years–and how much growth is yet to come.

In the last seven months, it has been announced that the nearby Owings Mills Mall would be redeveloped, construction of a library and community college at Metro Centre has begun and a proposal has been entered for a small-scale Hunt Valley Towne Centre outdoor mall to be constructed on the land where the Solo Cup factory currently sits.

The addition of a national restaurant chain like Olive Garden, Stuart Schuchalter said, is another sign that Owings Mills is getting some love from developers after years of being ignored. 

“We’re glad to see the development of Owings Mills,” Schuchalter said. “Owings Mills has been underdeveloped forever. The population is in the area to support it.”

That’s why Darden Restaurants, which owns Olive Garden, Red Lobster and other national chains, chose to come to Owings Mills, the restaurant’s general manager said.

“We thought about this location because it’s an up and coming area,” general manager Manny Mejias said. “Guests in the community are excited.”

Mejias, who has been in the restaurant business for 27 years and last was an Olive Garden general manager in Columbia, said he received phone calls for the last several weeks asking about the restaurant’s opening.

Because of that, he said he wasn’t surprised by the line that stretched 25-people deep on a cold, gray January day.

“We got a ton of calls,” Mejias said. “I’m really excited they came out.”

The Olive Garden will be open for dinner everyday at 4 p.m. until Saturday, when the restaurant will start opening for lunch at 11 a.m., a company statement said. About 175 people will be employed by the restaurant, the statement said.