Dividend Focus Stock: Pull Up a Chair for Darden Restaurants

How about a side of dividends to go with your pasta or steak?

In this edition of the Dividend Informer, our analysts serve up a new company to coverage, a restaurant business with a long history of steady growth.

Darden Restaurants, Inc. operates casual dining restaurants including Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse, along with fine dining restaurants such as Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Capital Grille, and Eddie V’s.

Its diversified portfolio seems to keep it on a steady, albeit unspectacular, upward trajectory. The current dividend yield is 2.9%.