Table of Contents Strategic Framework 2003 Financial Highlights Operating Company Overviews Great Expectations   Ambience   Service   Attentiveness   Knowledge   Friendliness   Cleanliness Letter To Shareholders Operating Highlights   Red Lobster   Olive Garden   Bahama Breeze   Smokey Bones BBQ New Business Opportunities Financial Review 2003 Corporate Responsibility Board of Directors Corporate Officers Shareholders Information
(From Left to Right) • Conklin Center for the Blind helps people with multiple handicaps find jobs and maintain their independence. • The Sphinx Organization makes it possible for talented students in minority communities to study and perform classical music. • Instead of living off the endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle, the people of Rancho Nuevo, Mexico, make and sell hand-crafted art now.      The mission of Catching the Dream in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is to provide Native American communities, tribes and tribal organizations with educated professionals by providing scholarships for high-achieving students who have expressed a willingness to return to work for their communities. In fiscal 2003, the Darden Restaurants Foundation supported that goal with financial support for Native American business students interested in careers in culinary science/hospitality programs.      Since Catching the Dream was established in 1986, more than 370 scholarship recipients have returned to their communities, and the rate of employment for graduates is 100 percent. HELPING PEOPLE HELP THEMSELVES Conklin Center for the Blind Conklin Center for the Blind in Daytona Beach, Florida, is one of the few organizations in the state helping blind people with multiple handicaps, such as seizures, hearing loss or developmental disabilities. A grant from the Darden Restaurants Foundation is helping the organization with its Supported Living and Supported Employment Programs.      For a person with multiple handicaps, finding a job is just the first of many hurdles standing in the way of independence. Everyday tasks most people take for granted, such as buying groceries, paying bills and finding transportation become monumental tasks.      Through its programs, the Conklin Center empowers motivated adults with disabilities to live on their own and become productive citizens. Participants live in dorms and take classes to learn the life and job skills they need for independence. After completing the program and finding jobs, students continue to receive training and lifelong supported employment and living services to maintain their independence. PRESERVING OUR ARTISTIC AND CULTURAL HERITAGE The Sphinx Organization Founded in 1996, The Sphinx Organization helps encourage and develop the classical music talents of youths in minority communities that don’t have formal classical music programs. The organization provides a year-round curriculum specializing in classical music education and awareness for string players. Student musicians take part in a variety of training activities, master classes and seminars with renowned musicians and professionals, culminating in an annual competition.      Supported by a Darden Restaurants Foundation grant, Musical Encounters is another Sphinx program that takes student players to schools nationwide, where they perform and answer questions. It gives other students an opportunity to see that classical music study is not only available for young people – including minorities – but also a possible educational and career choice. PROTECTING OUR NATURAL RESOURCES Rancho Nuevo At Darden Restaurants, we understand conserving and sustaining a natural resource means more than just protecting it. We need to get to the source of its decline, which in many cases is associated with a region’s economic needs. Take the Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle. For centuries, inhabitants of Rancho Nuevo on Mexico’s Gulf Coast – this turtle species’ only nesting site – used the turtle as a source of food and income, dwindling its population to the point of near extinction.      As part of a comprehensive conservation and recovery program supported by the Darden Restaurants Foundation, though, the people of this coastal community are now handcrafting and selling objets d’art as a source of income, instead of relying on turtles. By helping provide the residents of this remote area with an income source that lets them provide for their families without harvesting turtles and turtle eggs, Darden is helping save the world’s most endangered sea turtle from extinction.      And it’s working. The Kemp’s Ridley Turtle Restoration Project saw a record number of nests for the 2003 nesting season. In fact, the Kemp’s Ridley may soon be taken off the endangered species list!