Exhibit 99

           Darden Restaurants Announces Dividend and Additional Share
                            Repurchase Authorization

    ORLANDO, Fla., Sept. 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Darden Restaurants, Inc.
(NYSE: DRI) announced today that the Board of Directors declared a cash
dividend of 4 cents per share on the Company's outstanding common stock.  The
dividend is payable on November 1, 2004 to shareholders of record at the close
of business on October 8, 2004.  Based on this 4-cent semi-annual dividend
declaration, the Company's indicated annual dividend is 8 cents per share.

    The Board of Directors also approved an additional share repurchase
authorization totaling 22.0 million shares.  Combined with unused capacity
from prior authorizations, Darden's available share repurchase authorization
now totals 25.2 million, which is approximately 16% of the 156.2 million
shares the Company had outstanding at the end of the first quarter of fiscal
2005.


    Darden Restaurants, Inc., headquartered in Orlando, FL, owns and operates
over 1,300 Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Bahama Breeze, Smokey Bones and Seasons
52 restaurants with annual sales of $5.0 billion.


    Forward-looking statements in this news release, if any, are made under
the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of
1995. Certain important factors could cause results to differ materially from
those anticipated by the forward-looking statements, including the impact of
changing economic or business conditions, the impact of competition, the
availability of favorable credit and trade terms, the impact of changes in the
cost or availability of food and real estate, government regulation,
construction costs, weather conditions and other factors discussed from time
to time in reports filed by the Company with the Securities and Exchange
Commission.



SOURCE  Darden Restaurants, Inc.
    -0-                             09/28/2004
    /CONTACT:  Analysts, Matthew Stroud, +1-407-245-6458, or media, Jim
DeSimone, +1-407-245-4567, both of Darden Restaurants, Inc./
    /Company News On-Call:  http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/105228.html /
    /Web site:  http://www.darden.com /
    (DRI)

CO:  Darden Restaurants, Inc.
ST:  Florida
IN:  RST
SU:  DIV