Yeah, I came to post another article I found.
http://money.msn.com/business-news/article.aspx?feed=OBR&date=20140516&id=17625969
Sure and the private equity firm will sell the properties, the silverware, the pots and the pans and the IP rights to the recipes and everything else that isn’t nailed down and run off with their bags of money.
Funnily enough I happened to eat in a Red Lobster last week for the first time in ages. I only did so because my customer suggested it. The gentleman is 72 years old.
So in we went. I am 42 and not a single one of the customers in there was a day less than 20 years older than I am.
More likely, based on my experience working at a company owned by a private equity firm, they’ll just kind of work it into the ground with minimal capital investments and improvements, and expect everyone to do more with less.
How was the food? How did it compare to your average or home-cooked lobster?
Hell I’m only 24 years old and even I realize how much food has changed in America since the 90s. Like Thai food is totally mainstream now and Korean food is getting that way. Back in the 90s it was pizza and Chinese.
I never even had Indian food until I was 19!
The vast majority of people that eat at Red Lobster do not eat lobster. I live in New England where lobster is cheap some of the time. Almost everyone that visits me wants to go out to a ‘real’ lobster restaurant to get the finest lobster they can and the atmosphere has some value especially in Maine. However, I have bad news for them if they are talking about overall quality of lobster itself. All New England lobster is as fresh as it can be because it is sent straight from live tanks into a boiling pot. There is no way to screw it up. That same concept applies anywhere that they have live lobster whether it is Maine or Iowa. The vast majority of New England lobsters are warehoused as commodities in gigantic live tanks in Canada and then shipped throughout the year wherever they are needed.
maybe because seafood is absolutely disgusting and people are finally realizing it?
ponders
No, that’s not it.
I say too that it doesn’t work that way for most people and many of us absolutely love seafood whether it is shrimp (almost always frozen on the boat so location of serving doesn’t matter much), lobster (shipped live to any place that wants it), crabs or oysters (both of those can wary wildly based on location). Some people do not like seafood but it isn’t a general rule.
The problem is that it is considered a high market specialty that requires a level of trust that is difficult for an extremely large chain to achieve these days. Legal Seafoods is also a large chain but it is also upscale especially compared to Red Lobster so they do quite well. Smaller chains and local restaurants also pull it off very well. The demand is there but the tone has changed. Seafood today depends on much higher quality than in the past but that applies to restaurants of all different specialties. Red Lobster just hasn’t adapted well to those trends so they start to die. The same thing will happen with lots of others as well if they don’t evolve.
For example, I have both a Chipotle and Taco Bell within one mile of my house. The Chipotle is incredibly popular and always has a long line but they are efficient so I go to them. Two weeks ago, the line at Chipotle was literally well outside the door so I went to Taco Bell to try their new burrito bowl that was supposed to be roughly equivalent to Chipotle’s. No one was there and the food was not even in the same universe. I ate it but wasn’t happy about it. The same idea applies to seafood but it is even more sensitive to quality and atmosphere. Twenty years ago it was Taco Bell that was the popular one because they didn’t have any real competition even if their food was fake.
oh I know I am in the minority. Its interesting that one person can gag at the smell of seafood but most folks think its some kind of delicacy
Damn! 19? I was 40. Like some others on this thread, sometimes I dine in Little Rock, AR. Star of India was my first experience with Indian food. I told them this was my families first time eating Indian food. Wow!, were they helpful. Made recommendations based on food that I liked.
Maybe that is the biggest problem with places to eat. Service. I can handle so-so food if the service is outstanding. The greatest tip I ever gave was at an Olive Garden in Biloxi, MS(or somewhere around there). Food was typical of most OG’s, but the service was outstanding.
Make your customer feel special.
In another 20 years, their customer base will be dead or in nursing homes.
Maybe Red Lobster should provide premium cafeteria services for nursing homes.
You would make a good restaurant reviewer … no lie 
This is my vote too. My wife and I went there one Friday during Lent. We didn’t order anything fancy; and when we got the bill :eek: :eek: I almost went into shock. We vowed never to eat there again. For the money we spent we could have gone to a “real” seafood restaurant and had a really nice dinner without the cattle drive atmosphere.
I disagree. With LGS you go in there and you pretty much get what you expect. Fried seafood; served fast food style. I.e. paper plates, etc. It’s not bad, and most importantly, it’s what you expect. With RL they tout it as a place to “dine” and you don’t get that experience. Instead you get mediocre food at too high of a price.
“Cattle drive,” are you kidding? Been to a Bonefish Grill lately? The two of us went to a newly-opened BG, and what a surprise we got! Apparently, parties of 2-4 are seated at raised dias tables 2-3 inches apart. Not only were the seats uncomfortable, we had the shrieking harpies on one side and two couples on the other who were feeling no pain. The menu was quite short and lacked any shellfish except for shrimp (yawn). The wine list was longer than the menu and very expensive - even for their house wines. Not a memorable evening and we won’t return. We would rather go to RL.
Dude, you’d never qualify for a deckhand position on “Deadliest Catch”
I’m a little late to the party, I see.
It did used to have a treat connotation. Last time we went was 2 or 3 years ago. No matter what fish I wanted to order, they tried to push shrimp on me. All I wanted was a nice piece of broiled ocean fish. There wasn’t anything on the menu, except a fish I’d had food poisoning from years prior, and I was not about to try that.
I would have had lobster, but what they had in the tank didn’t look healthy. I think their problems come down to:
- Not everyone likes shrimp. Don’t act like it’s something special.
- Come up with new preparations. Go retro, like Lobster Newburg, or go ethnic.
- When you use butter, use BUTTER.
- Realize that the ocean isn’t unlimited, and be a spokescorp for underutilized species.