catastrophically underestimating the cost of a poorly thought-out deal on cheap shellfish

  • fox [comrade/them]
    ·
    6 months ago

    We laugh at the unlimited shrimp putting them under but it's another case of a capital firm coming in, wringing every possible dollar out of it, and destroying a company

    • dannoffs [he/him]
      ·
      6 months ago

      They were already failing when they were sold to the capital firm.

      • ped_xing [he/him]
        ·
        6 months ago

        Has anyone's Red Lobster consumption gone up since childhood? I remember my parents taking me there, then several decades of it never occurring to me that that's a place where I could spend my own money, and then this. I guess they wanted me to take the place of my parents and bring a nuclear family there a couple times a year. Sorry!

        • dannoffs [he/him]
          ·
          6 months ago

          I have never made the active choice to go to Red Lobster

  • Llituro [he/him, they/them]
    hexagon
    ·
    6 months ago

    from wikipedia:

    Red Lobster has offered an endless snow crab leg promotion twice in its history (as of September 2003). However, in 2003, the promotion resulted in its parent company, Darden Restaurants, taking a $3 million charge to third-quarter earnings, resulting in president Edna Morris's departure from the company.

    The chain also underestimated how many times a customer would order more. Further complicating matters at the restaurant level was the time customers spent table-side in the restaurant cracking crab legs. This resulted in increased waiting times in the lobby and overall diminished customer capacity per hour.

  • JamesConeZone [they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    6 months ago

    Very funny story, tl;dr

    • Red Lobster are $1B billion in debt

    • The previous owner sold land that the restaurants sit on to the new owner who then and leased it back to Red Lobster at massive increases

    • Thai Union became the only Red Lobster shrimp vendor, overcharging for shrimp and skipping quality reviews (Thai Union has written off its $500m+ investment)

    • Thai seafood firm Thai Union is an owner in the company and used Endless shrimp to dump its own shrimp supply which cost Red Lobster $11 million

    • Llituro [he/him, they/them]
      hexagon
      ·
      6 months ago

      behind every good news story about a brand going under is the real story about innovative financial crimes committed by a venture capital firm that is something of an artisan at that sort of thing.

  • Owl [he/him]
    ·
    6 months ago

    Shit, now where will I go once a decade to triple my chance of dying of a heart attack by gorging myself on cheddar biscuits.

      • FlakesBongler [they/them]
        ·
        6 months ago

        It's also not a hard recipe to make

        Just take some bisquick mix, stir in a bunch of cheese, bake them

        Then while the biscuits are baking, melt some butter and toss some garlic into it to infuse it

        Once the biscuits are done, brush them with the butter

        This is literally how they make them at the restaurant

    • kristina [she/her]
      ·
      6 months ago

      its like 12 pounds of butter and garlic, just do it yourself

  • Anarcho-Bolshevik@lemmygrad.ml
    ·
    6 months ago

    I remember my mom taking me there when she was working at it back in the ’90s. I was mildly creeped out looking at the brownish lobsters with colorful rubber bands over their claws as they were sitting around in the aquarium. I think that there was even a moment when somebody showed one of those lobsters up close to me, but I could most well be misremembering. It would certainly explain why I’ve never been interested in trying lobster.

    Anyway, watching corporations file for bankruptcy is fun. The more the merrier.