catastrophically underestimating the cost of a poorly thought-out deal on cheap shellfish
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
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!
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.
Did they do test runs of the all you can eat deal in a smaller subset of locations? Wonder how they could've have estimated that poorly.
there were some REALLY cheap snow crab deals from restaurants in 2023. Which was the year I read about snow crab stocks in alaska plummeting by 90%
feels like they figured they'd just overfish it while the getting was good
REALLY cheap snow crab deals from restaurants in 2023
that's terrifying, the general crab food populations have been plummeting for decades
Very funny story, tl;dr
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Red Lobster are $1B billion in debt
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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
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Thai Union became the only Red Lobster shrimp vendor, overcharging for shrimp and skipping quality reviews (Thai Union has written off its $500m+ investment)
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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
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.
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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.
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
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.
but like, literally
I had some very questionable seafood once from there. Good times.
