An End to Shrimp: Upon Red Lobster

A decade ago, a once-venerable institution of fast-casual dining, formerly owned by Darden, went through hard times, and I helped them by explaining their menu to them. Now another former Darden property is hitting the skids, and I must confess, I am more at a loss to be helpful, especially given the circumstances. Nevertheless, I am able to comfort, so let’s examine what we’ve got here. 

Red Lobster is, and there’s no way around this, in some real trouble. They are doing all of the things that you’d expect a company that was about to file bankruptcy to do, from hiring a CEO that specializes in running companies about to file for bankruptcy, and getting advice from a law firm that deals heavily in such things, trying to shed some leases and onerous contracts, all the way to such classic signs as losing lots of money, losing a key investor, and not being able to pay their dang bills.¹

¹ really, it seems like this last one should be taking up more of the conversational space than it is, you know?

And that is that, I suppose. That’s how things go in the society we’ve built, giants rise and giants fall, and corporate restaurants often choose to bow to winds that you wouldn’t think would take them down². But then the reportage started to take on a tone. It turns out I wasn’t conceptualizing what a monumental miscarriage of justice had been undertaken here. 

² I will take this opportunity to note that this isn’t like when I did this for Applebee’s or Cracker Barrel. I don’t think I’ve ever chosen to go to Red Lobster on my own, but I’ve had a good time every time I’ve been there more or less, and as recently as, like, ten months ago. I also did my part by not ordering even one single shrimp at that time, but we’ll get there. 

The tentpole of the reporting here comes from the Bloomberg article linked as “in some real trouble,” and if you click on it, you’ll see reasons cited from labor costs³ and supply chain issues, to the seemingly-much-more-salient problems with their leases⁴ and their, you know, general existence as a restaurant in 2024. But that’s not where the folks helping guide further reporters steered them. No sir, the cause of the demise of Red Lobster was the shrimp. The endless shrimp. 

³ a familiar bugaboo that is total bullshit, but separately from the rest of this
⁴ which itself stems from a decision they made a decade ago to sell off the land their stores were on, a risky cash-generating move that in this case very much turned out to be a mistake. But of course, that mistake would rely on them actually blaming their own management, and why would they do that when there’s a perfectly good opportunity to blame the customer? Keep reading. 

At this point, it becomes the only thing anyone wants to focus on, and, to be clear: it is a boondoggle. Just a real dang-ol’ disaster. They decided to offer their endless shrimp⁵ as a permanent, forever menu item, and then the losses, which were at double digits before they made the decision, suddenly increased with rapidity, even as traffic itself went up. Like, to the point where the CEO of Thai Union⁶ said they “knew the price was cheap, but the idea was to bring more traffic in the restaurants…and it didn’t work.”

⁵ shrimp! Without end! An endless, mind-bending stream of shrimp!
⁶ mentioned above as the key investor that got chased off

Indeed it did not. Perhaps our fella should have learned the only business lesson it would be possible to learn from Tony Wilson. Or perhaps, alternately, a company that was in a position to be desperate enough to make that kind of call wasn’t in good enough business shape to try much of anything, and it’s very easy to scapegoat the customers for taking full advantage of their corporate providers by demanding unceasing shrimp. The shrimp whose limits cannot be comprehended by man. 

Or woman or neither, honestly. There’s no reason to gender who would fail to comprehend the limits of the shrimp. 

So anyway, the moment someone decided to blame the customers for failing to order non-shrimp-related items, all the stuff about how, like, they only want to charge rent and not pay it, or their business requires them to not pay people in order to be profitable⁷ or, like, how they attributed their entire Q3 and Q4 losses to the shrimp and not to whatever caused them to lose an enormous amount of money before that point⁸, it was open season on the customer, for failing to eat at Red Lobster correctly,⁹ and only gluttonously desiring shrimp without end, amen, amen.  

⁷ which is, of course, what people mean when they bitch about “labor costs”, which also features in some of the coverage.
⁸ I get that the shrimp didn’t help, but see above w/r/t the position of the business, and also bear in mind that the sort of “excess” amount is, at face value, something more like $5-6 million, assuming losses only held steady at where they were at, and you start to see why it is not, in fact, the fucking shrimp. 
⁹ in fact, with brass balls: “something which was different from our expectation is the proportion of the people selecting these promotions was much higher compared to expectation” 

But, fair enough: nobody can look at even the least-favorable numbers there and deny that we, the Red-Lobster-ing proletariat are, in part, to blame, for not understanding that in order for there to be an end to the expense, there must be an end to the shrimp. But, I ask them, what if this Squillan bacchanal was, in fact, not the worst-case scenario?

What if they could save face by considering that, in fact, it could have been worse? Picture with me: a world where Red Lobster had offered any of their other sea meats for the consumption of the public in all of their unspeakable appetites. 

And so, despite having already done my part for the Powers that Lobster¹⁰, here I will also provide that comfort, with a list of the other Red Lobster meats, in order from most to least disastrous.

¹⁰ once more, by not eating the shrimp in the first place

I’m also ignoring sides: that would be its own big swing, and would work different. I’ve also ignored all the stuff they already offer all you can eat (to wit: shrimp and biscuits), as well as all the stuff they used to offer all you can eat (soup and salad, if ordered that way specifically) because clearly this has already been attempted. In that spirit, I have also ignored currently-extant menu items that involve, say, varieties of shrimp that are already disqualified (the parrot shrimp salad, the crispy dragon shrimp). I have, then, further eliminated anything that would be conceptually absurd (bowls mostly)¹¹. I have also separated out variations on a single meat when it made sense to (the steaks are fundamentally different questions, as are the lobster preparations). 

¹¹ although it must be noted that while “lobster” is included, I could find no way to work “lobster flatbread” in there, so while the funniest thing to imagine is the poor waitstaff trying to figure out how to cook these, presumably in the same oven as the cheddar bay biscuits which are, famously, not in fact big enough to accommodate the suffering. I love it. But it doesn’t work for our purposes here. 

And that’s it!

6 oz Filet Mignon
It’s boring, but man would this sure have been a bad idea.

Lobster Tails
Or, as the menu only ever calls them, “Classic Maine” lobster tails, obviously this is also a bad idea. See how far you guys are ahead of the worst case scenario?

Sea Scallops
They’re only available grilled, no less!

Atlantic Salmon
The prospect of having to eat all the cooked salmon¹² someone else could eat makes me sad. I would, however, eat however much raw salmon they were willing to hand me. Well, probably not 

Red Lobster’s salmon but like. You get it.

¹² having said that, I think the New Orleans salmon might be the thing I got last time I was there? I contain multitudes, let me tell you. 

Snow Crab
I mean, the presence of “Garlic Butter” and “Honey Sriracha” options makes this sensible, if obviously cost-prohibitive.

12 oz Grilled Strip
There are more strip steaks per cow than filets mignon, certainly, but we’re still talking about an expensive all you can eat item. 

Rainbow Trout
We’re really just running through relatively-expensive proteins here

Bacon Cheeseburger
It would be disastrous for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which is the time it takes to make an individual burger. This wins the award for most conceptually hilarious choice.

Roasted Caribbean Rock Lobster
I have a fun idea: let’s not make a B-52s joke this time!

Creamy Lobster
All-you-can-eat-creamy lobster! Consider the lobsterbilities! Specifically the creamy ones! Creamy!

Stuffed Flounder
If they offered it in combination with the crispy flounder as an option, it still wouldn’t move what a terrible idea this would be

7 oz Sirloin
I mean, isn’t this what Golden Corral already gives away all the time? It’s a pain to cook, certainly.

Shrimp 
I mean honestly you guys are here, you know? That’s about the cheapest it could get and still have options enough to not just be shooting fried fish at people out of a firehose. See, this is also how we know it wasn’t the fucking shrimp. In case you wanted another argument there. 

Hand-Breaded Calamari
Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished

Clam
Clams only appear on the menu in the form of strips (and chowder, technically), which does sort of limit the variety a bit

Crispy Flounder
Separated from the stuffed flounder by dint of the latter being such a markedly different situation. We’re in the basically-interchangeable “fried seafood” part of the menu

Cod
See? This would just be straight-up “fish fry” territory, since cod is only on the menu as the “fish” component of the “fish and chips”

Chicken
I’m genuinely surprised that there aren’t more “endless chicken fingers” situations. I suppose there’s a good reason, but I’ll be darned if I know what it is, and I certainly don’t think it can be attributed (the reason that is, given that it’s a good one) to Red Lobster’s decisions, so maybe they should try it? I mean, they also have grilled chicken. This doesn’t seem like a terrible idea.

Langostino
It’s in the dip and on the lobster flatbread¹³, and you could just get like, a bowl of it I guess? with lemon or something? A fritter? Individual uh…nuggets? Get mayonnaise involved or something? Might taste good on a biscuit? Very financially doable, though.

¹³ hey, I got to mention it after all!

Bay Scallops
On the one hand, this would be pretty easy to provide. On the other hand, I’m pretty much already eating all the bay scallops I can eat as we speak¹⁴?

¹⁴ or at least all that I care to eat, by which I mean: none. 

Mussels
I mean, god, they’re like eight cents a pound, I bet you could talk a waiter into bringing you extra orders of mussels like, as it is. They’re only allowed to have three tables. They’ll bring you all kinds of stuff if you tip enough. Maybe order an extra lobsterita¹⁵.  

¹⁵ do not do this

Lobster Dip/Crab Queso
I put it to you: this would, in fact, rule. all you can eat dips! Why are they not doing this! Red Lobster I am giving you this idea for free!