We stopped eating at Red Lobster because of poor quality control. Once you’ve had a bad meal at a restaurant you never go back.
There’s a reason God forbade the Israelite s from eating crustaceans.................
At some point, one would think a manager at some level would have said: “you know guys, we’re losing a lot of money from ‘all you can eat shrimp.’ Maybe we should change that special to something more profitable.”
I say the gubmint should subsidize the Red Lobster all you can eat program and use shrimp as a substitute for monetary reparations. Black folk get to eat all they want. White folk are limited to three.
I think it was the “all you can eat crab legs” deals that put them under. That and most of the patronage are unlike canoes. They don’t tip.
How is it possible that management didn’t realize that “all you can eat” meant “all you can eat,” and that some customers would take that invitation literally?
Times change, and customer preferences change too. The old falls out of favor and is replaced by new styles of restaurant.
” promotions like its iconic all-you-can-eat shrimp deal that backfired.
Demand for one such recent promotion overwhelmed restaurants, reportedly contributing to hundreds of millions in losses.”
Maybe they could make it up on volume...
It wasn’t the “All you can eat shrimp.” that did them in. It was the “All you can shwimps.”.
Restaurants will need to cut corners in every facet of their operation to fund these insane offers.
Up until maybe 20 years or so ago, restaurants could have all you can eat promotions and be OK, but now I think people have gotten so greedy and piggish that this is the kind of result they’re more likely to get.
Red Lobster has had all you can eat shrimp deals for many years, and they didn’t go out of business then, and likely it’s not the reason for their bankruptcy now.
What is different now, and which has affected many other restaurant chains, is the inflationary prices they have to pay, not only for their food, but for their labor and insurance and building costs and many others.
Once Biden and democrats took over the White House and congress, things stated doing downhill for just about everybody, businesses and people included. McDonald’s is having to charge $18 for a hamburger meal, and that’s unsustainable, and many other restaurants are meeting up with the same kind of craziness. So, unless people are willing to pay for the outrageous prices, many other businesses will also be going the same way as Red Lobster. And, it’s not the ‘all you can eat shrimps’ or ‘all you can eat fries’; it’s the reality of having to pay for the high inflation which is not so easily survived. Blame does not belong with Red Lobster, and most of the blame belongs with the hugely wrong-headed Biden government policies.
- back in the late 70's we had very little money so we would eat like birds until Tuesday when we'd hit Ho-Jo's for a ton of fried fish.
They tried to make it uncomfortable for us, but we were shameless....
Well, they bought out my favourite chain up here, The Ponderosa, back in the mid 1980s.
I was a college student some 40+ years ago. A local hotel had daily happy hour specials. It was all you could eat as long as you bought a drink. They got wiped out for Shrimp and Taco days. LOL...
Which means they won’t admit the real reason(s).
Short term, they’re getting killed by Bidenomics, just like the entire restaurant industry.
Long term, their clientele has undergone a gradual shift over the decades to a — shall we say — less profitable clientele. (Think Carnival Cruises).
In either case, the real reason is something they would be unwilling or unable to admit. Therefore, they concocted the all-you-can-eat shrimp ruse.
Give it all away, and make it up in volume.
Gotta to be more to it than “all you can eat shrimp” for pete’s sake!
My kid Red Lobster last year for a meal while visiting at college. Just wasn’t what it used to be.
I can see the brand has lost it’s luster.
I know one Red Lobster place about 20 minutes from me. Have not been there in at least 25 years.