Tis no man tis a remorseless eating machine

May 3, 2024 7:37 AM

“It wasn’t the second helping on all-you-can-eat, but the third“ an executive explained. After losing $3.3 million in seven weeks during a 2003 all you can eat crab leg offer, Red Lobster makes the same mistake in 2024. By turning $20 all-you-can-eat shrimp into a permanent menu item, the chain suffers a further $11 million loss. “We have to be more careful,” an executive noted.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln (95 comments total)

I don't often go to Red Lobster for Endless Shrimp, but when I do you can bet I'll be eating 100+ shrimp.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 7:39 AM on May 3 [8 favorites]

Red Lobster misjudged just how many seafood lovers would pour into restaurants around the United States and fill up their stomachs with pounds of sweet, juicy crab legs drenched in lemon and dipped in melted butter.

Did a Red Lobster marketing team write this article?
posted by moonmilk at 7:45 AM on May 3 [51 favorites]

Endless shrimp didn't sink the seafood chain. Wall Street did. (Business Insider)
posted by box at 7:49 AM on May 3 [52 favorites]

Ctrl-F p-r-i-v-a-t-e e-q-u-i-t-y

Found the problem. Put the corpse over there next to Toys 'Я' Us, Bed Bath and Beyond, Sears, RadioShack, etc.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:50 AM on May 3 [68 favorites]

It's almost like repeatedly announcing how much money they are losing on their endless shrimp, so it must be a terrific deal for customers, is some kind of marketing tactic.
posted by ssg at 7:59 AM on May 3 [22 favorites]

Red Lobster was unprepared for its customers’ insatiable lust for discounted shellfish.

“We knew the price was cheap. On this promotion, we don’t earn a lot of money. But the idea was to bring more traffic in the restaurants,” CFO Ludovic Garnier said in an earnings call earlier this month.

Well, huh, so turns out it increased traffic alright, and then they dutifully ordered the unprofitable item you lavishly promoted to get them through the door.

“We need to be much more careful."
posted by thecincinnatikid at 8:00 AM on May 3 [2 favorites]

Just don't touch those cheddar biscuits, is all I'm saying
posted by Kitteh at 8:04 AM on May 3 [3 favorites]

To raise enough cash to make the deal happen, Golden Gate sold off Red Lobster's real estate to another entity — in this case, a company called American Realty Capital Properties — and then immediately leased the restaurants back.

Yep, that’ll do it every time.

We’re only hearing about all you can eat because shoplifting doesn’t really apply as an excuse. Maybe they can demand local politicians to increase police numbers so every buffet can have a cop.
posted by Artw at 8:06 AM on May 3 [55 favorites]

You know how they say stupidity should hurt, it looks like at least in this case it actually did.
posted by tommasz at 8:06 AM on May 3 [1 favorite]

discounted shellfish

Those two words combined are enough to turn me kosher.
posted by rh at 8:06 AM on May 3 [19 favorites]

Eleanor Shellstrop has entered the chat.
posted by uncleozzy at 8:07 AM on May 3 [33 favorites]

endless shrimp are not enough i need ℵ₁ shrimp at the very least

countable 🍤 infinity 🍤 is 🍤 not 🍤 enough
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:13 AM on May 3 [33 favorites]

Using this as an example of bad promotions seems similar to using the McDonald's coffee victim as an example of frivolous lawsuits. Thirty years later and some people still haven't got the right take on that. I mean sure they underestimated the loss leader aspect but that's not their main problem.

(also blp, nobody specified that they only had countably endless shrimp, bigger infinities are still "endless" :P)
posted by SaltySalticid at 8:19 AM on May 3 [7 favorites]

I'm allergic to crab. But I did get a case of it from a Cornell U. professor years ago.
posted by Czjewel at 8:20 AM on May 3 [5 favorites]

In the 70s, my brother ate so much at an all you can eat buffet, they literally took his silverware away.
posted by dobbs at 8:22 AM on May 3 [6 favorites]

If I never hear the term "private equity" again I will know I have been magically whisked away to a far better timeline...

also, Ludovic Garnier is a freekin awesome name!!!
posted by supermedusa at 8:23 AM on May 3 [6 favorites]

i'm diagonalizing bombastic's shrimp out of spite
posted by moonmilk at 8:23 AM on May 3 [6 favorites]

It's almost like repeatedly announcing how much money they are losing on their endless shrimp, so it must be a terrific deal for customers, is some kind of marketing tactic.

So many of their deals are temporary and seasonal - I caught Lobsterfest this time around by accident - I did wonder why they didn't just end it. "Endless shrimp" isn't a legally binding term or anything.
posted by Selena777 at 8:29 AM on May 3 [2 favorites]

yes it is and it's binding both ways if you stop eating the shrimp you have breached the contract.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:30 AM on May 3 [73 favorites]

Great title quote from Horatio McCallister
posted by stevil at 8:36 AM on May 3 [1 favorite]

i don't even like shrimp
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:37 AM on May 3 [8 favorites]

Slight derail but someday I'll find a the Red Lobster "Lobsterfest" TV ad from the 90s that used - this is true but as time goes on it feels like a fever dream - "Revival" by the Allman Brothers Band -- People can you feel it, lobsters everywhere, LOBSTERS EVERYWHERE!
posted by stevil at 8:37 AM on May 3 [4 favorites]

I'm suing Red Lobster because the so-called endless shrimp, though admittedly endless in the future, have an end in the recent past. Unless you have always been serving me shrimp, you can't truly call it endless.
posted by moonmilk at 8:41 AM on May 3 [11 favorites]

Wow, the all-you-can-eat stuff was just a small part of the problem, which even went beyond the usual private equity vultures cashing out while making the restaurants start paying rent:

Thai Union was a top supplier of shrimp to Red Lobster for more than 20 years. In 2016, Thai Union took a $575 million minority stake in the brand. In 2020, Thai Union deepened its financial interest in Red Lobster...

Thai Union cut out longtime Red Lobster suppliers to distribute more seafood to restaurants itself...Thai Union changed the menu based on cost-cutting decisions and executives’ tastes. The menu decisions were driven by “executive opinion,” not customer preferences, the former executive said.

It also tested squeezing Red Lobster’s waitstaff to the breaking point to save on labor costs, switching from waiters covering three tables to 10.

Red Lobster executives began to run for the doors under Thai Union’s management, resulting in a huge amount of C-suite churn. In 2021 and 2022, Red Lobster brought on a new CEO, chief marketing officer, chief financial officer and chief information officer. All left the company within two years.

Then came the all-you-can-eat shrimp mishap last year...Thai Union saw it as a way to sell off the mountains of shrimp it was catching and made it a permanent menu item instead.

“If you were a large shrimp company based in Thailand, it would be a good idea,” said the other former Red Lobster executive who spoke with CNN.

Again, wow.
posted by mediareport at 8:52 AM on May 3 [48 favorites]

"I often think ... fish must get awfully tired of seafood. What are you thoughts, Hobson?"
posted by thecincinnatikid at 8:53 AM on May 3 [1 favorite]

“We knew the price was cheap. On this promotion, we don’t earn a lot of money. But the idea was to bring more traffic in the restaurants,” CFO Ludovic Garnier said in an earnings call earlier this month.

I'm pretty sure that's not how loss-leaders work.

Red Lobster Exec: "Okay, hear me out, I have a plan. I'm calling this a 'Gut Buster'..."
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 8:59 AM on May 3 [1 favorite]

It may have increased traffic but it also slowed service:

It caused a cascade of problems as customers sat at tables for long stretches of time, eating course after course of shrimp, the former executive said. This slowed down service and created longer wait times — exactly what the chain didn’t need as people packed in the door for the chance to grab infinite fistfuls of shrimp.
posted by mediareport at 9:01 AM on May 3 [3 favorites]

Buncha dumbass rich execs gambling with the company and their necessarily terrible decisions go and blame endless shrimp for their failures.
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:03 AM on May 3 [4 favorites]

Before hollowing out the company completely, perhaps the Red Lobster big wigs might find some synergy between their endless shrimp and Facebook's Shrimp Jesus.
posted by audi alteram partem at 9:06 AM on May 3 [1 favorite]

I see this as another "successful company bled dry by private equity, left for dead" story.


The following year, Darden sold Red Lobster to Golden Gate Capital, a private equity firm, for $2.1 billion. To help fund the deal, Red Lobster spun off its real estate assets in a transaction known as a sale leaseback agreement. Red Lobster had long owned its own real estate but would now be paying rent to lease its restaurants.

Sale leasebacks are very common in the restaurant industry, but the arrangement wound up hurting Red Lobster because it became stuck with leases it no longer could afford to pay.

“That produced cost pressures on Red Lobster that they’ve never had before,” said analyst John Gordon. “It became a problem.”
posted by OnceUponATime at 9:18 AM on May 3 [5 favorites]

"Endless shrimp" isn't a legally binding term or anything.

I think it actually is, hilariously! Because they're advertising it via print and then people come to buy and pay for it, thus creating a contract! Now they could put caveats on that advertising, but they chose not to.
posted by corb at 9:22 AM on May 3 [5 favorites]

I'll find a the Red Lobster "Lobsterfest" TV ad from the 90s that used - this is true but as time goes on it feels like a fever dream - "Revival" by the Allman Brothers Band -- People can you feel it, lobsters everywhere, LOBSTERS EVERYWHERE!

It's not this one, which goes for sort of a Dixieland-adjacent thing, or this more generic song, or this more generic song, or this one, which makes some interesting choices in the opening scenes, or this one, which says 'lobster' so many times the word loses all meaning...
posted by box at 9:28 AM on May 3 [4 favorites]

💛 for the post title, that's right where my mind went
posted by chavenet at 9:36 AM on May 3 [9 favorites]

Jumbo shrimp.
posted by Czjewel at 9:45 AM on May 3 [1 favorite]

I went out with my former bother-in-law for "all you can eat crab legs" at a little restaurant years ago. He has a hollow leg.
After a couple hours the manager came out and asked us to leave.
"But it says "All you can eat!"
"Look, pal. I'm telling you now, that is all you can eat! Now get out!"
posted by Floydd at 9:45 AM on May 3 [20 favorites]

infinite fistfuls of shrimp

This would have been a great title for the Dentists to use as a follow-up to their 1993 album Powdered Lobster Fiasco.
posted by nickmark at 9:48 AM on May 3 [2 favorites]

"Endless shrimp" isn't a legally binding term or anything.

I think it actually is, hilariously! Because they're advertising it via print and then people come to buy and pay for it, thus creating a contract!

I'd argue that "endless shrimp" is, and must be, puffery because there is a finite number of shrimp in the ocean. Hence not a part of any contract.
posted by alligatorpear at 9:49 AM on May 3 [4 favorites]

I'd argue that "endless shrimp" is, and must be, puffery because there is a finite number of shrimp in the ocean. Hence not a part of any contract.

But due to their ability to reproduce, the number of potential future shrimp is indeed endless (at least until the sun goes supernova or some other calamity). If the shrimp can reproduce (which in this case means can be farmed) faster than they can be eaten, are they not in fact endless?
posted by ssg at 10:03 AM on May 3 [13 favorites]

I was hoping the bean plating would go deep on this one. I have seen the future and it is unlimited shrimp and beans.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 10:05 AM on May 3 [5 favorites]

damn it, now I want shrimp in puff pastry!
posted by supermedusa at 10:07 AM on May 3 [2 favorites]

sun goes supernova or some other calamity calamari

this thread is causing me brain damage halp
posted by supermedusa at 10:08 AM on May 3 [10 favorites]

I'm pretty sure that's not how loss-leaders work.

Is it not? That's how I have always understood loss-leaders. You bring people in with one cheap item that you break even or lose money on in hopes that they will buy other things like drinks or appetizers that are more profitable. But that's just a rando shoppers understanding of loss-leaders so maybe I'm missing a detail that explains why this isn't one.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:21 AM on May 3 [3 favorites]

After the Trader Joe’s thread I went and read The Secret Life of Groceries (thanks whoever commented that) and learned that shrimp production is basically slavery + clear-cutting + strip-mining, except in the ocean. I knew it was bad, bc my MIL used to work for a shrimp packer and it was stupid long, exhausting hours in a freezer until she could no longer feel her hands. That was the 70s. It’s so much worse now.
posted by toodleydoodley at 10:24 AM on May 3 [20 favorites]

I'd argue that "endless shrimp" is, and must be, puffery because there is a finite number of shrimp in the ocean. Hence not a part of any contract.

The shrimp must not end until closing time; in which time any participant, no matter how voracious, could not eat all the shrimp in the sea. There is a clear representation there, for which the members of the public have paid good money! (though clearly their best move there is to refund the money and escort you out).
posted by corb at 10:26 AM on May 3 [1 favorite]

Toby Carvery used to have 'bottomless custard' with its desserts, which a bunch of us tested to its limits one time, until we had to finally stop before we fell into diabetic comas. I think the kitchen staff had some fun with us too, because after the first four or five small jugs the servers brought out, the custard jugs kept getting bigger and bigger until the last one was so big we could barely lift it.

They don't do bottomless custard anymore. :-(
posted by essexjan at 10:31 AM on May 3 [10 favorites]

yes it is and it's binding both ways if you stop eating the shrimp you have breached the contract.

Our favorite salad buffet had a sign proclaiming "YOU MUST CONSUME ALL FOOD ON PREMISES." I'm afraid we were never able to do that. Perhaps the reason they closed was that someone finally did.
posted by Foosnark at 10:31 AM on May 3 [31 favorites]

You know how they say stupidity should hurt, it looks like at least in this case it actually did.

Indeed, but the question to ask is, whose stupidity, and whose hurt? The stupidity was by a bunch of dumbass executives who thought they could extract extra cash to buy another yacht, the hurt is mostly on servers, kitchen staff, small businesses supplying services to the restaurant, and every day people who like the comfortable predictability of a basic casual dining restaurant they've enjoyed for years.
posted by biogeo at 10:32 AM on May 3 [5 favorites]

I've said it before, but the problem of corporatism is that we imagine "Red Lobster" made a bad business decision, and so "Red Lobster" experiences the consequences. But "Red Lobster" doesn't exist. Wealthy executives made a bad business decision, and poor people experience the consequences.
posted by biogeo at 10:37 AM on May 3 [28 favorites]

They’re still blaming Covid for their bad leadership.
posted by waving at 11:06 AM on May 3 [1 favorite]

They should send some execs to the Crazy Eddie School of Business. They could totally turn things around with the right scam.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:21 AM on May 3 [2 favorites]

I think it actually is, hilariously! Because they're advertising it via print and then people come to buy and pay for it, thus creating a contract!

Don't restaurants have a closing time? At some point, people have to leave, right? There has to be a loophole somewhere.
posted by tommasz at 11:25 AM on May 3 [1 favorite]

closing time? At some point, people have to leave, right?

You don't have to go home but you can't stay here.
posted by howbigisthistextfield at 11:31 AM on May 3 [9 favorites]

Toby Carvery used to have 'bottomless custard' with its desserts, which a bunch of us tested to its limits one time, until we had to finally stop before we fell into diabetic comas.

You did better than me, then - I was cut off after one jug, which lead to the only argument I've ever had with wait staff (or anyone else willing to bring me food)
posted by ominous_paws at 11:45 AM on May 3 [2 favorites]

I like to joke that my brother and business partner personally got that CEO fired. They went into a suburban Atlanta Red Lobster and between the two of them ate 30 plates of crab legs. People came out from the kitchen to take photo with them and the stack of plates.
posted by ob1quixote at 12:00 PM on May 3 [6 favorites]

Thai shrimp is (still) slavery.
posted by 2soxy4mypuppet at 12:03 PM on May 3 [16 favorites]

Beefsteak Charlie's (Glen Cove Rd) circa 1979, all the beer, wine or sangria you could drink with the order of a full priced entree. I think it was all the salad and shrimp you could eat too. Regardless, tell an 18 yo HS kid (legal 18 yo drinking then) he can get a meal and all the beer he can drink for the price of a meal he was going to eat anyway...saved us ALOT of money not having to drink at the bar.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 12:23 PM on May 3 [2 favorites]

shrimp production is basically slavery + clear-cutting + strip-mining, except in the ocean

Thai shrimp is (still) slavery.

I have always loved shrimp - when I was a kid, I would get shrimp for birthday dinners because it was known to be my favorite food - but I have largely stopped eating shrimp because of the slavery in shrimp from Thailand.

One of the things I love about Trader Joe's is that they still carry the Argentinian shrimp, which - as far as I can tell from my research - is both slavery-free and sustainable.

Back to the topic: my thanks to everyone in the thread who pointed out all the ways this was a failure of private equity greed, especially with the appalling real estate deal.
posted by kristi at 12:25 PM on May 3 [7 favorites]

Shrimp Heaven... when?
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:48 PM on May 3 [4 favorites]

if you could find a wormhole that allowed you to travel back in time, you could have a Red Lobster at the nearby space station that offered Finite but Unbounded Shrimp
posted by lefty lucky cat at 12:48 PM on May 3 [1 favorite]

Take even a single shrimp, give the tail a half twist, and tape it to the head, and in closing this strange loop we've created a topologically non-orientable entrée we can refer to as a "möbius shrimp". This satisifies in at least one sense the stipulated endlessness, but as a hedge against losses we can also provide an upcharge for refills on Klein bottles of cocktail sauce.
posted by cortex at 1:36 PM on May 3 [25 favorites]

I would recommend that anybody who thinks anything is sustainable read The Secret Life of Groceries.

Highlights (besides shrimp is slavery):
- Driving trucks is sharecropping
- Promoting new products for acquisition is pay to play
- Most produce and livestock production for mass consumption is also slavery
- Including organic or whatever
- Certifications are a scam where US supermarkets give producers an ultimatum about sustainable practices and producers recruit a fall guy to sign the certificates
- Inspections are finessed by hiring out of field “experts” (people who are experts in something else but not what they’re inspecting) who then have to rely on managers at the site to tell them what they’re seeing

And so forth
posted by toodleydoodley at 1:37 PM on May 3 [10 favorites]

MetaFilter: If you were a large shrimp company based in Thailand, it would be a good idea
posted by chavenet at 1:46 PM on May 3 [3 favorites]

There was a good gastropod episode on this recently! https://gastropod.com/all-you-can-eat-the-true-story-behind-americas-most-popular-seafood/
posted by rivenwanderer at 2:03 PM on May 3 [2 favorites]

I had to sit back for a second and really ponder the root cause, which is: why did Darden, a pretty successful restaurant brand manager, dump Red Lobster?

This Motley Fool article explains it a bit better: seafood prices are very volatile, and seafood just didn't mesh horizontally across their other brands. Chain seafood restaurants just don't really exist anymore.

Pour one out for Arthur Treacher's and Long John Silver's if you feel me.
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:25 PM on May 3 [4 favorites]

ob1quixote: “They went into a suburban Atlanta Red Lobster and between the two of them ate 30 plates of crab legs. ”

I heard back from my business partner and she said it was only 17 plates. The kitchen staff really did come out and get a picture taken with them though.
posted by ob1quixote at 2:45 PM on May 3 [2 favorites]

Shrimp Jesus wept.
posted by briank at 2:45 PM on May 3 [5 favorites]

Well, Ivar's is still around in Seattle.

And I think I've been to Red Lobster, maybe twice? 95th and Metcalf in Overland Park. And it is still open it seems, while everything around it has gone, (pour one out for the Metcalf South Shopping Center and the Glenwood Arts movie theatre.

We weren't seafood people much though. Can't imagine how people are able to eat so much shrimp, let alone crab legs or lobster. Just so rich. But my dad did used to go to Arthur Treacher's fairly often, and then put that horrible malt vinegar on his fish. Shudder. Decent chips though.
posted by Windopaene at 2:46 PM on May 3

thus creating a contract

Are they broiler shrimp or stewing shrimp though?
posted by naoko at 2:55 PM on May 3

> Endless shrimp didn't sink the seafood chain. Wall Street did.

Thanks. Even before reading that link I wasn't convinced by the shrimp story. Given that their parent is seafood trading company they must be getting their shrimp as cheap as anybody can.
posted by donio at 3:18 PM on May 3

@JoeZydeco, Long John Silvers is somehow still around. There's one in my town in Ohio. I want it to be good, and taste like it did when I was a kid, but I know that won't turn out well. Thankfully my husband keeps preventing me from trying it.

Upon further inspection, there are a variety of them throughout the country, including some that are combined with Taco Bell in the Pacific NW.
posted by hydra77 at 3:31 PM on May 3 [1 favorite]

I am five minutes drive from a Long John Silver's. I could go check it out and report back.

I won't. But I could.
posted by donpardo at 3:53 PM on May 3 [6 favorites]

> including some that are combined with Taco Bell

i'm in the seafood joint. i'm in the taco bell.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 4:46 PM on May 3 [13 favorites]

Upon further inspection, there are a variety of them throughout the country, including some that are combined with Taco Bell

LJS was owned by Yum! Brands (parent co of Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut) but was sold off to a group of franchisees in 2011. So that explains why a) you saw them combined with other Yum stores but b) you don't see a lot of expansion now.

They're down to ~500 stores in the USA, less than half of what they had at their peak.
posted by JoeZydeco at 4:56 PM on May 3 [1 favorite]

Here in the NW, it was Sea Galley when I was a kid which was a "once per month" outing for us. I think it was very slightly upmarket of, say, Skippers (the big local seafood chain...Ivars never had anywhere near as many locations). Skippers had some sort of "all you can eat" deal on their menu, as I recall, but they were very stingy about bringing you "refills", which got increasingly smaller.

"All you can eat" definitely seems like a teen (boy?) activity...one regular meal is definitely my limit these days, which my waist may have you doubting.
posted by maxwelton at 5:24 PM on May 3

“We shall never deny a guest even the most ridiculous request.”

-Eugene Krabs
posted by clavdivs at 5:51 PM on May 3 [3 favorites]

My biggest take away from this is that apparently RL didn’t go out of business 20+ years ago like I thought before reading this post.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 6:12 PM on May 3 [2 favorites]

You bring people in with one cheap item that you break even or lose money on

Ideally you price your all-you-can eat so it's not even a loss. Most people think that sounds like a great deal, but turns out "all you can eat" isn't actually as much as you imagined. The few people (teen-agers, college students) who end up way ahead on the deal only put a small dent in that. It's common in Japan to have all-you-can-eat and all-you-can-drink courses, priced to pay for itself on average. (also the drinks are watered down glasses of ice with a hint of liquor somewhere in there)

If you guess wrong a little bit, well at least you made some goodwill with some customers before you fix it or the promotion ends. Or you can keep it as the loss-leader if it really does seem to be driving other sales.

This company just plain fucked it up too much. Lost money overall on the item, didn't work as a loss leader (people went there just for that and nothing else), AND it crowded the stores past capacity, blocking out or discouraging profitable customers. It's like a win-win situation where you have carefully and at great effort planned out how to turn each scenario into "lose"
posted by ctmf at 6:29 PM on May 3 [1 favorite]

11 million doesn't even sound like a lot to pay if it gets tons of people to go "oh hey Red Lobster, that's still a thing? We should go there more often" (and it sticks and they do in fact go there "more often" and not just to wipe them out on the promotion.)
posted by ctmf at 6:36 PM on May 3

The Secret Life of Groceries (thanks whoever commented that) and learned that shrimp production is basically slavery + clear-cutting + strip-mining, except in the ocean

Eat local shrimp! Wild harvested in the USA!
posted by eustatic at 6:52 PM on May 3 [4 favorites]

I once worked for [phone company] who advertised unlimited data, around 2010.

Turns out it was capped at 500Mb. Customer service were instructed to tell disgruntled customers who had hit their limit words to the effect of, "unlimited for any reasonable person".
posted by chmmr at 7:53 PM on May 3 [2 favorites]

-infinite fistfuls of shrimp
This would have been a great title for the Dentists to use as a follow-up to their 1993 album Powdered Lobster Fiasco.

after a between-LPs EP titled Crustaceans Are Growing in My Garden Pond and It’s Wintertime (Seafood Promotions Reconsidered).

Nice to see a mention of the Dentists, one of my favorite bands.
posted by otters walk among us at 8:42 PM on May 3

When I was pregnant 17 years ago I had surprise cravings for Arthur Treachers fish and chips. There was a location about 10 miles away so we went there but it had recently closed so I was out of luck and very upset. After some thought I believe it was the malt vinegar I was craving. So putting that one weird ingredient pregnant women crave onto your offerings could tip your business into the black.
posted by waving at 4:10 AM on May 4 [1 favorite]

Maybe they can demand local politicians to increase police numbers so every buffet can have a cop.

What do they charge for all-you-can-eat cops?
posted by flabdablet at 8:59 AM on May 4

My understanding is that all cops are all-they-can-eat.
posted by Artw at 10:54 AM on May 4

yes also all shrimp are bastards
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 11:35 AM on May 4

All Crustaceans Are Breaded
posted by wenestvedt at 11:45 AM on May 4 [5 favorites]

We’re only hearing about all you can eat because shoplifting doesn’t really apply as an excuse.

You mean all those people wrapping up the Cheddar Bay biscuits in napkins and putting them in their pockets/purses/diaper bags aren’t the problem?

There are two Red Lobsters in town, and it has probably been 20+ years since I have eaten there, even though one is very conveniently located. The older one opened in the 1970s when there was a dearth of dining options in Augusta, Georgia so they were thought to be high end. It was a real treat when our parents took us there for lunch after church on Sunday. But that location is in a part of town that has been in decline for the last 40 years, and by all accounts it is a pretty decrepit location in dire need of a full renovation. The other location is newer and seems to do a pretty good business, but sometime in the 1990s I had a colleague take his work phone (when cell phones were new and expensive; pretty sure it was a TeleTAC 200) with him to dinner there where it was taken by someone and discovered in a bus station when his wife suggested they call it and see where it rang. (Remember this was new tech back then.) Everyone denied any wrongdoing and the manager didn’t even apologize, much less offer to comp all or part of their meal after someone at the restaurant obviously tried to steal an expensive piece of electronics. So I said the hell with that place and have avoided it ever since, even though like the service staff of Theseus I am sure no one who was involved in the incident has worked there for a long time. I have gone there once since then for reasons I don’t recall; I remember the food being really greasy and tasting like it was cooked in great vats of that buttery flavored oil that too many restaurants use. So perhaps food quality is another reason they aren’t doing well.
posted by TedW at 12:32 PM on May 4

Take a bath on "all you can eat shrimp" one time, it's a lesson. Take a bath on "all you can eat shrimp" three times and it starts to look like one of your CEOs is padding his retirement plan with massive kickbacks from your shrimp suppliers.
posted by egypturnash at 4:59 PM on May 4 [6 favorites]

Japanese tabehodai courses usually come with a time limit, like 2 hours. So you can't just eat a lot, you have to SPEED-eat a lot to really do significant damage. And that requires wait-staff cooperation.
posted by ctmf at 6:01 PM on May 4

Pretty sure I’ve lived in places that have RL since high school, but can honestly say I’ve never set foot in one.
posted by macbot3000 at 10:00 AM on May 5 [1 favorite]

Shrimp kabobs, shrimp gumbo, shrimp ice cream, shrimp skin coats, shrimp hubcaps, shrimp contact lenses, shrimp-based religion..
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:51 PM on May 5 [7 favorites]

Red Lobster had $2.6 Billion annual revenue in 2018. Losing $3.3 Million over seven weeks in 2003, and $11 Million now, isn't going to do shit to their bottom line, that's 0.4% of their revenue. Also, is this loss only on the shrimp itself, or are they taking into account total tabs? Because people who are eating a lot of shrimp are, at a minimum, going to order a lot of drinks, and drinks are every restaurant's most profitable category.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 1:22 AM on May 6 [3 favorites]

I'm pretty sure that's not how loss-leaders work.
I'm pretty sure that's exactly how loss-leaders work. Except this shrimp-based loss leader is actually a red herring, because it has nothing to do with the downfall of Red Lobster. Any business that falls prey to private equity is doomed - it's just a matter of time, based on how long it will take to suck all the marrow from a company.
posted by dg at 11:21 PM on May 6 [6 favorites]

Watch shrimper advocate Kindra Arnesen discuss how this shrimp dumping via imports (subsidized by the World Bank, natch) destroys American harvesters 'ability to eat

On addition to destroying Red Lobster
posted by eustatic at 10:31 AM on May 7 [1 favorite]

Louisiana House and Senate Bills and Resolutions 2024
Click here to view the list-Legislation 2024

Federal Legislation 2024
Save Our Shrimpers Act:
To prohibit Federal funds from being made available to international financial institutions for the purposes of financing foreign shrimp farms, and for other purposes.
https://louisianashrimp.org/SOSAct.pdf
Save Our Shrimpers Act Letter of Support:
https://louisianashrimp.org/SOSSupport.pdf

Fisheries Act: (Would speed up disaster funds)
To require the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to approve or deny spend plans within a certain amount of time, and for other purposes.
https://louisianashrimp.org/FISHES%20Act1.pdf
https://louisianashrimp.org/FISHES%20Act.pdf
Fisheries Act Letter of Support:
https://louisianashrimp.org/FishesActSupport.pdf
posted by eustatic at 10:40 AM on May 7