The parent company of Red Lobster went through something of a restaurant version of the Red Wedding recently, however, despite the closure of roughly 100 restaurants around the country, the Greensboro Red Lobster on West Wendover is still alive and swimming.
Game of Thrones fans know that the Red Wedding episode brought the sudden violent death of several key characters, and on Tuesday, May 14, communities around the country saw the sudden death of landmark family restaurants that had been there for decades.
Fortunately, the Greensboro establishment escaped the carnage.
The Greensboro restaurant wasn’t included on a list of Red Lobster closures and an employee who answered the phone on Tuesday, May 14 – the day of the announcements – when asked if the restaurant would remain open, said it would be open until 10 p.m.
When asked, more specifically, if the Greensboro Red Lobster was part of the closings nationally, he said, “No, that’s not us.”
Other Red Lobsters in the state –in Burlington, Durham, Cary and Rocky Mount – weren’t so lucky: They’re closing down and it doesn’t look likely that many if any will ever reopen.
Before the closures, there were 17 Red Lobsters in North Carolina.
The first Red Lobster opened in January of 1968 in Lakeland, Florida.
The West Wendover Red Lobster in Greensboro opened in July of 1996. Before that, a Red Lobster on Church Street was in operation for about a quarter of a century.
According to national news reports, the seafood chain has been a money loser for years, and, in 2023, it expanded its all-you-can-eat shrimp promotion – the “Ultimate Endless Shrimp” meal for $20 – and discovered that customers could eat a whole lot more shrimp than Red Lobster could afford to feed them. The promotion did the trick of bringing customers in, but the special was a loss leader deal that apparently caused the company quite a financial blow.
Though that shrimp promotion was widely publicized on Tuesday as the straw that broke the Lobster’s back, the company had been ailing financially for a long time. And, in the 4th quarter of last year, Red Lobster had operating losses of over $12 million.
According to Wikipedia, the company operates restaurants in the US –including Puerto Rico and Guam – as well as Canada, China, Ecuador, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
Pre-pandemic, there were over 700 Red Lobster locations worldwide.
The economy is not well and the media won’t talk about it because they think it’s influencing the election.
I am an expert on all-you-can-eat shrimp & sushi.
golden corral buffet solved the ‘eats only shrimp & lots of it’ problem by mixing the shrimp into chipped ice so only one shrimp at a time could be collected with tongs. when demand is strong . . . raise the price !
Scores of restaurants are being impacted by the high costs of doing business – including rising prices for ingredients, leases, payrolls and on-going disruptions to their day-to-day operations. The more truthful media outlets have been covering the increasing number of national restaurant closures for months and the ever-increasing number of consumers who feel they can no longer afford to eat out. Recent closures include various locations of Red Lobster, Applebee’s, IHOP, O’Charley’s and SweetFrog, to name a few.
Consumers have stated that it doesn’t make sense to spend $40-$50, or more, eating out when they can stay home and eat steak for the same cost or less. And, at home, you don’t need to include an expected 20%-30% tip, nor pay a 0.25% additional food tax if Marilyn Vaughn and Skip Alston have their way as early as next year.
They didn’t escape. That won’t be the last slate of stores to shutter.