PNWFF Business Course, The Business of Shrimp, hard lessons from the corporate world
Case 1: Red Lobster and the case of Endless Shrimp
The casual dining sector of our economy has grown reliably for decades. Chilis, Applebees, Dennys, Waffle House and the subject of this article, Red Lobster are some of the leaders in this market. They extensively advertise on TV, and what they show in those ads is exactly what you get. A multitude of options to eat a relaxed, enjoyable meal where you can guarantee a selection that, at-minimum, includes Caesar salad, fried mozarella sticks and a selection of light beers.
Apart from offering a delicious salad and appetizing assortment of ales, Red Lobster is a reliable distributor of seafoods best suited for freezer storage and fast cooking. Shrimp, fried fish and yes, even lobster. Their mastery of distribution to dish led to remarkable growth that parallels the decline in American Cooking Competencies. Through the 1990's until now, an empire of 700 Red Lobster restaurants emerged in the North American market. A series of dark room investment buyouts and takeovers soon followed, The Red Lobster Chain was acquired by an Investment company run by money-grubbing, lobster-hating pale stooges who in turn sold Red Lobster's strip mall real estate out from under them. Red Lobster now had a new overhead expense, rent. This new expense escalated problems immensely, particularly when rents stayed constant when patrons, during the lean Covid era, did not.
In their absence of wisdom, the anemic leadership at Red Lobster tried to turn things around by offering a special they called "Endless Shrimp." It's exactly what it sounds like, and fun too. One person orders this dish and if you keep eating it, the waitstaff keep bringing you shrimp. You can't take any home, you can't box it, you can't share with another. It's just you verses the shrimp, piles and piles of them. Best of all it this option was priced at around $20, about $10 less than most meal options from Red Lobster.
Soon various Shrimp deficient Americans and Canadians realized this was a good deal. They emerged from caves and bunkers to eat, millions of them showing up all over the country with a crisp $20 bill and their finest cargo shorts, white sneakers and weekend athletic wear. This previously unidentified Army of Shrimp Gluttons mobilized in an unprecedented manner, gobbling shrimp in a way that you might have only imagined. Specifically, if had you lived through the entire nightmare of COVID dreaming and praying for some kind of option to eat endless bowls of buttered shrimp in garlic, or shrimp scampi, well, Red Lobster's promotion was the answer to all that longing. Their dreams came through, big time. If there was a god of Shrimp, it lived in the Temple of Red Lobster.
Red Lobster didn't realize how amazingly good these culinary athletes were at eating shrimp. Some folks could slay 80-100 shrimp in a sitting. This pencilled out to a cost of way more than $20 a plate. Red Lobster management did not anticipate this. Shrimp were proving their downfall, tips were down, the nightly take way off, the waitstaff miserable under the constant harassment for more shrimp. So the weaselly, pellucid corporate hacks did what any good management team would do, they declared bankruptcy. This Shrimp Bubble was too frothy, too dangerous to sustain this behemoth of casual dining.
Is it RIP for Red Lobster? I don't know. But one things for sure, if you have a way to deliver endless shrimp and monetize it, you might be looking at a feast, or a famine.
This course is approved for ZERO credit hours of PNWFF's online business school
Case 1: Red Lobster and the case of Endless Shrimp
The casual dining sector of our economy has grown reliably for decades. Chilis, Applebees, Dennys, Waffle House and the subject of this article, Red Lobster are some of the leaders in this market. They extensively advertise on TV, and what they show in those ads is exactly what you get. A multitude of options to eat a relaxed, enjoyable meal where you can guarantee a selection that, at-minimum, includes Caesar salad, fried mozarella sticks and a selection of light beers.
Apart from offering a delicious salad and appetizing assortment of ales, Red Lobster is a reliable distributor of seafoods best suited for freezer storage and fast cooking. Shrimp, fried fish and yes, even lobster. Their mastery of distribution to dish led to remarkable growth that parallels the decline in American Cooking Competencies. Through the 1990's until now, an empire of 700 Red Lobster restaurants emerged in the North American market. A series of dark room investment buyouts and takeovers soon followed, The Red Lobster Chain was acquired by an Investment company run by money-grubbing, lobster-hating pale stooges who in turn sold Red Lobster's strip mall real estate out from under them. Red Lobster now had a new overhead expense, rent. This new expense escalated problems immensely, particularly when rents stayed constant when patrons, during the lean Covid era, did not.
In their absence of wisdom, the anemic leadership at Red Lobster tried to turn things around by offering a special they called "Endless Shrimp." It's exactly what it sounds like, and fun too. One person orders this dish and if you keep eating it, the waitstaff keep bringing you shrimp. You can't take any home, you can't box it, you can't share with another. It's just you verses the shrimp, piles and piles of them. Best of all it this option was priced at around $20, about $10 less than most meal options from Red Lobster.
Soon various Shrimp deficient Americans and Canadians realized this was a good deal. They emerged from caves and bunkers to eat, millions of them showing up all over the country with a crisp $20 bill and their finest cargo shorts, white sneakers and weekend athletic wear. This previously unidentified Army of Shrimp Gluttons mobilized in an unprecedented manner, gobbling shrimp in a way that you might have only imagined. Specifically, if had you lived through the entire nightmare of COVID dreaming and praying for some kind of option to eat endless bowls of buttered shrimp in garlic, or shrimp scampi, well, Red Lobster's promotion was the answer to all that longing. Their dreams came through, big time. If there was a god of Shrimp, it lived in the Temple of Red Lobster.
Red Lobster didn't realize how amazingly good these culinary athletes were at eating shrimp. Some folks could slay 80-100 shrimp in a sitting. This pencilled out to a cost of way more than $20 a plate. Red Lobster management did not anticipate this. Shrimp were proving their downfall, tips were down, the nightly take way off, the waitstaff miserable under the constant harassment for more shrimp. So the weaselly, pellucid corporate hacks did what any good management team would do, they declared bankruptcy. This Shrimp Bubble was too frothy, too dangerous to sustain this behemoth of casual dining.
Is it RIP for Red Lobster? I don't know. But one things for sure, if you have a way to deliver endless shrimp and monetize it, you might be looking at a feast, or a famine.
This course is approved for ZERO credit hours of PNWFF's online business school
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