It seems Red Lobster is floundering because of too many shellfish people.
The popular seafood restaurant chain posted an operating loss of over $11 million in 2023, thanks in large part to its Ultimate Endless Shrimp deal, which apparently backfired when too many customers took them up on the offer.
“We wanted to boost our traffic, and it didn’t work,” Red Lobster CFO Ludovic Regis Henri Garnier told investors about improving profits, as first reported by Restaurant Business in November. “We want to keep it on the menu. And of course we need to be much more careful regarding what are the entry points and what is the price point we are offering for this promotion.”
Red Lobster has since raised the price of the deal to $25 at all 670 restaurants, but is still in hot water: All told, Thai Union Group, which owns the chain, said it expected a $20 million loss for 2023. That’s a whole lotta shrimp.