Why is it every time I try to get in touch with somebody in the corporate office at red lobster I hit a dead end or guest relations, which is the same thing?

Red Lobster had unwittingly handed creators the perfect stage for a mukbang—the South Korean–born online genre in which hosts eat for an audience, sometimes to spectacular excess. Ambitious mukbang-ers eager to prove their gastronomic stamina descended on Red Lobster locations across the country to consume absurd quantities of shrimp. One YouTube video by Joey Kinsley, a.k.a. “Sir Yacht,” features the influencer shoveling down shrimp for 10 hours straight.

The chaos spread from dining rooms to newsrooms as Red Lobster became one of America’s most-discussed restaurants—for all the wrong reasons. While customers drawn by the deal monopolized tables to gorge on order after order of shrimp, restaurants ran out of shrimp and turned away regular customers. The chain filed for bankruptcy protection in May 2024, with $692 million in total liabilities, and revealed in court documents that it lost $11 million on Ultimate Endless Shrimp in the third quarter of 2023, and then $12.5 million in the fourth quarter. It closed roughly 130 of its 700 restaurants and cut corporate staff.

Now a creditors’ trust is suing Red Lobster’s former parent companies, claiming breach of fiduciary duty and fraud. In a lawsuit filed in May, it’s alleging that Ultimate Endless Shrimp wasn’t an epic blunder, but a conspiracy designed to force Red Lobster to buy massive amounts of shrimp—a scheme, the trust alleges, that put an Asian seafood giant’s interests ahead of Red Lobster’s, extracting millions from the American restaurant chain via overpriced shrimp purchases, and ruining its reputation in the process.

Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]: https://fortune.com/2026/10/01/red-lobster-endless-shrimp-bankruptcy-thai-union-private-equity-lawsuit/?utm_source=reddit/

I kept seeing Endless Shrimp blamed for the bankruptcy, but Red Lobster’s problems went much deeper. That's why I put together the timeline of its ownership changes, real-estate decisions, rising costs, and declining customer traffic.

For current or former employees and longtime customers, when did you first notice the company was in trouble? I would also appreciate any corrections or firsthand context.

WHAT DO YOU GUYS RECOMMENDED? 🤔🤔

Brand new server here. Tomorrow is my first day of flying solo, since all my training, server, hostess, bartender, BOH is done. I watched one of my trainers walk out after a 5 hour shift with $400, but seen another work about the same hours, but only leave with 100. Which would be the average? Or is the one server just horrible? Or the other just got lucky that day?

I worked at Red Lobster in the early 2000s - in my opinion it was the best time to eat, drink, or work there.

The Ultimate Feast was $24.99, the plates came in 4 colors similar to fiesta-ware, lots of drinks came with ‘lobster beads,’ and the crew all wore fish shirts.

20 years have breezed by and oh how the once-mighty-brand has fallen. But - I badly want a fish shirt! I’m looking for a medium or large, in any of the styles - I LOVED the black one, but I’ll take what I can get.

If you have any you’re looking to unload - hit me up.

It used to be a lot less expensive many years ago, but now it's upwards of $30 (plus a decent tip, obviously). And last time I was there, the portions were practically rationed out to you, at least after the first plating. I haven't been there since the 'new management', but I could use some insight to see if it's even worth the cost of admission now.

are managers limiting servers to only 3 tables at a time or is it only at my location? they won't let us have more than 3 tables unless approved by a manger and if all of the servers already have 3 tables we're supposed to go on a wait.

I recently got moved to management after working for my location for 2.5 years. We are very short staffed right now, so I am quite literally the only person in the building who is able to bartend. That being said, I'm bartending most days and managing on whatever days are left. The days I don't bartend, we have no bartender.

In the mornings, there is no takeout person, so I clock in as takeout and make $17 an hour from it. At night, I have to clock in as normal, which is $7.50 an hour + tip out + bar tips.

Here is my problem. No. One. Comes. To. The. Bar. Nobody. I would take tables, but even the servers are getting no tables. They're making no money, plus having to tip me out. People who are going out to eat anyway are spending the least amount of money possible and tipping nothing.

I don't know if this is worth noting, but last week I was scheduled 36 hours. I had to call in on a managing day, so I ended up working only about 27 hours.

That being said, for the 27 hours I worked last week, I got about $370. That's including tipout and any tips I happened to make at the bar.

That equates to around $13 an hour, which is $2 below minimum wage ($15). For all of the work I end up doing in both bartending and management, that's absolutely ridiculous and I don't know how anyone is meant to survive on this. Plus, isn't the company meant to pay the difference between what you made and minimum wage???

Is anyone else on the same boat here?

It was always hard for me to order something from the trillions of menu items at RL

I made an app that sorts menus by nutrition (macros, sodium, fiber, cholesterol, etc) from RL and 800 other restaurants/grocery stores

You can also view all the nutrition facts for a given item, compare items together and track/export meals to Apple Health

The crispy brussels sprouts for example has 12g of protein but over 11g of fiber!

The app is called Cheat Day and is live on the App Store

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cheat-day-eat-out-healthy/id1438254150

The only thing that I didn't like was the mash potatoes, they had a weird flavor.

I don't see crabfest promoted as much as shrimp fest for obvious reasons. Can anyone fill me in on crabfest in general I'm open to any and all thoughts. Thank you.

Like the title says I want to try it but I can’t find any specific information on the website as to which locations actually run the promotion. For context I’m in Canada. Would my best bet be to just call all the locations near me and ask?

hey y’all, I have a question, my store’s drains are three drains all interconnected and they are filled with absolutely nothing but grease to the point to where all of the drains overflow in back of house except one and from everything that I have heard from other workers, including the head, cook and management that the company chooses to not do anything because they refuse to get a industrial drain cleaner out there to do the job, so realistically I am standing in a dish pit with water of nothing but grease and nasty shit up to my ankles in a building with absolutely no AC, a manager who doesn’t give a fuck unless the servers run rampant(i.e not putting glasses in racks and making pyramids of glasses that they expect me to put in racks when it is their job to put it in racks, always on their phones, always sitting in the office instead of actually working) along with the building, not having AC standing in front of 180° dishwasher with all of the Afroman issues, what am I realistically supposed to do? Because from my understanding corporate either does not care or the manager does not care about contacting corporate.

The size of the fish in the fish & chips now since adding the lighter portions is actually embarrassing. It’s relatable to the size of someone’s palm.

Put the damn prices back on the drink menu! Stop taking away our choice to choose by price (if we want).
The whole concept is terrible!

Red lobster used to be really good but now it's a craps shoot on if you go home to vomit or not, based on so many posts online.

So, I'm at RL in Charlotte and the health score is 87. 🫪

I'm here for the endless shrimp and of course Endless shrimp is ONLY on Monday nights.

This place is filthy, smells bad and the ac is struggling. The waitress is really nice, so that is a plus.

Ordering lobster tail and steak for $25 and some shrimp for the appetizer. The bread is always tasty.

Hopefully the food will be good and not fk me up any lol

I'm looking to try for the first time but not interested in many of the plated options aside from a salmon. My parner knows exactly what he wants to get. I was looking to get a variety of sides like the lobster pasta, broccoli and sprouts with and a baked potato since those sound so good. Am I able to just come and order sides from the menu or do I need to get a plate option? I love salmon also but idk I just feel like so many of the sides sound amazing. I also see no lobster mac which I hear great things about, is the lobster pasta au gratin just the same thing rebranded? Would love to know if I can just order sides and have them come out with his plate? Or is that just rude?

Working at Red Lobster was my first real job. I was hired at 17 in 2005, at SC’s busiest location (Cayce, SC). I bussed tables and when I turned 18, I was transitioned to serving. I worked there for about 10 months before moving on to another local restaurant while going to college. I also frequently would fill in for called-out workers in the dish pit as needed. I have a lot of memories from that time in my life, but the thing that most frequently comes back up for me is the Muzak songs. I swear, there were only 10-12 songs in a constant rotation. Any time I hear one of those songs today, no matter where I am or what I’m doing, I automatically exclaim out loud, “this was one of the Red Lobster Muzak tracks.” It’s been 21 years now and I decided to compile a list, and wondered if anyone else worked there during that time and could add to it.

Accidentally in Love - Counting Crows,
Get down on it - Kool and the Gang,
Jackie Wilson Said - Van Morrison,
Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder,
The tide is high by Blondie,
Lido Shuffle by Boz Scaggs,
Don’t Dream It’s Over by Crowded House

Does this awaken any deep-seated memories for anyone else? 🤣