During a recent interview with Damola Adamolekun, the new CEO of the restaurant chain Red Lobster, he revealed that the $20 endless shrimp deal created “a lot of chaos” and stress for employees.
The iconic “endless shrimp” deal first launched in 2004, and while it initially was only available for a week, as a means to try and drive foot traffic at the sea-food chain, it was brought back as a permanent menu offering in May 2023, according to the restaurant’s website.
The popularity of the deal was huge, resulting in the company losing an estimated $20 million last year. In May of this year, the restaurant eventually filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as it shut down around 100 locations.
After some shakeup with its top brass, the 35-year-old Adamolekun was tapped to take over the company in August. While speaking with CNN last week, he shared more on the shrimp deal that fans theorized online was the beginning of the end for the iconic chain.
“You stress out the kitchen. You stress out the servers. You stress out the host,” Adamolekun said. “People can’t get a table. It creates a lot of chaos operationally.”
In a bankruptcy filing, then-CEO Jonathan Tibus blamed his predecessor, CEO Paul Kenny, for making the shrimp deal permanent “despite significant pushback from other members of the company’s management team,” the New York Post reported at the time.
The filing also said that the chain suffered from major shrimp shortages, causing issues for the “company’s normal supply chain and demand planning processes.”
Currently, Red Lobster operates 545 locations across the United States, down from the 650 it operated before the endless shrimp promotion. Its reorganization plan was approved in August by a US bankruptcy judge, providing a path forward for the company to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It is expected to sell to a lender group led by the asset manager Fortress after it emerges.
“Red Lobster has a tremendous future, and I cannot wait to get started on our plan with the company’s more than 30,000 team members across the USA and Canada,” Adamolekun said in September.
And for those dreaming of the days when they could order dozens of coconut shrimps for only $20, Adamolekun has some hope for you, saying the days of endless shrimp may not be gone.
“I never want to say never, but certainly not the way that it was done,” he said. “We won’t have it in a way that’s losing money in that fashion and isn’t managed.”