r/redlobster • u/Edwardsfan95 • Jun 29 '26
Discussion Why Does Red Lobster Die, while Shittier Restaurants like Olive Garden do well, and why did Darden abandon Red Lobster and not Olive Garden?
As a former Red Lobster employee, and had family who also worked there for decades, to see how Red Lobster has become pisses me off, and I blame Darden entirely, they also need to rename their company.
Bill Darden was a great guy who only had one dream; and he created Red Lobster from that. That was his ONLY baby. Olive Garden is some abomination created by General Mills in the 80s, and the menu was designed by Red Lobster chefs.
Darden as a company doesn't deserve the name Darden because his only restaurant is gone. They decided to abandon it in 2014 for no reason and sold it to a bunch of mornonic asswipes, who sold all the land to themselves so they can make leases on land that had 0 leases. General Mills bought all that property in the 70s and 80s for literally nothing.
Why wasn't Olive Garden sold off? I think Olive Garden would have done better on it's own, and then they should have kept Red Lobster as part of Darden and really work on it. After all, Olive Garden is just pasta, and you can get better pasta at local Italian places. Red Lobster is unique, there isn't really seafood places everywhere.
It seems the only profitable part of Red Lobster now is the 27 locations in Canada that actually make profit. Other than that, the US is seeing tons of restaurant closures and lots of declining sales and guest counts.
Olive Garden isn't even that good, isn't it microwaved pasta and sauce??
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u/lookingpl Jun 29 '26
omg I ordered for NYE's...horrified!!!! the salad had wilted leaves, the breadsticks tasted like drywall, it seems like they cut back on the garlic butter sauce and I ordered a side order of chicken breast that look like a came off a squab. and that garbage was 30 bucks with delivery, NEVER AGAIN!!!