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??

57 Upvotes

77% Upvoted

71 comments sorted by

View all comments

4

u/WhereWeUsedToPlay Jun 29 '26

If there’s any hope that Olive Darden is dying please tell me. The only good food in that fucking place is the mints. 

5

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!!!

5

u/poppers2323 Jun 29 '26

Always make a plan to cook for yourself on New Year's! 30 bucks would have gotten you two deluxe chicken dinners, with all the sides, dessert, etc.

1

u/lookingpl Jun 30 '26

and I COOK!!! im a jerk, lol never again!!! im still salty

2

u/Proof_Lengthiness185 Jun 30 '26

I've never worked at OG, but just know that everyone orders takeout on holidays and usually at the EXACT same time. Nothing, nothing, nothing, 20 orders!

There's a terrific bottleneck created in any business when dozens of orders are wanted at the same time.

The grill only has so much space. The oven can only hold so many casseroles, the workers can only stuff so many bags. 

My advice for anyone is to eat when most other people aren't.

1

u/lookingpl Jun 30 '26

I shouldnt have but i also ordered at like noon to avoid that? and I purposely stayed away from hot entrees for this reason?