Have Horace call me.

This. I had no idea

Maybe Joe was keeping them afloat

They used to be really good back in the day.

Just went to the one by our house an hour ago. We love that fucking place. Anyway management is saying that they aren’t going anywhere, at least that location. Other nonprofitable ones may be, but this one is generally packed.

Used to be much nicer in the 80's. Sucks now.

The lowered their prices and standards too much.

The whole Covid scam fucked them up good out here. The one I referenced in my earlier post is the one we always go to. That whole debacle almost caused them to go under. The good thing is the one by us is one of the ones they use for experimental menu items to see if they want to put them on the nationwide menu. The one I’ve been eating every time we go there is the southwest shrimp bowl. That thing is soooo good. Normally my wife uses her Discover points to get a discount card so at least we save some money going there but today it wasn’t even offered today so that’s foreboding .

Forgot to add, tonight I went with the shrimp and grits, which is a new addition. I love that dish elsewhere and they did a damn good job at it.  Hopefully they put that one on the nationwide menu as well. It’s awesome. Having the testing kitchen being so close to try the new stuff and hoping it catches on is sweet.

Darden is well known within the industry for treating their restaurants like cash cows and rarely reinvesting anything into the locations or the brand.

I spoke with a Red Lobster manager after Darden sold them off. He said the new owners were a little more willing to spend money than Darden had been but that it was still tough to get some expenditures approved.

Basically you walk into Red Lobster on a stormy Wednesday evening. You sit down with your wife and two kids. The waiter comes by to take your order as you hungrily ask for the endless shrimp.

15 minutes later everybody is served. Your wife and kids ordered the endless shrimp as well. As the night morphs into inky blackness outside you all talk and laugh and eat. You eat plate after plate after plate of shrimp. After a couple hours, you and your family are stuffed. You motion to the waiter to bring the bill and look down at your plate, letting out a small chuckle. It looks like you haven't even eaten a single bit of shrimp- a curious thing since you have been gorging yourself on shrimp constantly for the better part of two hours. But before you can puzzle over this small oddity any longer, the waiter bustles over to your table and hands you the bill.

As you reach over to grab the check your hand closes instead around a squishy pile of shrimp. There is no check being held out to you, just another plate of shrimp. A loud thunderclap booms outside as you look up at the waiter to ask why he brought you more shrimp instead of the check, when you are suddenly alarmed to find not the waiter, but a giant, human-sized shrimp in server attire staring blankly down at you. You spin around in your seat to see if your wife can see the shrimp waiter and are immediately frightened out of your wits. Your wife is no longer seated there next to you- only another human-sized shrimp wearing your wife's dress and hoop earrings.

Numb with horror, you quickly glance across the table at your two children. They are both shrimps. You let out a yell as another thunderclap echoes across the sky and it begins to rain. You distantly register the start of the torrential downfall outside, which sounds like large hail, as you spare a sweeping glance across the restaurant. There are no humans present. There are only shrimps seated at booths, shrimps seated at tables, and even a small group of shrimps at the bar. They are all eating large platefuls of shrimp and leering at you menacingly.

Your heart begins to pound in your chest like a war drum. You stumble backwards, half falling over your chair in your haste to get up. You sprint for the door and run outside into the dark stormy night. As you dash through the parking lot towards your car you feel something like a giant hot raindrop hit your face and bounce off towards the ground. Looking down you see a shrimp lying on the ground. You look out across the parking lot and see puddles of shrimp collecting in the cracks in the pavement and across the roofs of the closest cars. Another warm object strikes your head. It's literally raining shrimp.

You find your car and fumble, hands shaking uncontrollably, with your keys. Finally unlocking the car you slip inside and engage the door locks. The human-sized shrimp from the restaurant are now congregating outside the front doors, staring across the parking lot at you. Their pale orange-pink bodies eerily backlit from the light streaming out from the open doors behind them.

You try to cram the key into the ignition, but it folds against the ignition plate and squishes in your hand. You look down. There are no car keys, only several mangled shrimp on a keyring in your trembling hand. You punch the steering wheel in frustration accidentally setting off the car alarm.

The shrimps outside the restaurant hear the noise and hungrily start to advance across the parking lot towards you. You try in vain to cram the shrimp key into the ignition but you know it is pointless.

The shrimp slowly approach the car and surround it, rocking it back and forth, pressing their slimy bodies against the frame. You hear the fiberglass doors groan under the pressure as one of the rear windows shatters, spraying the backseat of the car with fragments of glass.

You know there is no hope left. There is no escape. White-faced and shaking, you reach across the console and open the glovebox. Crammed under the insurance papers and a pile of napkins is the Glock 19 you always bring with you when you leave the house. You pull the gun from its holster and pause for a fraction of a second that holds an eternity. With tears streaming down your face, you put the gun to the roof of your mouth. Trying not to imagine what it feels like to die, only forcing yourself to think of your wife and kids you close your eyes. Then you pull the trigger.

A singular shrimp comes zooming out of the barrel into your mouth. In your darkest hour, death itself refuses to end you. For death is not the end. There can only be shrimp   and they are endless.