We may love or hate eating at a Red Lobster, but there is no other seafood chain in the world that has increased seafood consumption than the Red Lobster chain...virtually every restaurant unit in the chain is showing a profit...primarily due to their hurdle performance standard that virtually does not allow them to keep open an unprofitable unit...I personally witnessed a unit in the Ft Lauderdale area being closed within six months of opening, simply because it did not meet the hurdle standard...they closed that unit and opened another one in the same general area with somewhat slightly better demographics...to the best of my knowledge, the second unit remains open to this day...

Another not so well known fact...Red Lobster owns and operates, very profitably, the single largest seafood purveyor in the world...yep, that's right, largest in the world...I believe it is still called Pinellas Seafood, but perhaps it has changed over the years...Pinellas Seafood buys more seafood annually than most third world countries combined...a simpy incredible operation...when they go into fishing villages around the world, they will commit to the fishermen to purchase virtually everything caught...fish, shrimp, scallops, all of it...they then take what is menu seafood for the Red Lobster chain and re-sell the remainder, at profitable prices...with the huge increase in seafood consumption around the world, this represents a solid cash flow entity for the company...

Due to the supply of seafood from Pinellas Seafood, virtually every Red Lobster unit always has the consistent menu items...this is why when you order any particular shrimp menu item, the shrimp will always be the same size and color; courtesy of Pinellas Seafood...again, while there is little arguement that you can find better seafood restaurants, you simply cannot find any restaurants that always have the consistency of Red Lobster...and, while I personally prefer other private seafood restaurants, there is simply little room to argue that overall, the Red Lobster chain provides a significantly huge seafood eating population with very consistent seafood meals...

The ultimate problem for Red Lobster has been one of declining profit margins on their sales...the primary market that Red Lobster serves has not been willing to abosrb the higher prices, and the more affluent customers simply prefer the private and more culinary seafood restaurants...personally, I also do not believe it possible to serve their standard market and the affluent market within the same restaurant units...as a result, Red Lobster is suffering from their own long history of success to a particular market...however, they still drive considerable revenues and profits, albeit not necessarily with the annual increases that investors demand...

As a side note, I really don't see the Company making any great gains after the Red Lobster sale...let's face it, an Olive Garden is also not the Italian restaurant of the affluent either...and, Longhorn for steaks...???...not in my world...ownership of Red Lobster may actually be the equivalent of "widows and orphans" stocks of old...solid continuing cash flows and profits, but not likely to increase in value or profits over the long run...in the end, the chain's future may be limited by the old problem of market over-saturation...we shall see...

Red Lobster is also credited for introducing most of America to seafoods from around the world...in fact, seafood not far from the shores of the USA at all...for instance, snow crab was virtually unknown throughout most of America, being primarily limited to coastal Alaska and Canadian shores...but, in the search for new and potentially less expensive crab meals than King Crab (Red King Crab on Deadliest Catch), long came the Snow Crab...in order to make it a national introduction, Red Lobster ran a special on All-You_Can-Eat Snow Crab...nothing fuels a feedfest more than an all you can eat special, and America took to Snow Crab like pigs to mud...I believe it was a $4.99 special, and during the first four months of the special, literally mountains of Snow Crab was consumed by the country, resulting in a consumption amount during that four months that still stands as a record today...

Another relatively unknown seafood catch was the Langostino Lobster...tiny and very tasty and tender...again, the country took to the Langostino so well that today it is not really served because so much was needed to supply the chain that availability was severely strained...so the Red Lobster chain looked for a replacement menu item and the Langostino was removed...BTW, the Langostino Lobster is also known in South America as the Chilean Lobster...

Unknown outside of the Red Lobster community is that almost every single member of management, particularly at the unit level and the supervisory line management above them, were required to have actually worked in a Red Lobster...you simply could not get hired as a unit manager or even assistant manager without going through their 16 week training program for managers that included performing the duties of each and every single position in the restaurant...bartender, server, cook, dishwasher, hostess, dining room manager, galley manager, prep cooks, etc...this resulted in each and every single unit manager knowing the ins and outs of the entire operation...didn't matter how much experience you had with another chain, you had to work through the system...

Red Lobster is one of the most festidious restaurant chains in existence...nothing is left to chance in any area of the operation...every unit is inspected regularly by their own team of health inspectors...they look very closely for any sign whatsoever of rodents or insects, and if any is found there is a coming to Jesus unlike most other chains...the entire building is inspected for any signs of rodent entry points, dumpsters are washed out on a regular basis, and all deliveries are inspected for traveling pests...at one time, the entire chain utilized the services of a company in the Miami area called Bugs Berger...they came in on a regular and periodic basis to fumigate every unit in the chain, and it was 12 hours of intense work and followup cleanup...if a mouse, rat, or roach was ever found in a unit in between fumigations, then Bugs Beger was called back for same day re-fumigate...suffice to say, the chain is serious about elimination of infestation problems...

Every case of frozen seafood that arrives at the restaurant is barcoded...during any stage of use of seafood from any case, if there is any problem whatsoever found with the seafood, such as bad shrimp, then it is promptly reported and every case of seafood in the entire chain that bears the same barcode is immediately removed and destroyed...sounds like no big deal, unless you are the restaurant manager in another unit and you have already had your prep cook team prepare the meals for the day and in comes that phone call...everything is on a timed basis, and you end up having to throw out ALL of your meals that used that shrimp, and prep all over again...from that point on you are in the weeds for the rest of the day...if a restaurant manager fails to report food problems, or fails to immediately remove all barcoded matching products and meals, they are immediately terminated...no exceptions...not too many mom and pop restaurants will go to anywhere near this much trouble...

The unit management team, which typically consists of one General Manager, two Assistant Managers, and one Dining Room Manager all some of the most trained people in the restaurant industry...each manager must be able to identify virtually every type of seafood served by the restaurant, and be able to do so when the product is still fresh and uncooked...I have had seafood meals at some very nice restaurants in the Orlando area, and was surprised to discover the fish being served was in no way the fish it was supposed to be...more surprised when the manager did not know what the fish should look like...you would be surprised today at what Vietnamese Catfish is being served as on the menus...

The chain was one of the very first in the industry to make use of computers at the unit level...back in the day, each unit had a computer cash register made by AMC...by using a special key, the manager on duty had to take system readings every half hour without fail...the resulting reading showed each meal served so far during the day, as well as the labor cost for each of the eight operations segments within each unit...there was also information that indicated how efficient the labor utilization was, and this information provided the unit management the data necessary to know when to most efficiently reduce shift workers to maintain profitability...it was an ugly day if an area supervisor came in, took their own reading, and then found out the management had not reacted quickly to the data...

Well, enough about Red Lobster...if it weren't the offseason for football, I would never have spent this much time on a non-sports subject...there is much to know about Red Lobster as a company, like so many other companies...I personally hope they continue to exist and not fall victim to disaster like so many other companies I have seen during my lifetime...but, if you should ever have the opportunity to learn about the inner workings at Red Lobster, or any other company, then I encourage you to do so as what is learned from the experience will without a doubt be most interesting...maybe some day I will post about experiences with the Dole Company and one of the pineapple factories...