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The fishy death of Red Lobster

businessinsider.com

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Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#171

Post by throwway120385 »

asdfman123 wrote: post #158
bachmeier wrote: post #127

To me this is not even slightly surprising. Red Lobster used to be at the top of our list of restaurants. Then in recent years the quality of both the food and service deteriorated. One visit the food was so bad I couldn't even eat it. That was compounded by not having a server to talk to. Took our order and never returned - even had someone else bring out the order. The thing about a restaurant is that you'll always…

Increasingly I think the financialization of everything makes us less capable of understanding the world. "Red Lobster failed because of X corporate restructuring," "Red Lobster succeeded due to Y ad campaign." People go to restaurants for reasons completely unrelated to things like that. Those things are important, but just constitute the small slice of reality that can easily be measured. I saw a Twitter thread arg…

This is what people mean when they use the term soulless capitalism. The increasing financialization of everyone leads us to optimize for the things we can measure assuming those are the things that matter, and in the end the optimizations erase everything good.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#172

Post by mrguyorama »

dmurray wrote: post #24
autoexec wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "private equity kills beloved brand" stories are usually overcooked, as far as I can tell. What are some well known examples of "private equity turned troubled brand into wild success" where products become better than ever and consumers couldn't be happier? It seems like all I ever hear are stories where a brand is "rescued" only for it to be butchered for parts in a couple years time.

Maybe Dell? Not exactly a consumer darling, but certainly a successful story for a PE LBO. There was a side plot of "PE partners with charismatic former founder", but the main story was PE cost-cutting, layoffs and loading the company up with debt.

That has more to do with Silverlake capital preferring steady, regular cash flows. They like to buy up and hold and just run things like a normal business, no MBA shenanigans.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#173

Post by aklemm »

tqi wrote: post #162
aklemm wrote: post #146

I'd like to see business schools codify "brand value extraction" or "enshittification" as explicitly unethical. Any activity that degrades a brand for short-term cashflow--and is reasonably know to decrease future business--is necessarily fraudulent. If that is codified and taught, then journalists can point to that in all cases (of which we are overrun). It's pathetic.

What do you think "enshittification" means, exactly?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

In this context (the idea of making this unethical), a brand is built on investor money (not profits) and then later profits are achieved by cashing out the brand value.

But I'm guessing you knew that and disagree. Care to be more forthright?

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#174

Post by kraquepype »

duxup wrote: post #163
bachmeier wrote: post #127

To me this is not even slightly surprising. Red Lobster used to be at the top of our list of restaurants. Then in recent years the quality of both the food and service deteriorated. One visit the food was so bad I couldn't even eat it. That was compounded by not having a server to talk to. Took our order and never returned - even had someone else bring out the order. The thing about a restaurant is that you'll always…

Quality control and management ... seem to be the secret sauce to restaurants and are amusingly unrelated to the actual food / recipes and etc. I too have a few local places that despite being busy and great food for ages, suddenly couldn't keep good people working there. They were doing great then just fell on their face. I suspect that they just couldn't adapt to it being more difficult to retain / keep good people…

This happened to a local sports-bar chain around us. It was always decent and our first choice for family nights out, but after Covid it went downhill, locations closed, and the last location close by just started falling flat... empty even at busy periods, no wait staff, declining quality, etc. It just up and closed shortly after.

Lately for pizza I've only been ordering from Dominoes, mostly because it's sort of cheap but also consistent.

Not fantastic, not bad, but always pretty good.

I hope they keep up with it, whenever I go in they always appear fully staffed and in good spirits.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#175

Post by chiefalchemist »

jncfhnb wrote: post #169
asdfman123 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increasingly I think the financialization of everything makes us less capable of understanding the world. "Red Lobster failed because of X corporate restructuring," "Red Lobster succeeded due to Y ad campaign." People go to restaurants for reasons completely unrelated to things like that. Those things are important, but just constitute the small slice of reality that can easily be measured. I saw a Twitter thread arg…

But a lot of games are cute and fun to play that do not succeed

Sometimes it's just timing and/or luck. Think of some TV show that was big say 10 years ago, would it do the same today? Maybe. Maybe not.

Product + Marketing + Timing + Luck = Maybe Successful

The thing is, there's no VP of Timing. There's also no VP of Luck. These factors are ignored because there's no one to champion them. Yet they are very real.

Unsuccessful Product !== Bad Product or Bad Marketing

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#176

Post by chiefalchemist »

throwway120385 wrote: post #171
asdfman123 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increasingly I think the financialization of everything makes us less capable of understanding the world. "Red Lobster failed because of X corporate restructuring," "Red Lobster succeeded due to Y ad campaign." People go to restaurants for reasons completely unrelated to things like that. Those things are important, but just constitute the small slice of reality that can easily be measured. I saw a Twitter thread arg…

This is what people mean when they use the term soulless capitalism . The increasing financialization of everyone leads us to optimize for the things we can measure assuming those are the things that matter, and in the end the optimizations erase everything good.

It's not the optimization per se, it's taking it too far, over-playing it to the point of removing the magic, the special sauce, etc.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#177

Post by tensor »

jncfhnb wrote: post #169
asdfman123 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increasingly I think the financialization of everything makes us less capable of understanding the world. "Red Lobster failed because of X corporate restructuring," "Red Lobster succeeded due to Y ad campaign." People go to restaurants for reasons completely unrelated to things like that. Those things are important, but just constitute the small slice of reality that can easily be measured. I saw a Twitter thread arg…

But a lot of games are cute and fun to play that do not succeed

I'm not convinced that is actually true. Can you think of an example? A game that has near universally good reviews but is not successful?

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#178

Post by kube-system »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #111

Even without private equity's meddling, Red Lobster would have been in a rough spot. Family dining as a segment (lower end restaurants, but with table service) is being squeezed aggressively. Compared to Gen X and before, Millennials on average are valuing food quality over service experience, ballooning the fast casual (order at the counter, but nicer than fast food) segment. This is squeezing family dining from bel…

I don't even really think it's food quality alone that is the issue. It's the total package doesn't match preferences.

I think many millennials would be fine with Red Lobster quality food, if it were quick enough for lunch. But the format is slow, sit-down service. And the atmosphere in these restaurants is not what millennials are looking for to relax or entertain.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#179

Post by kube-system »

asdfman123 wrote: post #164
achow wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PepsiCo acquired Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC to increase its soda fountain sales of Pepsi products.

Fundamentally they're a sickness-as-a-service company

Don't give CVS Health Corporation any ideas.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#180

Post by cultofmetatron »

asdfman123 wrote: post #158
bachmeier wrote: post #127

To me this is not even slightly surprising. Red Lobster used to be at the top of our list of restaurants. Then in recent years the quality of both the food and service deteriorated. One visit the food was so bad I couldn't even eat it. That was compounded by not having a server to talk to. Took our order and never returned - even had someone else bring out the order. The thing about a restaurant is that you'll always…

Increasingly I think the financialization of everything makes us less capable of understanding the world. "Red Lobster failed because of X corporate restructuring," "Red Lobster succeeded due to Y ad campaign." People go to restaurants for reasons completely unrelated to things like that. Those things are important, but just constitute the small slice of reality that can easily be measured. I saw a Twitter thread arg…

> because it was cute and had a soul and is fun to play.

I'm a full on stardew addict. I was waiting for a game to rekindle the feeling I had playing the original harvest moon on snes. natsume just made a ton of crap sequals focused on making it all 3d.

concernedape, distilled the snes version down to what made it fun and built it up fron there. it scratched the itch better than any of natsume's sequals ever could.

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