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The fishy death of Red Lobster

businessinsider.com

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Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#221

Post by OkayPhysicist »

babypuncher wrote: post #210
SoftTalker wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And speaking of food quality, restaurants like Olive Garden and Red Lobster are just terrible. I'd rather get a fast-food fish sandwich, or fish and chips at the local brewpub, than eat anything at Red Lobster.

There's a local italian restaurant that I frequent which is 30% cheaper than Olive Garden and way, way tastier. There are dozens of other local restaurants that are also cheaper, and tastier, than Olive Garden. I don't understand why these huge restaurant companies have such a hard time with the "make good food" part of their business model. It clearly can't be that hard if so many small businesses are able to do do…

The entire schtick of chain restaurants is consistency. For nationwide chains, that means that the same ingredients end up being used in relatively remote places without cheap access to fresh produce as in, say, California, where fresh produce is far more affordable.

The big chains also tend to aim for excessive variety on their menus, which again leads to food needing to be designed to be less perishable.

And then there's the chunk of profits that are going to run the national presence, ad spend, and line the pockets of shareholders.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#222

Post by Arubis »

alfalfasprout wrote: post #184
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 the reason I've always been a detractor of purely relying on "data driven decision making". Being data driven is great... if paired with intuition and common sense. But what ends up often happening is data-driven myopia. You see some statistic that doesn't seem optimal and you end up optimizing for that instead of figuring out how it fits into the big picture. Restaurants, at the end of the day boil down to f…

Data-driven X is a semantic trick to absolve people from owning their X and being accountable for it; decisions just happen to be the most damaging usage. Let data _inform_ you.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#223

Post by beedeebeedee »

babypuncher wrote: post #210
SoftTalker wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And speaking of food quality, restaurants like Olive Garden and Red Lobster are just terrible. I'd rather get a fast-food fish sandwich, or fish and chips at the local brewpub, than eat anything at Red Lobster.

There's a local italian restaurant that I frequent which is 30% cheaper than Olive Garden and way, way tastier. There are dozens of other local restaurants that are also cheaper, and tastier, than Olive Garden. I don't understand why these huge restaurant companies have such a hard time with the "make good food" part of their business model. It clearly can't be that hard if so many small businesses are able to do do…

> I don't understand why these huge restaurant companies have such a hard time with the "make good food" part of their business model. It clearly can't be that hard if so many small businesses are able to do do it better.

They would need to have people in the restaurant, tasting the food, observing the business, etc, and empowered to make decisions based upon the evidence. These companies are the opposite of that, and take away that power from the people actually conducting the operation. Even if they could get great cooks, waiters, hosts, managers, etc, to work at these restaurants, the value that they bring would be stifled.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#224

Post by saalweachter »

autoexec wrote: post #23
dmurray wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "private equity kills beloved brand" stories are usually overcooked, as far as I can tell. They usually involve PE taking over firms that were already in financial trouble, which is what made them attractively priced to PE in the first place. The PE firm would also prefer to have a nice profitable business, but if they can't turn it around, they have options like asset stripping or selling the name to a different…

> 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.

Barnes & Noble, maybe?

They were taken private a few years back, and after a long slow period they're expanding again.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#225

Post by wil421 »

underlipton wrote: post #217
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn near everybody who has a family right now is a Millennial. Millennials are 30-45 years old

Sorry. What I meant to imply was, "Millennials don't have families [at a rate relative to preceding generations.]" Millennial families are less numerous and smaller.

Am I reading /Millennial or HN? Not sure we need to beat the horse to death about societal problems again.

I just came for the cheddar biscuit talk.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#226

Post by idontpost »

bluGill wrote: post #126
rangerelf wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Gives the primary business (making food profitably) a huge cash infusion, and removes a distraction" This is so suspiciously MBA-esque: - Owning real estate (and responsibilities associated with it) are not distractions: they are the cost (and responsibilities) associated with running a business. - "a huge cash infusion" followed by [correspondingly] huge rent payments; the business becomes a prisoner. There certain…

You are thinking about distraction wrong. Owning real estate isn't so difficult/time consuming that the managers lose much time/energy deal with it instead of running the business. However it is an accounting distraction. If you own real estate you need to figure out which share of your profits comes from rent of real estate and which from the restaurant. If you cannot make both business profitable that means you sho…

[dead]

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#228

Post by hooverd »

giantrobot wrote: post #206
alfalfasprout wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the reason I've always been a detractor of purely relying on "data driven decision making". Being data driven is great... if paired with intuition and common sense. But what ends up often happening is data-driven myopia. You see some statistic that doesn't seem optimal and you end up optimizing for that instead of figuring out how it fits into the big picture. Restaurants, at the end of the day boil down to f…

> Restaurants, at the end of the day boil down to food. You serve food. To expand on this a little, restaurants serve food in a building brought to your table by people . If the building/table/environment is dirty or just uncomfortable people don't want to be in it. If the people preparing and serving the food are doing a bad job people won't want them doing it. If a restaurant drops the quality of the food, environm…

What I don't understand is the value people place on waitstaff being enthusiastic to serve you. I don't care, as long as you they take my order and check on my drinks.

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#229

Post by quercusa »

WesleyJohnson wrote: post #212
FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #200

We'll always have Long John Silver's. All hail the hush puppy!

LJS was always an extravagant treat when I was a kid as it was seemingly more expensive than McDonald's or Taco Bell, and further away from where we lived. When I started making my own money, it was one of my regular indulgences. As an adult, I rarely ever see them anymore. And when I do go (it's been years), I'm always left feeling sick to my stomach, and yet still hungry. The portions sizes have shrunk considerably…

"The food is so bad and the portions are so small!" - Woody Allen

Re: The fishy death of Red Lobster

#230

Post by pfdietz »

One can blame the private equity investors buying it, but every sale requires not just a buyer, but also a seller. The owner of RL sold it to this private equity firm for an amount they felt was proper. The PE firm got more money out than they put in, so they increased the value of the assets. If this meant (in effect) shutting down RL in slow motion, then so be it. Sometimes it's best to just put a pillow over a company's face and say that's it.
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