SAN FRANCISCO - Struggling Seafood chain Red Lobster was sold to the tune of 2.1 billion dollars on Monday, but new owner Golden Gate Capital has big plans of turning things around by making the restaurant's shitty seafood pretentious. With Yelpers like Jennifer M. commenting, "When I was a kid, I thought Red Lobster was good. It was one of my favorite chain restaurants, in fact. Now that I'm an adult, I'm sadly not such a big fan," Red Lobster's glory days of fine dining for the middle class are a distant memory. In order to revamp their reputation company CEO Kim Lopdrup is taking a page out of the SFMP playbook. She believes new plating styles will bring Red Lobster back to it's former glory. Rather than invigorate the menu with new recipes, Red Lobster plans to plate it's food in a more vertical fashion, "Arranged in a way that's more like you'd see at a fine-dining restaurant," explained Lopdrup.
 Red Lobster's new plating technique |  Red Lobster's old plating technique |
It is the opinion of SFMP that this plan will be extremely difficult to execute since customers already know the food is shitty. At the Torrance, CA location we spoke with a diner who lamented, "My lobster tail tasted like rubber. I accidentally ate dog from a street vendor in Vietnam once and this was worse." It seems everyone already knows the food is shitty so the new plating techniques will be wasted. If Red Lobster plans to keep their shitty food I would implore them to announce that they have a "new menu" committed to freshness, and then implement new plating techniques for their seafood. Letting already disappointed customers in on the secret of plating your already shitty food in a pretentious manor is a recipe for disaster and a huge mistake.
SFMP spoke to Red Lobster's executive chef Michael Samuelson who was less than thrilled about the new plating and would prefer an upgrade to the food. "I just wished we used live lobster," confessed Samuelson, "There's something terribly exciting about throwing a live lobster into a pot and hearing it thrash against the lid of the pot until it succumbs to the boiling water. I'd want our patrons to feel that same excitement!"
Red Lobster has no plans of boiling lobster table-side and while they've made no commitment to higher quality food or a new menu, Lopdrup explained that with companies like Bubba Gump Shrimp taking over a large market share of the shitty seafood industry they have their work cut out for them. With the right plating they feel confident in their ability to charge more for the same shitty seafood they've always served. I'm just waiting for them to tell us that their famous cheddar cheese biscuits are artisanally handcrafted.
Related: TGI Friday's Rolls Out New Handcrafted Food Trucks
SFMP spoke to Red Lobster's executive chef Michael Samuelson who was less than thrilled about the new plating and would prefer an upgrade to the food. "I just wished we used live lobster," confessed Samuelson, "There's something terribly exciting about throwing a live lobster into a pot and hearing it thrash against the lid of the pot until it succumbs to the boiling water. I'd want our patrons to feel that same excitement!"
Red Lobster has no plans of boiling lobster table-side and while they've made no commitment to higher quality food or a new menu, Lopdrup explained that with companies like Bubba Gump Shrimp taking over a large market share of the shitty seafood industry they have their work cut out for them. With the right plating they feel confident in their ability to charge more for the same shitty seafood they've always served. I'm just waiting for them to tell us that their famous cheddar cheese biscuits are artisanally handcrafted.
Related: TGI Friday's Rolls Out New Handcrafted Food Trucks