Red Lobster: A Good Value or Ghetto?

chili's is incredible, sorry

i used to go to red lobster w/my grandparents all the time when i visited them - one time when they were visiting me in boston we went to legal seafood - from then on whenever an outing to red lobster was announced theyd be all now its not like yr FANCY legal seafoods but we like it JUST FINE

chili's is incredible, sorry

Incredible is going a little far. Chili's is okay. It's certainly better than fast-food.

They serve milk!

Last time I was at Chili's I ordered a giant glass of milk and I was practically in ecstay.

You need milk to wash down the grease.

Chili's has 2-for-1 cocktails all day, all week. C'est tout.

Well then! There's one around the corner from my house. And -- conveniently -- in the same complex as my gym. Work out -- drink -- work out -- drink.

max and whiney - yall live in nyc and can stfu

a creepy Greyhound station.

Are there non-creepy Greyhound stations??

one in boston is pretty nice

i admit that i have never been to a Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Ponderosa, Outback Steakhouse, or anything of the sort. i have been to Denny's and Chili's. do y'all have that weird ass Baja Fresh bullshit?

-Red Lobster (think i went once as a kid, don't really remember it)
-Olive Garden (have never been)
-Ponderosa (do these still exist? my parents like buffets and we'd sometimes go here on the road)
-Outback (never been)

-Denny's (desperate times, desperate measures, late-night cheese fries, etc)
-Chili's (never been)
-Baja Fresh (i don't love it but it'll do in a pinch if there's nothing else around)

haha we wanted to go to ponderosa sooooo bad (i think i was about 8 or 9) that my parents finally took us and even at that age i was disgusted

I don't get people talking about how horrible some fast food chains are and then admitting they're down with Subway. I mean, these places vary between franchises, but Subway is pretty bad all around here.

i was obsessed w/ihop as a kid

i still hav a reflexive interest in it - just walked by one i was unaware of near my house the other day and i was all i didnt know there was an ihop here - then i realized i would never go there

doesnt hav a blue roof tho so fuk that place

MPLS has General Mills HQ and Pillsbury so their chains are rife. I've never been to a Red Lobster but had a huge phase of wanting to go there when I was 8/9/10. Vetoed due to 'we'll get you a REAL lobster in Florida'. My mom can eat her own body weight in shrimp NO PROBLEM but whenever it was time to get dressed up for dinner at a smart casual franchise, we usually wound up at the Mr. Steak in Edina because STEAK and Wishing Well-type kids' prizes. Mom would never take us to Perkins because it was gross and she liked Poppin' Fresh better anyway: OMG FRENCH SILK PIE.

I don't get people talking about how horrible some fast food chains are and then admitting they're down with Subway. I mean, these places vary between franchises, but Subway is pretty bad all around here.

when i go to subway it's because i need some calories/blood sugar in a hurry and have no better options. it's not horrible if i close my eyes and think of england.

i had a gift card to red lobster once (or some other chain that was owned by the same company and good at red lobster)and i was going to go with my wife and friends to get trashed but never could quite get it together and then the fucker expired........missed opportunities.

I have Popeyes both north and south of my house, within 10 blocks either way

subways is gross. blimpie's is where it's at in the NE if you want good hoagies from a chain restaurant.

and for the zillionth time, IHOP = ISLOP

Blimpies was great when I was still in Ann Arbor. I don't think it's reached the Pacific Northwest, tho.

Subway in the UK is even worse. I went...once.

but get me near a popeye's and i sometimes succumb to the immense pleasure of 2 pieces and a biscuit for $1.99, which is a fucking unreal deal.

^^cosign

i don't think i'm going to be doing taco bell again. the last time i succumbed i felt like i needed a shower afterwards. like it was coming out of my pores or something

when i was out in CA a few months ago, i went to baja fresh -- it was OK, nothing special and certainly not the best "tex-mex" i've ever had but far from the worst i've ever eaten either. probably better than taco bell.

baja fresh is the anti-tex-mex.

My sister wants to go to Red Lobster for her birthday. I can't really argue it because: cheese biscuits.

I went there once because it was the nicest restaurant in the parking lot of the strip-mall we were shopping at. I could fuck with the cheese biscuits but even better was the white pizza with seafood toppings. Oh hey look it was this thing:

Lobster Pizza

A crisp thin-crust pizza topped with langostino lobster meat, melted mozzarella cheese, fresh tomatoes and sweet basil. 9.50

I would totally eat that again, along with at least 6 other things on their menu. Happy birthday to your sister!

Thanks! It's in a week or so but all of this talk about chain restaurants got me thinking about it.

Now I'm thinking about it.

I live in fucking Boston and periodically I miss Red Lobster

this is what growing up in the midwest does to you

hahaha oh boy I could have saved us all some time by using cntl-f before submitting that last post

I like langostino lobster, but it is in fact, not at all a lobster

I'm fine with that! I do not in fact actually like lobster that much, and the pizza was delicious.

if I hear one more student qualifying dismissal of RL with "but their cheddar cheese bread" or whatever I'm going to asphyxiate them with shredded cheddar cheese

hahaha oh boy I could have saved us all some time by using cntl-f before submitting that last post

new board description

anyway in a revelation that will surprise exactly no one, i got no problem with red lobster.

http://mealtime.us/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/tl_chef_jeff-smith.jpg

WONderful!

their new commercials are a hoot and a half though

http://seattletimes.com/ABPub/2004/07/09/2001976208.jpg

A-1!

I kinda love Red Lobster even though I mostly dislike seafood. Those two facts are probably related.

Red Lobster being owned by a crybaby bitch who will deliberately cut back on employees' hours to make sure they don't have to pay health coverage to the very people handling your food:

http://www.wjla.com/articles/2012/10/olive-garden-red-lobster-putting-more-workers-on-part-time-because-of-obama-health-care-law-80832.html

Servers at Red Lobster now handle four tables at a time, instead of three. And last year, the company also put workers on a "tip sharing" program, meaning waiters and waitresses share their tips with other employees such as busboys and bartenders.

That allows Darden to pay more workers a far lower "tip credit wage" of $2.13, rather than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

Starting next year, the company will change the way it offers health insurance to full-time employees, to keep costs more predictable. Instead of offering one insurance plan for all 45,000 employees, it will give workers a contribution toward buying coverage and then send them to an online health insurance exchange where they can chose from five medical, four dental and three vision plans.

Figures

The lobster pizza and cheddar biscuits are the only edible things on the Red Lobster menu. Love that lobster pizza, but I always hate myself after ordering one.

Aaand.. I already made my Isaiah Thomas joke six years ago.

Red Lobster's Problem Is That the Food Is Bad

Memo to Mr. Khaki Pants: Red Lobster is NOT "fancy dining" in the big city unless you are really, really POOR. Please, there is a fish place on every corner in the "ghetto".

My sister used to work at LJS and I used to BEG her to smuggle me a bag of those batter things that accumulate at the bottom if the fish case. She succeeded a few times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scraps_(batter)