Red Lobster - If You Must Bring It Up, Stick It Here

I got laid off by my restaurant (Chevy's Fresh Mex, which now has only one location in FL) in 2003. I have still had waitmares since I left that place. sometimes something as innocuous as being weeded, sometimes getting into a fistfight with the busboy who is also Henry Winkler, and sometimes at the same time as I work my current job, waiting tables on weekends.

then a few years ago, weirdly, I finally got "fired" from Chevy's in my dream, for mouthing off or something.

the dreams....stopped.

and then....

I started dreaming I was working at Best Buy now. on weekends, in the Media dept.

Best Buy is where I worked after I left Chevy's.

somehow I hate those dreams more. that job was boring as fuck and paid $7 an hour. and made you wear ugly blue and khakis.

I have some decent memories of Chevy's happy hour

and the lunchtime $5 fajitas!!!

I had to leave town for a few days for a family thing and didn’t have the guts to ask my manager for time off so I just never showed up at Corky’s Barbecue again.

Corky’s is pretty decent food though, get the pulled pork and save room for apple cobbler.

you're probably still on the schedule

Texas Roadhouse was a couple of stops after Pappadeaux, they made me work on New Year's Eve even though I was violently ill from food poisoning. I get why they didn't believe me to start with but I think they might have sent me home when I was running from trashcan (to puke) to table to bathroom (to try to not shit myself).

I worked a couple more shifts then decided that was really fucked up and never went back.

I even lasted at Chevy's through a rat infestation.

i'm talking mutant sized, Rat Fink rats, that kept coming down the pipes onto the soda fountain after hours.

well....and on one unfortunate occasion, during hours. and climbed up on the seat next to a customer.

she screamed "RAT! RAT!", and apparently a bunch of tables up and walked out (I wasn't there). the weirdest part of that story to me wasn't that part, but who in the fuck would STAY after that? apparently some people needed another margarita.

(I am very squeamish w/rats also)

I definitely grew up looking down on Red Lobster but that was more because in New Orleans you can get much better seafood for much cheaper. Just seemed like a white middle-class suburban status thing. Can see why landlocked people might like it. Y'all are making me want to track one down for the biscuits, tho.

hell there are a ton of better seafood places in FL - I found a great peel shrimp place in Ocala, FL (the only nice thing I'll ever say about Ocala)

If you live next to seawater there are always a billion places better than the chains discussed in this thread.

i eat my seafood straight out the ocean

I’m thinking way too hard about how I would deal with the rat situation described above. Yeah, walking right the fuck out is the correct move.

This thread is actually making me miss restaurants even though it’s basically all stories about systemic labor issues, food poisoning, and rodents

That’s how bad lockdown’s gotten for me I guess

cruising for new restaurants is one of the things I miss the most about dating.

I like to pretend once this is all over that a bunch of new places are going to take over all the spots that have permanently closed since March, and I’ll get to try them out. Ha ha, ha, ha ha.

Amazon Automats coast to coast

enjoy your "Amazon Ham 'n Cheese Classic" which will be thrown at Roger Clemens speed at your chest from the back of a truck

-Neanderthal's 1985

How have we gotten this far without

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVALgcE2JSI

Well! This thread blew up.

Two of my great aunts ate at Red Lobster in suburban Chicago every Thursday for more than twenty years. When they died, their favorite waitress was mad that she didn't get anything in the will.

I wouldn't eat a bug that crawled out from under my couch. I don't know why people eat the bugs that crawl around on the bottom of the ocean.

I used to think that way, but then I remember that shrimp are delicious.

I also have eaten plenty of bugs.

sea bugs are juicy (in an appetizing way)

land bugs are crunchy (in a mostly not good way)

Texas Roadhouse locations are all actual portals to hell, icymi

crunchy land bugs are the good ones

I draw the line at gooey land bugs and critters - my friend lived with a woman from Zimbabwe for a while and she tried to introduce us to these
https://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/eats/zimbabwe-favorite-snack-mopane-worms-article-1.1247669

good crunch: https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/chapulines-grasshopper-tacos-oaxaca

i would eat that

although "salt and vinegar potato chips, but a bit wetter" gave me pause